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As I’ve written before, Ameren (the local electric utility) has some, shall we say, problems. For one, they’re simply not very good at keeping the lights on. They make public statements that say they are keeping up with maintenance while making regulatory filings asking for higher rates because they can’t keep up with maintenance. While they do respond to the lights going out very well, it happens way too often for a modern utility.

In Illinois they have a different problem. Not only can they not keep the lights on, but they have become known as gougers. Now I’m not a PR professional, but when you are having PR problems tripling electricity rates just because you can doesn’t seem like the brightest move. Offering affected customers a $20 million bribe to shut up makes it seem even worse.

The story is that Illinois was one of the first states in the nation to allow competition in electricity markets hoping to cut costs for consumers. As part of allowing competition rates were frozen for 10 years. The freeze ended December 31st. The problem is that much of the state still operates as a monopoly (whether Ameren or other providers). Monopoly - Regulated Rates = Disaster.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, Ameren also phased out a program that a company that they bought out started to reduce electricity rates to homes that converted from gas heating to electric heating. The main reason that they phased the program out is that they are the main natural gas distributor in the area. It also happened on January 1st, so some people whose rates would have only doubled tripled because the subsidy was removed.

Oh, but they’ll fix the problem by hiring a recently retired news anchor to be their spokesperson. Because who can hate Karen Voss? Again, it seems to be a cheap ploy to reduce news criticism by hiring a highly respected newsperson to deflect questions about the lights going off again.

Seriously, Ameren, I don’t hate you.  I don’t think our relationship is completely broken (mainly because I like electricity and can’t dump you), I just want you to keep up your part of the relationship and keep the lights on, okay? Oh, and don’t gouge me. It’s never nice to abuse the other person in the relationship. Luckily, I live in Missouri who will lower your rates for poor performance and lying to the public.