“My bill jumped all the way up to $249 last month. It averages $91 to $110 usually,” said Margaret, 75, who asked that the Index-Tribune withhold her last name for privacy reasons.
Margaret tracks her energy consumption every single day at PGE.com, and she’s made a serious effort to limit her use. “I unplug everything, only wash in cold water, and stopped using my dishwasher completely. I got a big lantern, like we had during the outages, and I use that when I go into the garage or the bathroom.”
But Margaret’s hearing loss requires use of a caption machine for the telephone, and disabling it at the end of each day is a hardship. “It’s a lot of trouble if you pull that plug out of the wall every day. The machine has to reset,” she said.
Like many people, Margaret spends her evenings at home, watching TV and completing household tasks. She fears the time-of-use billing plan will raise costs. “I tried washing clothes at 10 o’clock, but who wants to be folding clothes at 2 in the morning? I’m a single woman living in a 1,000-square-foot condo who doesn’t cook. But what about a family in a house with two or three kids?” Margaret said.
