Have you ever called the IRS with a simple tax question and been given ten different answers? This frustrating experience can be the same with your utility company, whether it's with gas, electricity, water or sewage. Here's the situation in a nutshell. Some utility companies have a very simplistic rate structure. By simplistic, there aren't many choices. Few choices mean the utility companies have little room for error. Other utility companies have a very complex set of rules and regulations. There can be a confusing array of different variations within each rate on top of this.

One of the main questions we're asked is this one. How can a person know their utility company is not overcharging them? A lot depends on their servicing utility company and how complicated their set of rules are. Let's face it, many utility companies have an army of lawyers and they're very very good at writing rules and tariffs that would have Enstein shaking his head. (Or at least arriving at a new theory for understanding the universe.)

For months PG&E was trumpeting a reduction in rate effective January 1, 2011. Yes, there has been a reduction on the average system-wide bundled electric rate. That reduction is 0.8%. So if you feel like you didn't celebrate enough over the holidays and want to continue the partying, you can throw a lavish party on what you'll save.

Bottom line, your bills will probably be about the same as they were from last year. You can read the whole story at:

http://www.danvilleweekly.com/news/show_story.php?id=4813

I recently received this piece of information from one of the news services I use for utility information. If you wonder why you get ten different answers to the same answer when you contact your utility provider, this is one of the reasons. This creates a revolving door and the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing in many cases.

Effective January 1st of this year, PG&E has increased rates by as much as 6.9% for certain categories. Electricity users in PG&E territory can be spending almost 50 cents per kilowatt hour. When you get your bill next month and wonder if you're imagining something, well, you're not. But it's why we're in business and finding how to reduce those costs is what we do.

The Chief Investment Officer of Raymond James recently spoke on Fox News about wind and green investing. Without commenting on the obvious political bias of Fox, that link for the report is http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=289004&cl=17186795&src=....

You can go to this link for the full article http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7814/, but the short version is that Smart Meters are being introduced in England as a way to give real time meter information. Concerns are being raised that the meters will be used as a way to ration electricity in efforts to reduce the human carbon footprint. While alarmists are concerned they may end up reading by candlelight and that's it just unnecessary and costly government intrusion, the fact is that these new meters are here to stay.

Pacific Gas & Electric Company has begun installing SmartMeters, or digital meters that automatically feed information and these meters eliminate the need to have meter readers go out and physically record data. PG&E expects that by mid-2012 they will complete this installation which began in 2006. One of the advantages of these new meters is they will enable users to determine times of peak usage, and know how best to reduce use during these peak periods.

PG&E due to raise rates by 6.5% minimum by the end of the year.