On what is shaping up to be a singularly lousy day for a variety of reasons, the New Era plops onto my desk this afternoon and the lead story staring up at me:

Future shock: With big rate hike looming,  PPL unveils plan designed to help consumers ease the pain.

“Big rate hike” as in state-mandated caps are expiring - and over the course of the next five years, rates are going to go up 34 percent. This does not include a 5.1 rate hike pending Jan. 1.

Ah, but PPL, how magnanimous of them, is permitting its customers to phase in the rate hikes - 7 percent in July ‘08; 7 percent in Jan. ‘09; 6 percent in Jan. ‘10; 6 percent in Jan. ‘11; and 6 percent in Jan. ‘12.

Strikes me that with the 5.1 rate hike pending this January, even if you phase it in, you’re looking at 19.1 percent hike in little more than a year, by Jan. ‘09, anyway.

So upon seeing this, the first thing I remembered was that Pennsylvania has “electric choice.” Remember that? I Googled it, and guess what? A majority of the links for “shoppers” are broken on the state PUC page itself.

So much for choice.

And you’ll recall that when the push for deregulation happened back in the 1990s, we were all told that it would result in lower prices. Surprise surprise - last year the Christian Science Monitor found out that this never really happened.

Who could have guessed?

And PPL is doing quite well, thank you, even before the higher rates take effect. But you know how it goes. Or rather you’ll find out, starting in January.