Patriot News writes about how your electric bill is going up come January:

To cash-strapped PPL customers, the only aspect of electricity deregulation that will seem important on Jan. 1 will be the 30 percent jump in your bills.

This is a bad time to add more expenses to home budgets already on tilt — yet the electricity industry argues that 13 years after legislation was enacted, consumers will finally start to see the benefits of deregulation, despite the bitter pill of higher prices.

The benefits?

What, are we going to get better electricity or something? 

It’s a tough sell, and the industry knows it. But the industry’s leaders argue that the expiration of government-mandated rate caps that kept prices at 1996 levels is just a return to reality — and they say the rate caps were the very reason why the promises of deregulation haven’t been kept.

Consumer advocates have shifted from fighting the rate cap removal to coping with it. They’re hoping homeowners will learn to take advantage of money-saving opportunities, and that the higher prices will finally motivate consumers to use less energy.  And as the public displays anger, confusion or indifference toward the issue, the electric industry has been busy trying to explain why it’s all happening.

“A lot has changed” since 1996, said Ryan Hill, a PPL spokesman. “Customers haven’t seen that yet. They’re going to see that in 2010 now, and it’s going to be an adjustment for those customers.”

You bet it is. And at a time when those customers’ health care premiums are increasing, when trash bills are likely to go up, as gasoline prices climb back towards $3 per gallon - PPL is here to blow sunshine up our collective bottom.

See, your new higher electric bill will merely reflect “reality,” the real cost of power, a price which PPL couldn’t pass on to you because rates had been capped (though PPL nonetheless set a record for profitability under the caps, in 2007).

Now prices are uncapped, the profit motive is supposed to swing into full gear and we should have a whole slew of competitors crowding to sell you power.

So far, we’ve got one. Dominion Energy is offering 10 percent off PPL rates. There may be more; but even if there are, let’s say they match Dominion’s offer - that means at best, you’re paying 20 percent more for your electricity next year.

And not just you, but local companies. Governments. Here’s an aspect of this that the Patriot-News didn’t invoke, but the Morning Call did, talking to an economist:

”This is the worst possible time for consumers and businesses to take such a huge hike in their rates,” Afshar said. ”The result will obviously be that some businesses will have to cut elsewhere, possibly layoffs.”

Sweet.

This is going to hit like a brick, and I expect full-throated primal scream after the first of the year. But it’s too late. This is deregulation, this is a free(er) market. Does it benefit you, does it benefit society? That was all taken on faith. In a few months we’ll have the results.

Can’t wait to to see the Republican legislators waving the socialist banner in response.