Electricity from the City

Every two months we get an electricity bill. Seeing how I live in British Columbia, many would expect that it comes from BC Hydro. Yet, I have to settle my bill by paying my own city. New Westminster has an electrical utility and has since 1891.

I was thinking about the advent of home electricity use and the historical implications of current systems. By email, I have been following a friend's successful installation of solar panels in Washington State. All excess power that he generates must be purchased back by the grid. I didn't know which utility would service his area between Ellensburg and Yakima. Before emailing, I searched on the Net and came across the acronym, PUD, for the very first time. Hum. The location of the Public Utility Districts must be relevant to historical population characteristics in the state in the early part of the last century.



Here's the building with the array on one side of the roof. Incidentally, we're going down to visit and stay a weekend at their semi-desert house in about ten days.



It now seems a nice tradition to go for a three-day weekend during the summertime. Here's the pool in August of 2009.