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Vepco’s programs and policies are saving its customers hundreds of millions of dollars a year and keeping Vepco rate increases far below the increases in the prices of other consumer goods and services.
You wouldn’t know that from a recent Rappahannock News column by George Bowles, but consider these fundamental facts:
*Since the sharp rise in oil prices, Vepco has made a massive shift to less expensive fuels.
Before the Arab oil embargo, Vepco generated 50 percent of its electricity with oil because it was then the cheapest fuel. Now oil is more than 10 times more costly than nuclear power and three times more expensive than coal for generating electricity.
Since the embargo, Vepco has increased its share of electricity generated with nuclear power from 1 percent to more than 40 percent. In 1982, Vepco generated more electricity with nuclear power than any but two other utilities.
Vepco has also carried out the largest program to convert oil units to coal of any utility in the United States. Already 7 units totalling 1.9 million kilowatts of generating capacity have been converted from oil to coal, and more conversions are planned. By 1986, these coal conversions alone will be saving Vepco customers $400 million per year.
Oil, which accounted for 33 percent of Vepco’s electricity supply as recently as 1979, provided only about 3 percent in 1983.
;i Vepco has made large gains in the productivity of its generating units.
All generating units must be out of service part of the time for routine repairs and maintenance. But Vepco is cutting costs by avoiding and shortening outages and increasing the amount of time that its five major coal units are available to generate electricity at full capacity. Between 1981 and 1982, Vepco units improved 33 percent by that measure, and between 1982 and 1983 they recorded another 5 percent gain.
Another way of cutting costs is by reducing the heat required to generate each kilowatt hour of electricity. Vepco has done this with a reduction of nearly 7 percent since 1981.
*Vepco took timely action to keep the amount of its generating capacity in line with growth in customer demand. It avoided the costs of having more capacity than it needs to provide reliable service.
Some utilities completed generating units that won’t be needed for years, and their customers are paying for them now7. Even w'ith cancellation costs, Vepco’s customers are dollars ahead because of the good match
87.3%