THE testimony was alternately angry and sad, the stories despairing. A business owner questioned a significant increase in his power bill. An employee in tears said she’s been advised that her company may have to shut its doors because of the cost of electricity, which in turn would make it impossible for her to pay her own steadily increasing power bill.

A military retiree on a fixed income said his power bill has gone up $100 a month for the past three months, despite serious effort by he and his wife to cut back. His latest bill: $600 for a month of power for a small, two-bedroom apartment. “The public utility is killing the public!” one witness said.

John Benavente, the utilities czar, sat through it all behind the witness table. When it came time for him to testify, he admitted it was heartbreaking to listen to the struggle these average citizens are going through just to pay their power bill. It is heartbreaking indeed, but there was also an undercurrent during the hearing, a steady implication not just of despair, but of defiance.

We may be pushing the average folks on our blue collar, low-wage island into the same sort of circumstance many consumers on Saipan and the rest of the CNMI already face. They have had to choose between power and the mortgage or rent. They must decide to pay for either electricity or food. When that sort of push comes to shove, the average family will simply pull the plug. And ominously, they might do more than that. We may not be very far away from demonstrations, at the Legislature, at Adelup, wherever the poor rate payers of this island can make their plight known.

Later this morning, the Guam Power Authority will sign a contract with Quantum, a private venture, to supply solar power, the first step by GPA away from fossil-fueled generators into renewable energy. But it’s a small step. When completed, the solar array will supply only a small percentage of our daily power needs. Later this year, another contract is due for solar and also wind generation. A couple of demonstration wind turbines at UOG are already drawing protests from the NIMBY crowd.

These are but baby steps toward what we assume has to be the long range goal of liberating us from the high and always escalating cost of oil. We’ll find out more about what the island’s power gurus have in mind for our future when details of a new, 20-year energy plan are made known toward the end of the summer.

In the meantime, be sure you are sitting down before you open your next power bill.