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Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

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Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#61

Post by Lammy »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #22
bob1029 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is 90c/KWh. Arguably very expensive rate for electricity. Not sure if related to the Texas/ERCOT grid situation, as the DC tie-ins are not that substantial.

In California it’s about 30 to 40 cents kWh during normal times.

It didn't have to be this way :( https://www.energy-net.org/01NUKE/CALIF.HTM

"Northern California is the home of the first successful opposition to the promotion and development of commercial nuclear reactors in the U.S. In the 1950's northern and central California's privately owned utility company, PG&E, was planning to be one of the giants in the new field of nuclear energy."

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#62

Post by stefan_ »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #40
notyourwork wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised by this. I would have guessed lots of solar there and potentially wind.

Substantial amounts of solar coming online in Hawaii, causing the utility to carefully manage additional distributed solar installs [1]. Still expensive because there is much diesel and coal generation (~2GW) left to displace. [1] https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/clean-energy-hawaii/integra... (red = saturated local electrical infra)

"carefully manage" aka try to retain the fossil fuel dependence at all costs. Hawaii is a microcosm of egregious mismanagement despite ideal circumstances.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#63

Post by rovr138 »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #33
kasey_junk wrote: post #24

I track my electricity in Chicago pretty regularly and we’ve been seeing between 5x and 100x ‘normal’ pricing all week. For scale, at this time of night I’d expect my power to be priced at ~ 0.8 c/Kwh. Right now we are sitting at 15 c/Kwh.

Here in CA we pay 24c / Kwh on a regular basis. Why is it your power can be 0.8c/Kwh?, that seems really really low.

Another data point. I'm in Indiana. My bill just closed on the 15th,

    300 kWh @ $0.148799
    288 kWh @ $0.108297
There's some adjustments on the bill that actually reduce it but those aren't included above.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#64

Post by epistasis »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #28

Excuse my ignorance, but am I, as a California residential user, going to pay these prices for the electricity I'm using in my home right now? Should I shut everything down?

No your rates are fixed and agreed upon ahead of time.

However if you sign up for a service like OhmConnect, you can get paid to lower your energy usage at times when prices are high (which tends to coincide with use of the dirtiest energy). They warn you a day ahead for the time period, usually an hour but sometimes two, and you get credit for being under your typical usage for that time period.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#65

Post by jeffbee »

pishpash wrote: post #51
SubiculumCode wrote: post #28

Excuse my ignorance, but am I, as a California residential user, going to pay these prices for the electricity I'm using in my home right now? Should I shut everything down?

Aren't residential prices controlled by the public utility commission? So probably not immediately. But if CA utilities buy on the wholesale market and can't raise rates then they may go bankrupt.

Surely there must be a cooling-off period before PG&E can go bankrupt again.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#67

Post by rovr138 »

pkaye wrote: post #5
bob1029 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is 90c/KWh. Arguably very expensive rate for electricity. Not sure if related to the Texas/ERCOT grid situation, as the DC tie-ins are not that substantial.

If they are not connected, what is driving up the cost?

capacity and demand.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#69

Post by coliveira »

tomc1985 wrote: post #31

The state that brought us Enron now getting Enron'd itself. Turnabout is fair play! Sucks for the regular folk, though...

Well, when you play these games with energy prices it is just a matter of time... and with the "new normal" in weather changes, it seems that it won't be the last time either.

Re: Electricity over $900/MWh in most of Western US now

#70

Post by gumby »

srswtf123 wrote: post #52
toomuchtodo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Substantial amounts of solar coming online in Hawaii, causing the utility to carefully manage additional distributed solar installs [1]. Still expensive because there is much diesel and coal generation (~2GW) left to displace. [1] https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/clean-energy-hawaii/integra... (red = saturated local electrical infra)

Are there any realistic power generation options from tidal/ocean power? Seems like that might be great for Hawaii — if it isn’t still the realm of science fiction?

It’s still impossible to do on a practical basis.

Fortunately there are still people working on it.

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