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How should net metering affect your electric bill?

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Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#211

Post by lotsofpulp »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #182
lotsofpulp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious problem is solved by making it universal. You do not need to choose which poor people, just make it everyone, and then collect a marginal income tax. Although, I would prefer marginal sales taxes, but that seems technically impossible with current technology. The reason why it is not done is because it would lay bare all the inequities in the system, as well as require higher taxes due to not being able t…

>>> The reason why it is not done is because it would lay bare all the inequities in the system, Is that a common justification for UBI? I have not heard it but it would be a big reasons for me to support it - any reading you know of?

It is a personal conjecture. Every time I come across price obfuscation, or not doing the straight forward thing, it is because the seller does not want the transaction to be as transparent as possible.

Tax deductions, credits, student loans, subsidized mortgages, taxpayer funded pensions, Medicaid reimbursing differently (lower) than Medicare reimbursing differently than Tricare, and so on and so forth.

It is always a political decision to reduce total costs, or drive the benefit to certain populations, or use liberal assumptions to present future costs as less than they really are and so on and so forth.

If we want people to have a house, give them money to buy a house. Or a house. Same with education, healthcare, everything. The big problem with this is cash has to be accounted for today, transparently, and cleanly. There is no option to muddy the waters.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#212

Post by nomel »

Bilal_io wrote: post #209
nomel wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why "fear" is necessary. Power has never been a constant. When I was a kid we had a box of candles under the sink and warm blankets stacked in the garage, and some emergency food/water to last a week. Now that I'm an adult, I still have the same. I don't understand this trust and expectation of flawless infrastructure, where "fear" would come into play. Inconvenience, sure. You should be able to easily re…

"fear" is necessary because I was stuck at an apartment for 3 days and nowhere to go with no heat and no water when the weather outside was -17 degrees.

As my comment suggested, you could change that fear to inconvenience with minimal preparation: put some water jugs, canned/packaged food, and blankets+cheap snow outfit in your closet, and throw in a little campground propane burner for a nice warm meal. -17 outdoors is a warm ski day indoors. If you've known anyone that lives in a cold part of the country, having some preparation is an extremely common practice.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#213

Post by Bilal_io »

nomel wrote: post #212
Bilal_io wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"fear" is necessary because I was stuck at an apartment for 3 days and nowhere to go with no heat and no water when the weather outside was -17 degrees.

As my comment suggested, you could change that fear to inconvenience with minimal preparation: put some water jugs, canned/packaged food, and blankets+cheap snow outfit in your closet, and throw in a little campground propane burner for a nice warm meal. -17 outdoors is a warm ski day indoors. If you've known anyone that lives in a cold part of the country, having some preparation is an extremely common practice.

Or fix the damn infrastructure. Other states and other countries get worse cold waves and others get worse heat waves and they don't lose power. Stop putting the blame on people.

> Campground You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#214

Post by lillecarl »

jrockway wrote: post #90
emeraldd wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had to look up `district heating` ... that's a not a common thing in the US.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating

It's a thing in the US. If you're ever walking around Manhattan and see steam coming out of a traffic cone, that's the side effect of district heating (groundwater hitting the very hot steam pipes and vaporizing).

Not a common thing != not a thing

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#215

Post by brnt »

appletrotter wrote: post #185
manquer wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living close to a water source or reservoir doesn’t make conservation less important.It is a intricate system with complex interconnects A lot of places downstream will be using the water from your Lake /Dam /river as their only source. Same reason why in some states like Colarado it is illegal to rain water harvest. Riparian rights and ethics are complex

Maybe it does sometimes though? Speaking of the great lakes, if you live in the region it doesn’t take you very long to drive out of the watershed for your respective lake. That should be where the bounds of effect end, and that entire region will generally have plenty of water. For example, Ohio has two watersheds, one for the lake up north and another for the Ohio river which takes up 2/3 of the state. Excess water…

Waterpipes have been known to cross watershed boundaries. Or am I missing your point?

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#216

Post by nomel »

Bilal_io wrote: post #213
nomel wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As my comment suggested, you could change that fear to inconvenience with minimal preparation: put some water jugs, canned/packaged food, and blankets+cheap snow outfit in your closet, and throw in a little campground propane burner for a nice warm meal. -17 outdoors is a warm ski day indoors. If you've known anyone that lives in a cold part of the country, having some preparation is an extremely common practice.

Or fix the damn infrastructure. Other states and other countries get worse cold waves and others get worse heat waves and they don't lose power. Stop putting the blame on people. > Campground You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces.

> You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces.

No, I mean the little burners you put on top of portable propane tanks, that are usually used for BBQ's or while camping. Searching "campground propane burner" in Amazon shows several hundred results of what I'm talking about. They don't require a campground to operate.

> Or fix the damn infrastructure.

You and your fear exists in the reality that is right now, which includes bad infrastructure, that will almost certainly take years to fix. If you desire to not live in fear, for the next few years, you can easily do it with minimal, extremely common in places where it's cold, preparation. If you desire to continue living in short term fear, when it's so easy to mitigate that fear, then well I guess you do you.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#217

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

m463 wrote: post #187
cameldrv wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like what is getting lost here is that the reason PG&E only charges for usage and not a fixed connection fee is that that's what the state wanted. They wanted heavy users to pay a disproportionate share of costs to encourage lower usage. In fact, they even put in a "climate credit", which is a fixed rebate users get that effectively makes the connection fee be negative.

Punative pricing in california is really a disservice to customers/consumers. In just about every other business, if you use a lot of something, you get a discount. For california electricity, it's the opposite.

It's capacity pricing. If you want to buy same-day tickets for your whole family to board a full flight, the airline will sell the tickets to you, but it might be at a 5x or 10x mark up. The airline is betting that they'll be able to talk people into forfeiting their seats by giving them airline credits, and tickets on a later (less crowded) flight, then pocket the difference.

Expecting the airline to give you and your giant family a discount in the situation is obviously absurd. When you're at capacity, it's in your best interest to encourage people to shift their consumption to off-peak times, and to punitively charge the people that insist on consuming a disproportionate amount during full capacity.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#218

Post by ptaipale »

FabHK wrote: post #139
emeraldd wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had to look up `district heating` ... that's a not a common thing in the US.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating

Ha, in Germany it's called "Fernwärme", which corresponds nicely to "teleheating" (which Wikipedia lists as an alternative name). It's great, not only does electricity and water magically come from a wall in your basement, but also heat :-) I thought they had abandoned the idea of using heat from a nuclear power plant for district heating in Russia, but apparently that is actually done [1, 2] extensively. Having a pi…

District heating from nuclear used to be a no-no but has recently gained momentum in Finland (as an idea). Build an SMR near the city for electricity, and use the excess heat for district warming (which is needed during most of the year).

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#219

Post by Bilal_io »

nomel wrote: post #216
Bilal_io wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or fix the damn infrastructure. Other states and other countries get worse cold waves and others get worse heat waves and they don't lose power. Stop putting the blame on people. > Campground You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces.

> You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces. No, I mean the little burners you put on top of portable propane tanks, that are usually used for BBQ's or while camping. Searching "campground propane burner" in Amazon shows several hundred results of what I'm talking about. They don't require a campground to operate. > Or fix the damn infrastructure. You and your fear exists…

Thank you for the advise. I will invest in one of those burners.

Re: How should net metering affect your electric bill?

#220

Post by Dma54rhs »

Bilal_io wrote: post #94
secabeen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this model is common in other utilities in the US (both by water and gas bills are structured this way), with a large meter fee and a consumption charge in line with the resource cost. Electricity could certainly be charged this way (and should), but it would be a huge change in how electricity is billed here, and the PUC would rather just make changes to just the net-metering system rather than open the can of…

That's how it is for electricity in Texas. You pay a delivery charge, and then usage charge, both based on kw/h.

The way electricity market in Texas works in general looks very similar to EU countries.
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