California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income
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Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income
#2I don't really understand this article. "The new California charge will be $24 for most customers, but lower income households, who already qualify for discounted electric rates, will see fees of either $6 or $12.". What? Is this like a surcharge of some kind on top of a regular use charge? The average electric bill in NYS is $230 a month, in California it's $220. So I don't really understand the context for this article.
Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income
#3I don't really understand this article. "The new California charge will be $24 for most customers, but lower income households, who already qualify for discounted electric rates, will see fees of either $6 or $12.". What? Is this like a surcharge of some kind on top of a regular use charge? The average electric bill in NYS is $230 a month, in California it's $220. So I don't really understand the context for this art…
It is a reduction in per-kwh rates coupled to the introduction of a universal flat fee. You can see in the graph in the article, for PGE and SoCal Edison it shifts the burden from users of more than 515kwh to users of less electricity and for SDGE customers the burden shifts from users of more than 313kwh to users of less. Of course there is also an income-based distortion to soften this for poor people.
This seems kinda nuts, why would we incentivize electricity consumption? I guess there is some infra cost to connect customers to the grid but how can that be worth 8--18% of the cost of the kwh?
Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income
#4I love California for so many reasons, but charging me more for using less is not one of them.
If we can’t cut costs by running on pure renewables because we need to “make up for lost profits”, this whole green plan will never work. Will we pay oil companies for lost profit from EVs?
Just make usage below some threshold free and keep the same rates (or raise them) for high users. Simple and fair.
Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income
#5My rate in California is now 41 cents per kwh. My friends in Idaho are paying 10 cents. When (if) gasoline drops below $4.50-4.75 a gallon, it'll make more sense to just run my Chevy Volt on gasoline than electricity.
Californian's like to complain we pay 50-100% more than gasoline than the rest of the country, but it I think if more people knew they'd be really annoyed they pay 4x more for electricity.
Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income
#6I love California for so many reasons, but charging me more for using less is not one of them. If we can’t cut costs by running on pure renewables because we need to “make up for lost profits”, this whole green plan will never work. Will we pay oil companies for lost profit from EVs? Just make usage below some threshold free and keep the same rates (or raise them) for high users. Simple and fair.
>Simple and fair.
The whole point is to obfuscate prices and subsidies so the ~50th to ~90th percentile income earners (the young, productive work force) don't get uppity.
If the goal was to simply help the poor, then the government simply would have given them cash. But the goal was to "help" them (or at least say you did), but also mitigate the burden from the most influential (older people/richest people).
Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income
#7I feel deceived for installing a roof-top solar. Having got one to help CA go solar, it is now becoming a burden as I will be paying more in monthly bills. PGE has already reduced the true-up they pay for generating more electricity, this one is another nail in the coffin.
Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income
#8I don't really understand this article. "The new California charge will be $24 for most customers, but lower income households, who already qualify for discounted electric rates, will see fees of either $6 or $12.". What? Is this like a surcharge of some kind on top of a regular use charge? The average electric bill in NYS is $230 a month, in California it's $220. So I don't really understand the context for this art…
They are shifting the charges from all usage based to partially fee based, which forces those who use very little (due to having solar on their home for example) to still have to pay. That's offsetting the reduction in usage rates. And in all cases lower income households get subsidies.
Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income
#9My rate in California is now 41 cents per kwh. My friends in Idaho are paying 10 cents. When (if) gasoline drops below $4.50-4.75 a gallon, it'll make more sense to just run my Chevy Volt on gasoline than electricity. Californian's like to complain we pay 50-100% more than gasoline than the rest of the country, but it I think if more people knew they'd be really annoyed they pay 4x more for electricity.
Y'all pay 41¢?! That's insane, the highest priced energy provider where I'm at is 7¢. Does your electricity come with foot massages? If you take the default electric provider you pay 5¢, and 5.5¢ if you want 100% renewables.
Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income
#10I don't really understand this article. "The new California charge will be $24 for most customers, but lower income households, who already qualify for discounted electric rates, will see fees of either $6 or $12.". What? Is this like a surcharge of some kind on top of a regular use charge? The average electric bill in NYS is $230 a month, in California it's $220. So I don't really understand the context for this art…
Currently, I pay $10 per month to be connected to grid. Now I will need to pay $24 with zero consumption for majority of the year.