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California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income

calmatters.org

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Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income

#31

Post by beached_whale »

Spivak wrote: post #9
talldatethrow wrote: post #5

My 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.

I do wonder if everyone is using the same rate structures when they compare, things like fixed fees for consumption/delivery, delivery charges, and actual usage.

Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income

#32

Post by more_corn »

gregschlom wrote: post #22
nothercastle wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it cheaper to run a gas generator at some point?

Actually yes, I did the math a few months ago and if you have a gas generator such as [1], you can produce electricity from PG&E's gas for cheaper than PG&E's own electrical rates. Details: The generator linked below can produce 17 kWh of electricity by burning 307 cubic feet of natural gas. That translates to 3.07 therms of gas, and looking at my bill PG&E charges around $2.3 / therm, so the generator would produce…

I hate to be that guy, but instead of running a generator why not deploy rooftop solar? If we’re already ignoring upfront costs it generates your electricity for zero dollars.

Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income

#33

Post by zzzeek »

standardUser wrote: post #8
zzzeek wrote: post #2

I 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.

OK but if someone with very low income and a "fixed rate" starts using thousands of kwh to mine bitcoins (which are also pretty easy to hide from income!), that still would run up their bill I hope

Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income

#34

Post by bryanlarsen »

beached_whale wrote: post #31
Spivak wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I do wonder if everyone is using the same rate structures when they compare, things like fixed fees for consumption/delivery, delivery charges, and actual usage.

Yes, about a third of my electricity costs are fixed fees. Did California actually have no fixed fees before? Those fixed fees make my effective rate much higher than the posted rates.

Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income

#35

Post by twiceaday »

sangupta wrote: post #7

I 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.

Shouldn't you be grandfathered into the previous deal?

Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income

#36

Post by r00fus »

tlhunter wrote: post #16

Where is the incentive for everyone to not mine bitcoins?

I have solar, and it's mostly (90%) not being utilized and sent back (I overspecced when NEM 3.0 was about to hit).

Prior to this, it made sense to sell it back to PG&E. Now I'm looking for uses to only sell back what it makes sense to sell back. Obviously transitioning gas therms and replacing with electric is underway (for heating/cooking), as well as charging an EV but there will likely still be excess.

So mining bitcoin? But only if I can spin up & down the mining when solar ramps up/down.

Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income

#37

Post by twiceaday »

ridgeguy wrote: post #25
sangupta wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Me too. We installed additional solar two years ago, and it's taken our net grid draw to zero, with our house providing excess power to the grid every month. We only pay the $10/month grid connect fee. Too bad. I'd hoped never to have to pay more than that grid connect fee as a result of investing in my own power generation.

Me three. And I don't understand how a fixed fee is a new concept because I am paying the $10/month fee. So now its a guaranteed $34/month fee, for using zero kWh?!

Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income

#38

Post by r00fus »

standardUser wrote: post #8
zzzeek wrote: post #2

I 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.

Lower income get subsidies (and lowered rates) but at what point does the seemingly corrupt PUC decide to simply raise them again?

The bigger thing that's overlooked in this regulatory change is the removal of caps on fees. So that $24 is going to be $50 or $80 pretty quickly.

Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income

#39

Post by readthenotes1 »

more_corn wrote: post #32
gregschlom wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually yes, I did the math a few months ago and if you have a gas generator such as [1], you can produce electricity from PG&E's gas for cheaper than PG&E's own electrical rates. Details: The generator linked below can produce 17 kWh of electricity by burning 307 cubic feet of natural gas. That translates to 3.07 therms of gas, and looking at my bill PG&E charges around $2.3 / therm, so the generator would produce…

I hate to be that guy, but instead of running a generator why not deploy rooftop solar? If we’re already ignoring upfront costs it generates your electricity for zero dollars.

And then buy the generator for nights. Last I checked, batteries were prohibitively expensive.

Re: California's electricity rates will shift to a fixed fee based on income

#40

Post by erulabs »

koolba wrote: post #19

> 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. This will never go down. It will only go up. And the real idea here is to get a min fixed amount from net zero customers with their own generation (ie solar).

At first this seemed ludicrous, but there is some rationality in charging net zero customers right? To put it another way: assuming the customer is only using the grid as an emergency backup and as a discharging service - isn’t that still a service? Even if the transmission lines are only taking power from my property, they still need maintenance?

Presumably maintenance costs that would be overcome trivially by my generating a bit of excess power - but still non-zero?

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