PG&E Rates Could Drastically Change Based on Your Income • Hacker News Board

Re: PG&E Rates Could Drastically Change Based on Your Income

#41

Post by electroly » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

saltcured wrote: post #6

While I understand the desire to have a progressive pricing scheme to offset some of the criticism around solar subsidies being "subsidies for the rich", I think this would be a terrible precedent as far as invasion of privacy. I think it is cynical overreach. There is absolutely no reason that the utility company should gain access to household income data of their entire market. If the CA government thinks we shoul…

Utility companies already run credit checks on new customers. This doesn't seem like a big leap from that. They may already be estimating income based on the credit check. I don't disagree in theory but utility companies today, across the country, are already all up in your financial business.

Source: I got a new apartment in a new state and had a lot of difficulty proving that I make enough money to get electricity from the utility company. The utility company was harder to convince than the landlord renting me the actual apartment.

Re: PG&E Rates Could Drastically Change Based on Your Income

#42

Post by sieabahlpark » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:25 PM UTC

electroly wrote: post #41

saltcured wrote: post #6

While I understand the desire to have a progressive pricing scheme to offset some of the criticism around solar subsidies being "subsidies for the rich", I think this would be a terrible precedent as far as invasion of privacy. I think it is cynical overreach. There is absolutely no reason that the utility company should gain access to household income data of their entire market. If the CA government thinks we shoul…

Utility companies already run credit checks on new customers. This doesn't seem like a big leap from that. They may already be estimating income based on the credit check. I don't disagree in theory but utility companies today, across the country, are already all up in your financial business. Source: I got a new apartment in a new state and had a lot of difficulty proving that I make enough money to get electricity…

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Re: PG&E Rates Could Drastically Change Based on Your Income

#43

Post by MrFoof » Mon, Apr 17, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #35

MrFoof wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For CA, depends very much on where you are. $0.47 is not the highest in CA, nor in the continental US. Here in Boston, my rate is $0.14479/Kwh for delivery with a $0.33891/kWh supply charge, or $0.4837 per kWh. Yep, higher than you're paying. That excludes a fixed standing charge of $7/mo. About 53% of our base load (IIRC) is natural gas, so when natural gas wholesale prices spiked, so did our rates by 80+ percent ba…

That's wild. My meter fee is like $15 and then my rate is less than $0.14 total, for delivery and supply. Guess I'm burning coal. I used ~200 kW-h last month, so at least it wouldn't ruin my life to pay $0.50 per. I don't have AC, so even with a gas furnace, the winter months tend to be my largest electric (running the blower and hydronic pumps).

Depending on where you live, it very well may be coal. Have a friend in Kentucky who pays about $0.105/kWh, but 70% of his electricity is coal powered.

Re: PG&E Rates Could Drastically Change Based on Your Income

#44

Post by lsaferite » Tue, Apr 18, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

mkozlows wrote: post #9

lsaferite wrote: post #2

Is PG&E electricity super cheap already or something? I pay 2x-3x the top tier they are talking about in FL for electricity.

This isn't a fixed rate "total bill," it's the fixed charge base amount onto which they then layer the variable usage-related costs.

That would make much more sense.

Here's my most recent bill detail FWIW

  Access Charge $27.00
  Energy Charge 1,000 kWh @ 0.0725 $72.50
  Energy Charge 725 kWh @ 0.0913 $66.19
  Power Cost Adjustment 1,725 kWh @ 0.0465 $80.21
  Subdivision Lighting Large $2.80
  Light PCA $0.37
  FLA Gross Receipts Tax $6.38
  Florida State Sales Tax $0.23
  County Sales Tax $0.05
  Operation Round Up $0.91
  Total Current Charges for this Location $256.64