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San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

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Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#81

Post by hunterpayne »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #73
hunterpayne wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please remember that the lines from HH to SF are the same ones that caused wildfires in CA over the last 10 years. So if SF owns the line, they own that liability too. And a single fire's cost is about 3x the yearly budget of SF.

> remember that the lines from HH to SF are the same ones that caused wildfires in CA over the last 10 years. So if SF owns the line, they own that liability too Crazy thought—dedicate the resources to maintaining them. From what I can tell, this tolerance of power-sparked wildfires is uniquely American (and concentrated, fairly and unfairly, in California). Also, you don’t have to put it straight on the municipal ba…

[dead]

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#82

Post by throwaway2037 »

lokar wrote: post #39
throwaway2037 wrote: post #32

This part bothers me: > Dabit’s energy problems reached a new level in December when a PG&E substation fire caused a three-day power outage for the neighborhood. In addition to losing business, Dabit lost $10,000 to $15,000 worth of ingredients. (1) Why didn't the owner have insurance for food spoilage? Since it is rare event, it is probably very cheap. The old saying: "Buy insurance for (emergency) expenses that you…

The fires have been caused by the transmission grid, not the distribution grid. SF would be taking the distribution. There is not a ton of wildfire risk from the electric utility in SF, and it would be fairly easy to manage. Restaurants have very thin margins, they can’t afford that stuff.

    > Restaurants have very thin margins
I here this a lot but many pizza pie shops make a killing because ingredients are so cheap.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#83

Post by jjav »

m463 wrote: post #29
jeffbee wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other angle that people may not realize is that SF has voted in nine separate elections to not establish a municipal utility. The people of SF demonstrably do not want to take over PG&E, given numerous opportunities. SMUD has cheap power because 100 years ago the people of Sacramento invested a lot of money to establish that utility. What the vocal minority of SF public power people want is magical: cheaper rates…

> people of SF demonstrably do not want to take over PG&E But PG&E has charged significantly more for power the last few years. Most people easily hit 50c/kwh on their bills. Compare to Santa Clara, which has their own well run utility, and charges less than half PG&E rates. https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/residents/rates-and-fees

> But PG&E has charged significantly more for power the last few years. Most people easily hit 50c/kwh on their bills.

Way more than that! In prime time it's now in the ~80c/kWh these days.

I've been posting this for years and continues to be true: given the price increase trend of PG&E, within 10 years the electricity bill will be larger than the mortgage.

But, those PG&E VPs need their bonuses!

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#84

Post by jjav »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #47
winocm wrote: post #27

On the note of PG&E, my electric bill averages to about $750 despite only running an air conditioner, several device chargers, a router, some lights and a fridge... Thanks PG&E.

How many kWh monthly? Let's say your overall rate is $0.50/kWh, that would put you at 1500kWh per month. Which is....high. Even if your rate were $1/kWh, 750kWh would be a decent amount of juice for a region with an overall mild climate. The EIA[0] says the typical annual electricity consumption for homes in "the West" (ie not just California) is 8525kWh/year, or 710kWh/month. [0] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/…

> Let's say your overall rate is $0.50/kWh

It's way higher than that with PG&E.

My PG&E bill tends to be around $500/mo and I run basically nothing out of the basics. Never turn on the A/C. Tiny house, normal usage of fridge, lights and the usual househould gadgets like washer/dryer. Near the coast so climate is cool, if we lived in the hot areas and had to run A/C I imagine it would be double at least.

The profound corruption of PG&E is an existential risk to California and Silicon Valley.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#85

Post by jjav »

hunterpayne wrote: post #50
namuol wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What rates are you being charged?

CA rates come in 4 tranches based on usage. Last I checked, its $0.10/kwh for the first tranch, 0.2 for the 2nd, 0.3 for the 3rd and 0.4 for the highest. I don't remember the cutoffs between the different levels. Its also possible those rates have changed in the last few years. But that's how CA does residential power bills. Most people never get into the 2nd tranche. PS Where I live now, its $0.04/kwh and that's pre…

> Last I checked, its $0.10/kwh for the first tranch,...

That is completely wrong.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#86

Post by ninkendo »

jjav wrote: post #83
m463 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people of SF demonstrably do not want to take over PG&E But PG&E has charged significantly more for power the last few years. Most people easily hit 50c/kwh on their bills. Compare to Santa Clara, which has their own well run utility, and charges less than half PG&E rates. https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/residents/rates-and-fees

> But PG&E has charged significantly more for power the last few years. Most people easily hit 50c/kwh on their bills. Way more than that! In prime time it's now in the ~80c/kWh these days. I've been posting this for years and continues to be true: given the price increase trend of PG&E, within 10 years the electricity bill will be larger than the mortgage. But, those PG&E VPs need their bonuses!

Yikes… that means a Tesla Model S with a 95kWH battery would cost $76 to charge. Most people around the country pay way less than that to fill a combustion SUV at the pump.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#87

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

jjav wrote: post #84
3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many kWh monthly? Let's say your overall rate is $0.50/kWh, that would put you at 1500kWh per month. Which is....high. Even if your rate were $1/kWh, 750kWh would be a decent amount of juice for a region with an overall mild climate. The EIA[0] says the typical annual electricity consumption for homes in "the West" (ie not just California) is 8525kWh/year, or 710kWh/month. [0] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/…

> Let's say your overall rate is $0.50/kWh It's way higher than that with PG&E. My PG&E bill tends to be around $500/mo and I run basically nothing out of the basics. Never turn on the A/C. Tiny house, normal usage of fridge, lights and the usual househould gadgets like washer/dryer. Near the coast so climate is cool, if we lived in the hot areas and had to run A/C I imagine it would be double at least. The profound…

A kWh measurement would be handy. List rates for PG&E are (at the high end) ~$0.50/kWh. Sure with fees and such, I can see it higher, but throwing out a real number would be useful for the conversation on what goes into a $500 bill. There are also tiers if you are a higher consumer - all of which is hard to deduce with just a vague total bill value.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#88

Post by spullara »

simoncion wrote: post #25
spullara wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It generates ~1 TWh per year or about 20% of SFs power. Power generation capacity is always in watts but it also doesn't run at 100% all the time.

Ah. So I should have done something like 395MW * 8760hr = 3,640,200 MWh to figure out roughly the maximum possible annual demand that could be served by the system? (For the purposes of this question, I'm just doing the -er- dimensional/unit/whatever analysis and ignoring production-capacity-reducing factors that you'd definitely have to factor in to get the real number.) If so, what a boneheaded, rookie mistake by m…

Yep, that is the correct calculation for the max output.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#89

Post by plorkyeran »

jjav wrote: post #84
3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many kWh monthly? Let's say your overall rate is $0.50/kWh, that would put you at 1500kWh per month. Which is....high. Even if your rate were $1/kWh, 750kWh would be a decent amount of juice for a region with an overall mild climate. The EIA[0] says the typical annual electricity consumption for homes in "the West" (ie not just California) is 8525kWh/year, or 710kWh/month. [0] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/…

> Let's say your overall rate is $0.50/kWh It's way higher than that with PG&E. My PG&E bill tends to be around $500/mo and I run basically nothing out of the basics. Never turn on the A/C. Tiny house, normal usage of fridge, lights and the usual househould gadgets like washer/dryer. Near the coast so climate is cool, if we lived in the hot areas and had to run A/C I imagine it would be double at least. The profound…

The top-end rate with PG&E is not way higher than $0.50/kWh. If you're paying $500/month with no AC and no homelab or whatever then you have something else sucking up vast amounts of power and you should spend some time with a killawatt measuring your appliances.

Re: San Francisco Weighs PG&E Takeover Amid Soaring Utility Costs

#90

Post by jeffbee »

hunterpayne wrote: post #44
simoncion wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mmkay, so what were my core mistakes? Unit conversion failures? Order-of-magnitude errors? Sign problems (somehow)? Both Wolfram Alpha and units(1) indicated that conversion between MW and MWh was totally nonsensical, so I presumed either that that was a typo, or that 1MW of power generation run for one hour will satisfy 1MWh of demand... assuming that either that demand is evenly spread throughout the hour, or that…

Your mistake is ignoring capacity factor. Most power generation has between 40% and 60% capacity factor. NPPs are 90+ and renewables are about 10. This is intentionally made confusing and you aren't helping because you don't understand this. I do get that this is a good faith error caused by the intention conflation of different units by PR statements.

Hydro resources are worse than anything because of their fish-based flow restrictions. They can't flow consistently all the time, the fish hate that. They have to ebb and flow.
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