I read in a news article today that California regulators approved a severe rate hike. Fine. But that one, and all the other articles that I’ve read, talk only in percentages. Exactly what are Californian’s paying for electricity in kilowatt-hours, and what will they be paying after the hike? I’m wondering how their rates compare with the rest of the country.
Tuesday’s decision allocates the 3 cent rate increase the PUC approved March 27, the largest in California history. The increase raises residential rates to an average of 15.6 cents per kilowatt, just behind the nation’s highest rate of 16.4 cents in Hawaii.
On Long Island, until the public takeover of LILCO (Long Island Lighting Co.) a few years ago, we were paying over $.18/kwh.
Keep in mind that the cost of electricity to the consumer is still regulated in California. Thus, electricity bills will be comparable to the rest of the country.
The big problem is that the utilities who provide the power (at this regulated price) have to buy from an unregulated market. Currently the state is hemorrhaging money to keep the lights on while the utilities go bankrupt trying to buy as well. The prices paid there, if I remember rightly, reach into the $100/MWh range, so the utilities have to provide the same service on a severely limited budget.
Furthermore, the regulations were scheduled to be removed by May 2002 or whenever the utilities had covered their costs. This happened last year in San Diego, and price caps had to be put back into place; the price had jumped to $0.25/kWh.
Let’s see… I’ve got an old electric bill for Feb-Mar 2001 here, from the City of Pasadena Municipal Services department.
Total KWH: 1487 / KWH/DAY AVG. 24.3
(It was a cold spring and I use electric heat.)
SERVICE DETAIL
CAC: 1487 KWH @ 0.08000 = $118.96
Block 1: 400 KWH @ 0.00905 = 3.62
Block 2: 1087 KWH @ 0.04755 = 51.69
Total Electric Services: $178.77
(CAC = Cost Adjustment Charge - a variable rate to allow for fluctuations in the cost of energy and transmission charges. I don’t think this has changed in months.)
So, for your first 400 kWh, you’re charged $0.08905 each.
For for the next few thousand kWh after that, we pay $0.12755 each.
And I dare say that there’s probably another rate if you really suck down the energy.
Add on to that a few more dollars for service charges, taxes, etc. About $40 for this bill. My total bill for two months was $216.88 for my one-bedroom bachelor cave, that has an old fridge, four lamps, a TV, VCR, stereo, Computer, answering machine, cordless telephone, and clock radio. I use electric heat (1500W space heater) in the winter and an old inefficient window AC unit in the summer. The parking lot light (one of those low-power narrow spectrum blue thingies that makes my red car look purple) is on my circuit. That’s it. I don’t own a hair dryer or a microwave oven, I run a vacuum cleaner maybe once a month, and use gas to cook and heat water.
But keep in mind that I live in one of the few areas in CA served by a municipal electric service, which will not raise rates as described in the recent decision, and which has access to cheap power on long-term contracts with federally-subsidized Columbia River power. But since we still get power from the ISO grid, we are still subject to rolling blackouts.
Overall, residential power in Pasadena has typically been a little bit cheaper than that in the Edison-served areas - maybe by about 10%.
In Monterey, california its about 9 cents/kw. So, going up 40% or 50% to around 12 cents. wow.
Businesses are going to have to pay more, so they raise their prices.
Oops, that should actually say “expected to reach into the $1000/MWh range”. I think it’s still too difficult to believe that, which is maybe why I dropped a 0.
On a summer day last year, the peak price was over $500/MWh, even though the load was less than in 1999 (when the price was around $45/MWh).
Residential consumers who use less than 130% of the “baseline level” will see no increase at all. Source:
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/local/docs/baseqa16.htm
Before the increase, residential electricity was 14.3 cents per kilowatt, for usage above 130% of baseline. Now, it’s 22.1 cents per kilowatt for usage above that amount.
The report (along with charts) is at http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/FINAL_DECISION/7185.htm
It’s so confusing now, I’m not even sure what we pay. From my last SDG&E bill, I used a baseline 241 kWh at .06326 and 66 kWh non-baseline at .08069, for a total of 22.35. Then they also charged the whole 329 kWh at .15799 for an additional $51.98. However, they then took back $30.59 “to honor the Hebrew God whose ark this is”, so my total 43.74. That comes out to .1329 per kWh, but we have the vague idea that those “honorariums” are going to come back to haunt us one fine day.
$84.00 January
$56.00 February
$54.00 March
$33.00 April
This is in Sacramento where the winters are rather mild; it’s summertime when we really heat up. I’ve conserved since the power troubles began, but not outrageously. Rather than heating the whole house, I set up a small electric heater in the living room and sleep with an electric blanket. This summer I suppose I’ll set up two or three small fans and forget about aircon. I turn heaters/fans off at night. My January bill was high because I did turn the heat on for visitors over the holidays.
I plan to sweat a lot this summer…