CPL didn't even buy me a drink first.

From today’s soul-killing power bill in the mail:

Previous Balance-$234.73
Payments Received-$234.73-
Balance Forward-$0.00

Current Billing- $467.56

Yeah. You think my power usage nearly fucking exactly DOUBLED in the last month. Right. I live in goddam forsaken fucking Very South Texas, America’s sweaty nutsack, and the a/c has been on since the end of February, so that’s clearly not it, you motherless fucktarded cube gorks. There’s no new 24/7 hydroponic garden, either, so I’m really sort of fucking stunned by this.

Can you tell?

My bad for not checking my mail 'til this evening, so I get to stew all night before I call and spend all fucking day figuring out what exactly went kerfuck.

And don’t fucking try and blame this on oil prices, slapnuts.

They better not, since petroleum makes up an insignificant amount of electrical generation in Texas (as well as the rest of the US).

It’s all coal, I think.

Nope. There’s more natural gas generation than coal in Texas.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/state/state_energy_profiles.cfm?sid=TX

That is eerie, how close to double the bill is.

How is the meter reading done?

Via two-headed monster.

:smack:
Wow. Ignorance fought. Thanks!

Doesn’t your bill include things like KWh used and price per KWh? That would be a way to figure out why the bill has gone up, and should take all of 10 seconds to read.

One thing to remember, if they don’t physically read your meter every month, they have to estimate. 3 months of low estimates can turn the 4th month’s bill into a monster when they finally get the correct reading.

Considering how close the bill is to being precisely doubled ($1 off), I’d check with their billing department if they haven’t just accidentally charged you twice.

You do have a per-month/quarter deal, right? Not up-paying a level set based on the projected level from last year?

I hope you figure out what the problem is. I had a similar issue with my water bill about a year ago that I had to straighten out. (Not nearly that expensive, though.)

I really just wanted to thank you for introducing me to the word “kerfuck.”

Me too, I like that. Feels good coming off the tounge. Kerfuuuuck. Yeah.

Another trick is that my power company charges extra for power used above a “baseline”. (Some kind of neighborhood average, I presume.)

This baseline varies from season to season.

Typically, when my bill jumps in price like this, the baseline number they provide seems awfully low, so they get to charge me a ton of money for the power I used over that amount.

I have no idea how they calculate this baseline, how to verify that number is correct, nor how often the State authorities exercise oversight of this calculation.

Actually, I’m afraid they can blame it on the oil price, because, IIRC, the oil price and the gas price are coupled for some reason I don’t know about and for which I have no cite. Anyone care to expand?

Interesting paper here on the subject from the EIA - warning pdf
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ftproot/features/reloilgaspri.pdf

Basically oil and natural gas power generation are partially interchangeable , as is the feedstock for some petrochemical products at the refining end and industry usage apparently has some leeway to swap between the two
So as oil goes up, people will switch to gas. We are talking 10-20% of power generation being interchangeable, which may not sound like a lot , but is enough to sway the market. It should be noted that the oil market is pretty much world wide, the gas market is localised. If there is a large demand in one pipe system, excess supply elsewhere cannot be brought in to compensate, so the demand in a constrained system can have a bigger leverage effect on the final price, as new supply is not so easily brought in.

Either that or it is conspiracy.

Cheers

Huh. I tried calling all afternoon. Never got through. My wife tells me everyone where she works is complaining about their bill, too. Looks like “something happened”…

Yeh. They jacked up their rates, like they did to California a few years ago.

This happened to me recently. It was because the rates went up and I got married, so 2 people were living here instead of one, but… I was on “balancing billing.” My set monthly payment didn’t go up in response to the increase in rates and usage. At the end of my billing year, they tallied how much I used over the set amount I paid, and I suddenly owed NYSEG a big chunk of change. Very fucking annoying.

Yikes, that sucks!

I got a shocker a couple of years ago when the meter reader misread the ten thousands digit. That made for an interesting call to the utility, which of course turned into frustration… turns out at least two of the customer service reps at my power company don’t actually know how to read a meter (or do base ten multiplication).

I kept the bill handy for a long time as a conversation piece.

Henry Hub nat gas prices have gone up by a dollar or two, but local prices can swing quite a bit. I don’t have a Platt’s subscription anymore, can Natural Blond, or anyone else, get South Texas prices?

My rate isn’t that bad. Either some dipshit misread our meter, and its an honest mistake, – or CPL has gone monkeynut whack, and they’re gasping for more cash between slobbery breaths.