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Comment by jeffbee | Hacker News Reader

At the top tier margin, not on average, I assume.

Not sure what you mean. There is a fixed cost involved, and then a flat variable rate for kWh consumed. If I halve my usage from 60kWh/month to 30kWh/month, I would still be stuck paying $57/month (which is almost double my current bill, and averages to almost $2/kWh).

Basically I will be forced to pay at least $50/month ($600/year) for a hookup in an area where electricity has been built out for a century+.

There are something like 100,000 units in the same situation, so my provider will be raking in $60m/year for a grid that is already built, just for my city alone.

The grid has maintenance costs, especially in California, where there is a lot of deferred maintenance that needs to be done. Distribution costs (which don't really scale with usage) are about 50% of the average monthly bill. Is the grid worth $50/month to you? It certainly is to me, and a $30-50/mo grid bill would be in line with the monthly connection costs for Gas and Water, which don't use the silly usage-only billing method that Electric does.

I don't use gas except for the stove, so if they charged me anymore than $10/month for gas I'd tell them to get away from me with their toxic waste. Currently I pay about $5/month there.

I don't pay for water, it is grouped by the building. Which is exactly what I'm suggesting for electricity -- multi unit buildings should have a single connection cost, not one per tenant.

Sigh, my new construction townhome has a gas stove, and gas heater for ⅓ of it, and a luxurious fireplace

I'd rather have an induction stove, a second heat pump, and an infrared fireplace in my only mildly cold se climate.

I pay $360 a year in base charges, and not even in February, when effectively trying to make it worth it does my usage exceed the base charge.

Then the are another 900 townhomes just like me. Yay for perverted utilities markets.

Ah, I see what you are saying. That wasn't really what I was even getting at though. Because of the tier/baseline system, even the marginal rate you pay per joule is way higher in coastal California, to subsidize interior California. That's before we even start looking at the fixed charges.

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