Wow, that's a lot of money. I thought my electricity was high because it's gone up a lot to 0.12 in South Texas.
In the UK for me unit prices from April to July last year were £0.50/kWh (USD$0.64) and that was with the government implementing a price cap and subsidising it.
It’s down dropped to a more reasonable £0.29 (USD$0.37) but that’s still with the government capping the maximum rates that can be charged, but no longer subsidising energy companies as the UK wholesale rate is lower than the cap.
And then the discourse diverges into yet-another discussion about how billing works, and power deregulation, and other things.
But the only number that matters is the total cost per kWh -- including delivery, distribution, generation, taxes, fees, grift, and whatever else might be included in the bill total.
And that's easy to figure out: Total dollars billed divided by total power consumed, for any given billing period.
The result is a number, in US dollars (or whatever local currency), that neatly and inclusively expresses what a person was actually-charged, per kWh, for electricity in their home for that period.
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So, for example: My most recent electric bill was, in total, $176.26.
I used 1,111kWh during that period.
$176.26 ÷ 1,111kWh = a cost of $0.158 per kWh, plus or minus a rounding error, for the power I used last month.
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Only now can I extrapolate that if that my total cost per kWh remains static over time (it will not, but it is likely to be close), then: A 10 Watt difference in 24/7 power consumption is equivalent to ~$13.85 per year, for me.
I can now also evaluate that cost in more practical terms, wherein: I can see that using an extra 10 Watts on a 24/7 application costs me less than one decent beer per month, or one twelve-pack per year. And I'm pretty far from wealthy, but I can see that drinking one fewer beer per month isn't going to make me wealthier in any practical sense of the word. A 10-Watt difference in power consumption thus won't weigh heavily on my decision to use one system or another -- as long as it is just one such system.
As we race towards $1/kWh I wonder where the breaking point will be.
I'm on a time-of-use plan so the costs vary both on when and how much you use.
PG&E (the dominant player in northern california):
- lobbied hard against muni power
- spent its safety budget on executive compensation
- is recouping its maintenance costs and criminal penalties from its ratepayers instead of from its shareholders
- got Newsom to stack the regulatory body (CPUC) with PG&E sycophants
- is back to paying its shareholders dividends
- has one of the most influential California politicians (Willie Brown) on their payroll
Yes, it's obscene that in a climate as mild as the Bay Area, $400+ utility bills are the norm. Short of some major revolt, rates are set to go up in March as well.