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Comment by ccgreg | Hacker News Reader

Parts of California pay way more for energy because of starting fires leading to bankruptcy.

Other parts of California pay pretty normal rates.

What parts pay normal rates? Are they heavily dependent upon solar, wind, and batteries? Or are they using gas or nuclear?

If you live in Santa Clara your rate will be around $0.166 per kWh.

I think a lot of folks there have solar. And by 2026 they say they will have 50% of electricity sourced via sustainable means.

I hear it is 2x to 3x that much depending on time of day in Santa Clara. Also, people built solar when there were different rules. The new rules make it much less advantageous.

> I hear it is 2x to 3x that much depending on time of day in Santa Clara.

Sounds like an amazing opportunity to make bank trading energy off-hours (as modeled by TX). Guess what technology enables exactly this!

Batteries charged by natural gas?

That's right, batteries! They enable us to capitalize on energy price fluctuations.

You can of course charge them however you like, but I have a feeling Santa Clara's purported 3x price fluctuations are not due entirely to natural gas.

You’re probably hearing that from people who are in Santa Clara but somehow served by PG&E rather than Silicon Valley Power (the municipal utility). Maybe they are right on the city boundary, or they live in some other city in Santa Clara County (SVP only serves the city of Santa Clara). PG&E off-peak rates for Silicon Valley are 40-60 cents/kWh.

No. If you get the time of use plan in Santa Clara it's 4 cents more on-peak vs. off-peak [1]. The situation with PG&E's rates is completely asinine and is a political failure more than anything else.

[1] https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/home/showpublisheddocumen...

What's the point of a time of use plan if it only varies 4 cents? Does that change behavior?

Well, it's a 25% discount, it just doesn't sound like much because PG&E's rates are so insane.

Places that aren't on SCE, SDG&E, or PG&E. My utility is municipal, and my rates are about 17 cents a kWh. It's awesome.

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