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Comment by mercutio2 | Hacker News Reader

Your googling gave results that were likely accurate for California 4-5 years ago. My average cost per kWh is about 60 cents.

Rates have gone up enormously because the cost of wildfires is falling on ratepayers, not the utility owners.

Regulated monopolies are pretty great, aren’t they? Heads I win, tales you lose.

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60 cents per kWh? That’s shocking. Here in Oregon people complain about energy prices and my fully loaded cost (not the per kWh but including everything) is 19c. And I go over the limit for single family residential where I end up in a higher priced bracket. Thanks for making me feel better about my electricity rate. I’m sorry you have to deal with that. The utility companies should have to pay to cover those costs.

Depends entirely on the utilities board doing the regulation.

That said, I'm of the opinion that power/water/internet should all be state/county/city ran. I don't want my utilities companies to have profit motives.

My water company just got bought up by a huge water company conglomerate and, you guessed it, immediate rate increases.

Most utilities, even if ostensibly privately-owned, are profit-limited and rates must be approved by a regulatory board. Some are organized as non-profits (rural water and electric co-ops, etc.) This is in exchange for the local monopoly.

If your local regulators approved the merger and higher rates, your complaint is with them as much as the utility company.

Not saying that some regulators are not basically rubber stamps or even corrupt.

I agree. The issue really is that they are 3 layers removed from where I can make a change. They are all appointed and not elected which means I (and my neighbors) don't have any recourse beyond the general election. IIRC, they are appointed by the governor which makes it even harder to fix (might be the county commissioner, not 100% on how they got their position, just know it was an appointment).

I did (as did others), in fact, write in comments and complaints about the rate increases and buyout. That went unheard.

CORE energy in Colorado is charging $0.10819 per kWh _today_

https://core.coop/my-cooperative/rates-and-regulations/rate-...

They have definitely increased but not all of California is like this. In the heart of Silicon Valley, Santa Clara, it's about $0.15/kWh. Having Data Centers nearby helps, I suppose.

I'm guessing the parent is talking about total bill (transmission, demand charges..) $.15/kwH is probably just the usage, and I am very skeptical that's accurate for residential.

Correct. $0.15/kwh is usage. There are a few small fees but that’s likely the case in most places. This is residential use. If skeptical, a quick online search is all it takes…

Santa Clara's energy rates are an outlier among neighboring municipalities, and should not be used as an example of energy cost in the Bay Area. Santa Clara residents are served by city-owned Silicon Valley Power, which has lower rates than PG&E or SVCE, which service almost all of the South Bay.

Well the discussion was California as a whole and averages, so I decided to share. As with averages, data is above and bellow the mean, so when a commenter above said $.30/kwh was much too low for California, I decided to lend some support the the argument as I’m in California paying bellow the average. It’s a just a data point. A counter example to the claim made by parent. Maybe it helps fellow nerds pick a spot in the bay if they want to run their homelabs.

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