Hacker News Reader

Comment by jeffbee | Hacker News Reader

People are mad about this but, in the end, not really mad enough to do anything. California has high volumetric, margin rates for electricity but the typical monthly electric bill just isn't that high, because we don't need that much of it. The median bill is estimated to be $135 – $165/month, that's in the middle of the pack for the 50 states. Moreover, the people who can effectively get mad about this — rich people and retirees — don't suffer from it because they are protected by rooftop solar, special rates for seniors, etc. The people most exposed to the marginal prices are the ones renting old, inefficient dwellings, and they don't get a voice.

View on HN

> The median bill is estimated to be $135 – $165/month

I have a hard time believing this; in the Bay Area, the privilege of simply having a 200A connection is $130/month.

FWIW, one source is https://www.eia.gov/electricity/sales_revenue_price/pdf/tabl...

That includes government-run utilities, like LADWP, Silicon Valley Power, and SMUD, which have much lower rates than private utilities (And, no, the rate difference is not made up by taxpayer subsidies. They’re just run more efficiently).

Where? My minimum delivery charge is $0.41 a day.

Excuse me? This is the basic rate:

https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHED...

You pay $0.40317/day for the connection but you get back $58.23 twice per year. That’s $30.70 per year.

It’s the price of the electricity that’s ridiculous in PG&E territory, not the price of the connection.

Note that many commercial users have a very different structure and pay monthly for their peak usage, measured over a 15 minute interval, and separately for their actual energy usage. So if you get a commercial 200A connection, max it out for 15 minutes, and then leave it idle for the rest of the month, you may pay something silly.

> I have a hard time believing this; in the Bay Area, the privilege of simply having a 200A connection is $130/month.

I have a hard time believing that; that's not how PUC-regulated electric rates work in California (neither the old system nor the new system has a panel capacity component.)

Do many people in the bay area have 200A service? In the past 21 years, everywhere I've lived here was 100A.

> The people most exposed to the marginal prices are the ones renting old, inefficient dwellings, and they don't get a voice.

This comes off very much as "stop being poor lol." Was that your intent?

Not to pile on, but this is a similar vibe to people telling others to stop complaining about gas prices and just get an EV.

Some people can't afford a $38k car, heck, for some even $10k for a car is out of reach. There are people who have no choice but to buy a 20 year old ICE vehicle and pray it doesn't die. These same folks suffer due to the regressive nature of fuel tax.

I don't see how you could have gotten that from actually reading what I wrote.

> and they don't get a voice.

That's what did it. I initially interpreted it s "and their opinion shouldn't be counted" where I think you were saying "and they have little to no influence."

Yes, that is what I meant. I will try to avoid the ambiguity next time.

FWIW, pretty much whenever I see that phrasing, the intent is your latter sense. I didn't see any ambiguity in what the OP wrote.

> California has high volumetric, margin rates for electricity but the typical monthly electric bill just isn't that high,

Because California (whether residential or overall) uses very little electricity per capita (only Hawai'i uses less.

You've been downvoted, but I think that's fairly true. My monthly bill is right around the high end of that median, and I expect a big driver of that is the year-round temperate climate. I don't run the heat much in the winter, and don't even have air conditioning for the summer (though lately I wish I did).

Rewind back to my childhood, living in NJ in the 80s and MD in the 90s. Our utility bill was significantly higher than what I pay now (inflation-adjusted) because the heat and a/c were on constantly for several months each out of the year.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com