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Comment by xp84 | Hacker News Reader

Can people in Britain post their actual electricity rates per kWh? I want us Californians to be able to see how badly we are (or aren’t) being ripped off by our utilities compared to you (mind you, these rates are approved by our regulator). We’re basically told we have to pay this much because of our lovely renewables requirements (they’re still far from 90% renewable though). We are on a ‘time of use’ rate designed for EV charging at night. We are paying 26 cents (£0.20) except for 4-9PM when it’s 59 cents (£0.44). Plus a monthly base charge which they just increased.

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Those answers won't be too helpful. We have very high bills compared internationally, due to a difficult-to-explain quirk (pay-as-clear marginal pricing) where all electricity is charged to the customer at the highest rate possible at that moment. So wind may cost 0.05 pkwh and be freely available but if gas is being utilised anywhere else in the grid at a cost of eg. 0.45 then everybody gets charged 0.45 pkwh, even for the wind energy.

Its a messed up system which means often pay the highest in Europe, without even helping that much towards the tax coffers. But reform of this system does seem to be gaining a bit of political momentum.

The same system is used all over EU.

The volumetric rate for electricity is almost totally irrelevant. California's bills are dominated by the fixed cost of the grid, and we use very little grid power compared to other states, so the volumetric rate has to be really high as a consequence. Electric power bills in California are in the middle of the pack compared to the other states, almost exactly the same as Texas and less than ten other states.

Volumetric rate is all that matters to normal consumers. It doesn’t matter where the costs come from or why. Only $/kwh.

No, the bottom line on the monthly bill is what matters.

This isn’t convincing to me - our electricity rates in 2002 were 8 cents per kWh and none of those other facts were different back then. Inflation hasn’t done 5x since then, but our electricity rates have. We are being ripped off by the three companies that CPUC allows to do it.

They should have imposed a ruinous penalty on the utilities for their wildfire liability, and seized their assets for non-payment of it. And I say that as not a liberal and not a socialist.

People who live in cities that have municipal power are paying HALF the rates people with PG&E and SCE are.

> none of those other facts were different back then.

That is not correct.

Small-scale solar capacity in California today stands at 19GW. In 2002, it was 45MW. That is a more than 400-fold increase. Title 20 and 24 rules have dramatically cut residential electric demand, especially lighting which has fallen by over 90%. Population grew 13% but peak grid load has not grown at all. But all that grid stuff to serve the new residents had to be installed and amortized. Many many things have changed since 2002.

Most of the day 28p/kwh, 1-5am 17p/kwh, 4-7pm 39p/kwh.

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