The danger of saving energy

[user removed]

Originally Posted by aerostealth

We get a deposit made in our bank acct by the utility about 8 months out of the year. We have a summer electric bill due to central AC. We may have a small bill one month in the winter due to low solar production and Xmas lighting. Five point one kilowatts of grid tie PV power with a 8 cent buy back rate makes all the difference.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Taxes, fees, connection costs, etc, all are methods of maintaining income regardless of the customers efforts to reduce consumption.

You can coun't on embedded beaurocracies relentlessly pursuing ways to maintain and even increase revenues regardless of the customers efforts to do the opposite. Any effort on your part to reduce "revenue" is a direct threat to their subsidized medical insurance and retirement benefits, as well as job security.


regards
mech

[P-hack]

decided to look, here we don't have much of a surcharge on electric (at these usage levels), price/kwh is a little higher than avg though. Didn't even know we had a yard waste function.
(6 people, gas heat/stove/water heater, nissan leaf only charged @ home)
968KWH Electric 116.64
Power Cost Adj 4.26
Tax 3.10
4kgal Water 17.75
Sewer 31.94
Yard Waste 4.05

[hamsterpower]

I shut off my gas service 3 years ago. After one year they started billing again. I called and had it "shut off" again. I was told it had been put "on hold" which would prevent billing for up to one year. At that time they came out and put a lock on the shut off valve. Another year goes by and a knock on my door telling me they need to "inspect the connection". Ok. why not? The guy takes pictures and uses a "sniffer". All good, see you in six years for the next "inspection". The very next month I start getting bills addressed to occupant. Seems someone noticed in the pictures, the meter had ticked 0.1 from the last bill over the two years, with NO devices attached to the meter. Months go by as I laugh at each slightly increased bill for the 0.1 plus fees. Finally I've had enough and call to see what's up. The guy tells me its an automated system. But to be sure it stops they "NEED" to come out again and remove the meter and shut off at the street. Ok, lets do that. Guy says "I just need a name to put on the work order." I say call me Occupant. HA!

[aerostealth]

Actually installing more generating capacity could cause thr rates to raise. Utilities should do what they can to encourage power conservation. I am not saying many of them are aware of this however. There is a great book on this however called Virgins and Dynamos.

[jamesqf]

Why do some of you seem to think it costs nothing to maintain the electric & gas lines coming in to your house? Or would you rather have them charge a couple of thousand or so to fix your line the one time a windstorm or something takes it out?

[bentring]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Why do some of you seem to think it costs nothing to maintain the electric & gas lines coming in to your house? Or would you rather have them charge a couple of thousand or so to fix your line the one time a windstorm or something takes it out?

Virtually every business known to man has overhead costs but basically only the businesses that are considered a necessity (or the ones that are monopolies) tend to help pay for the overhead costs by charging the costumer extra fees.

[aerostealth]

It is a regressive tax on the poor and the person who conserves. It needs to restructured to encourage conservation and the profligate end user should pay more to support the system.

[user removed]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Why do some of you seem to think it costs nothing to maintain the electric & gas lines coming in to your house? Or would you rather have them charge a couple of thousand or so to fix your line the one time a windstorm or something takes it out?

Which could get VERY expensive for those living a considerable distance from any other power customers. something they are not trying to recover on an individual basis.

regards
mech

[Fat Charlie]

So you save money by using very little electricity. It costs them just as much to keep a line connected to your house as it does to keep one connected to your next door neighbor regardless of who uses how much electricity. Why should his electric usage rates pay for your line connection?

Just by having the connection to your house, they've got costs. Every hurricane, lightning strike and drunk driver adds to their delivery costs and none of it has anything at all to do with how much electricity you use or don't use. In many places you can even buy electricity from another provider over their lines, making it even more important that their line connection end covers its own expenses.

Maybe you went with net metered grid tied solar. Now you're not buying any electricity from them even though most of the electricity you use is at night when your panels aren't producing anything. So instead of buying (and finding space for, running and maintinaing) your own battery bank and sweating out the cloudy days you're letting their grid do all that for you by buying all of your production and later supplying you with all your needs out of their own production. And all the while saying "I don't know what they're charging me for, I use less than I produce!"

It's not so much that the pricing is regressive, it's that many consumers don't look at what they're actually consuming.

[aerostealth]

It is regressive. If there is a fixed fee then a small user pays a higher percentage then a large user. In order not to have to build new generators the utility should encourage conservation not discourage it.

If I get on a turnpike I don't pay the same fee for a short travel time as I do for traveling the whole turnpike. Sometimes fees are rated on the number of axles or gross weights. Those who use more should pay more. It makes no sense to charge a small user a effective rate of 20 cents a kwh and a large user 10 cents.