HEard on the national news that CA was going to double electricity prices this summer to encourage conservation of energy. Anyone in CA with more info? Seems it all starts there and works eastward. Should I get a twelth job?:)

-- Terri Perry (teperry@stargate.net), March 28, 2001

Answers

Terri:

The maximum rate increase approved was 48%. The measure was not directly for conservation, but to provide operating funds for the state's utilities. For years they have been caught in the squeeze between being prohibited from raising rates to met rising costs and the demand to provide the service. Approved rates may still be below what they might have been in an open market situation.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), March 28, 2001.

Terri, I'm not in CA, so not qualified to answer your specific question. I heard that on the news this a.m. also. In WA, our rates went up 33% in January. That was pretty steep. Now we are going to have our power bills figured on the basis of *when* we use our power. It will be cheaper if we use the KW hours after 9 pm etc. The one that really gets me, though, is that it will be cheaper for folks who reduce their power consumption by 10% or more from April 1 going forward. Well, fine....but we already practically live without electricity around our place! Not much more we can do, so we will miss out b/c we have already been frugal!! (Last Sunday's lesson at church was the Prodigal Son, so I'm trying to apply some of that here and not be crabby about it! Just glad they will conserve, I guess!)

Power will be majorly expensive this summer, of that I am certain. There is so little water up here in the reservoirs....our rain and snow pack are down something like 50-80% from our normal levels....

Time to learn another lesson, I guess....

-- sheepish (WA) (rborgo@gte.net), March 28, 2001.

I keep hearing about this unconscionable increase, but no one EVER mentions anything except the PERCENTAGE increase! If you (Californians) are paying 2 cents per KWH, and get a 200% increase, then it sounds like a lot, but you're still only paying 6 cents! What are you paying now, and what will you pay after this huge increase? Guess what we're paying in Maine, without a supply problem?! GL!

-- Brad (homefixer@SacoRiver.net), March 28, 2001.

How much are you paying now for electricity? Our rates here in W.WA went up 35% in Jan to .065 KWH and they are saying on the news right now that they will go up another 33% by next Oct. when the Bonneville wholesale rates change. I saw on the news that S.Calif rates would go up to 6.5 cents a KWH...those poor people! The reason why they have had cheap electricity was the abundance here in the NW. Our utilities were forced by Bush to sell to CA to prevent the rolling black outs. Now we are paying from our wallets and if the lack of rain and snow pack pan out like they say we might have rolling blackouts this summer and fall. There are power utilities in Calif. and adjacent states making huge profits over this free for all power grab. BC Canada has been selling power stateside and they have so much extra money that they are giving rebates back to their customers. $300 per customer last month! They are showing on the news now how everyone will pay higher prices for food because of the problems in CA. At least one good might come out of this. People might come to realize that power and water is not a given and the wastefull use may come to an end. Here is a picture of a resevoir 40 ft under water near Mt Baker I took 3 weeks ago. I was holding my breath when I took the pic!...;-)

-- Kent in WA (kent@premier1.net), March 28, 2001.

Try that pic again.

-- Kent in WA (kent@premier1.net), March 28, 2001.

One last time!

-- Kent in WA (kent@premier1.net), March 28, 2001.

Interesting question Brad. I did a little research and found:

"a rate increase of 3 cents per kilowatt-hour and made permanent a charge of 1 cent per kilowatt-hour that was adopted as a temporary measure in January" AND "Taken together, electricity rates for customers of Pacific Gas & Electric will increase by 42 percent over last year."

My quick calculation gives a NEW rate of about $0.13 per KWH. CA has a fairly mild climate, so the base rate is not the whole picture. I also found the following statement:

Loretta Lynch, who heads the state's Public Utilities Commission, said the panel approved the rate increases because it believed it had no other choice at this stage of the state's struggle to resolve its energy crisis. The rate increases could boost electricity costs per resident by as much as $200 a year.

Going by the last statement (note the AS MUCH AS) I would guess the average yearly bill must be about $400 before the rate increase or less than $40 per month. Before anyone jumps on these numbers, remember thay are only seat of the pants guesstaments.

-- Lynn Goltz (lynngoltz@aol.com), March 28, 2001.

Ok, what am I doing wrong?

-- Kent in WA (kent@premier1.net), March 28, 2001.

Most people won't be hurt that much by the increases, only the ones on fixed income. My mom is 73 and lives near Seattle is so affraid of the bills and water conservation that she is only washing clothes once a week. Won't flush the toilet with each use. Barely heats her home. She is on natural gas....that's another story...she will only shower once a week and her power and gas bills have doubled this year! I've tried to help, but she's too proud to ask for help. It's very sad. It's looking like the gap between alternative power sources cost wise is getting closer and closer.

-- Kent in WA (kent@premier1.net), March 28, 2001.

testing . . .

-- Joy F (So.Central Wisconsin) (CatFlunky@excite.com), March 29, 2001.

It isn't just heating that's a problem either. For some people, cooling is a necessity - particularly in California, I gather. I read a web page ( http://forevertheoptimist.weblogs.com/ ) put up by a mother who lives in California, and who has multiple sclerosis. Excess heat is very ungood for her - in fact, it can even send her blind - so far only temporarily. She says the forthcoming increase plus the last one add up to 60% for them - so far.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), March 29, 2001.

The thing that will REALLY make this a problem isn't residential effects, it's businesses. Prices will go up up up, and production will go down down down and people will lose their jobs so they won't be able to pay their higher electrical bills. That is my take on it. How can you house a bunch of people in a non windowed highrise and cut back on air? What about heavy industry? Ventilation, heat, cooling, electronics, grocery stores, almost every business will be tremendously affected by it and possibly out of business because of it.

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@excite.com), March 29, 2001.

Howdy - first post. Wanted to say that I am learning a lot just reading answers here. On electricity, our bills without a/c or heat for a small house is around $200.00. Maybe California has had price caps in effect too long.

-- Eric Childs/Tx (childs5@vvm.com), March 29, 2001.

Doreen is right. The price is relative. And yes, we have enjoyed low electricity prices for decades...after all, the dams are right in our backyard!

I don't quite get it with the requests for residential customers to do all this conservation. It's really business users who have the hig demand for power. I guess every little bit helps, and makes all us small fry feel like we have some control over the situation. uh-huh...

-- sheepish (WA) (rborgo@gte.net), March 29, 2001.

I'd like to complain about the electric prices but as I look out my window and have clear visibility of the mountain. As I inhale and not have to choke on the fumes from the aluminum smelters. Well, I just can't muster up any complaint at this time. Besides, I still think we're all pigs at the electricity trough. Remember back when Jimmy Carter, that dumb ole peanut farmer suggested conservation. Why he got laughed right out of office. Us, the richest country in the world, why should we have to conserve anything. Waking up is hard to do, I guess.

-- jz (oz49us@yahoo.com), March 29, 2001.

The average rate paid per residential customer in CA will rise to 15.5 cents per KWH. Here is the URL to the story http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=004trw

Businesses will be hit ALOT harder. Its not going to be pretty when all is said and done since CA produces about 50% of the nations produce as well as 14% of our GDP.

-- Stacia in OK (oneclassycowgirl@aol.com), March 30, 2001.

Quoting from the link http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch- msg.tcl?msg_id=004trw

"Of course, there are other charges tacked on to all bills. The PUC's action keeps those in place. When all is added together, the average residential rate will rise to 15.05 cents per kilowatt hour, the PUC says." Anyone know what are these "other charges"?

Also, "The largest single increase in electricity prices in California history will brush by an estimated 8 million Californians, the state Public Utilities Commission predicts." Sounds like a bunch of YUPPIES whining about their rates out there.

-- Lynn Goltz (lynngoltz@aol.com), March 30, 2001.

I just left a utility and might be able to shed a bit of light on all of this.

Despite the industry in Cali supposedly being deregulated it is in fact tweaked with and controlled at every level, local to federal. It was never actually deregulated just reregulated.

So its not deregulated, so what?

Well, to be honest, all the short term common sense solutions have been blocked by regulations. What do you do when you run out of tuna? You run out to where there is some and bring it home. So why doesnt California just run out and get some electricity? Besides the fact that they dont sell it at the 7- 11....Anyone? anyone?.....

Cal utilities arent allowed to. Utilities in other states have plenty of electricity available. The utility I just left was only running at about 80% capacity. Its important to understand here that powerplants generally cant just be fired up and shut down so those that can may be able to cut down on some production do when necessary but others like nuclear plants are always running at full bore so what happens is that a utility like the one I was at might be creating nearly 100% of it potential but only 80% is being used. This leaves almost 20% "just laying around".

Now hold on, if 20% of a bunch of utilities is just laying around then why dont you send that spare electricity over here to California?

Im getting to that, hold on. Everyone knows that its just a matter of dumping the extra electricity into the grid to get it from lets say Missouri over to California. The problem here is that the grid is actually a patchwork owned by various utilities and to transmit from Missouri to California it may have to go through a dozen different utility grids and for each grid it goes through there is what is referred to as a wheeling charge applied by each company who owns the grid being transmitted through....

So its those evil utilities just gouging us, eh?

Well no. You see everyone understands that a huge markup by each grid owner would break the deal and no one would make any money so the CEOs of these companies would happily let the electricity come through for a small fee but they cant.

Why not?

Regulations. There are actually MINIMUM profit margins that are required of some utilites by regulation so each utility is forced to charge a massive markup for each transmission which jacks up the price of electricity so quickly that it breaks the deal.

Well, OK, I understand that part, but you said that California couldnt buy electricity from other companies and I thought that I heard on the news that they were doing just that.

Yes, they are buying some but it is not from across the country where competition might allow California to set up a contract with another utility to sell it to you cheaply. We already discussed wheeling charges so that knocks out the chance for most of us to compete for your business. California is then forced to buy from utilities who are nearby and are paying very little or no wheeling charges for their overage and there is very little competition....

See! I told you that it was those utilities gouging us!

Not really. You see the utilites nearby have to approach a strategy that allows them to make enough per sale to make it worth their time. You see the utility in California,

due to regulations

, is not allowed to sign a long term contract for electricity. It bids and rebids, something ridiculous like every 15 minutes, for little spurts of electricity from whoever says that they will sell it most cheaply at that particular moment. If you dont think that thats quite fair then think of it as a volume discount. How much does it cost you per pound to buy a 50lb bag of corn compared to the price you would pay per pound if you bought a ton? or the price of one egg instead of buying a dozen?

I guess I can see that, too. I cant wait until this is over...

Well, it wont be anytime soon unless you folks in California get the government at all levels out of the process.

Why is that?Because of government intervention electricity cant come from the outside. It wont be coming from the inside because plants cant be built: coal plants are too dirty, nuclear is just too scary, and hydro bothers the fish, besides those are all illegal one way or another. That leaves wind which is presently too expensive and chops up birdies, so no one will support it. Now we are down to natural gas and solar. Natural gas plants could theoretically be built but it wouldnt do any good. There are 4 natural gas pipelines going to California that are all already at capacity. More pipelines obviously would cost a lot of money but there are companies willing to do it but they cant. There are so many parks and endangered critter zones and suburbs and what have you that there is no good way to get the new pipelines in. So California could build 100 gas plants and still not have any power because the plants would have no fuel. That only leaves solar, you would wind up paving the state with panels and then truly would you begin to understand what high electricity prices were.

I guess we're in trouble...

In the near future yes, but things are going to get a lot worse if Gray Davis is allowed to socialize the utilities as he is presently trying to do. Your only chance is to dismantle Davis's recent fascist style reregulated utilities and throw him and his lackeys out in the street before he implements his plan for soviet style utilities.

-- William in Wi (gnarledmaw@lycos.com), March 30, 2001.

Sic'em William! Well put. Do you have any experience with Hydro Canada?

-- greg (gsmith@tricountyi.net), March 30, 2001.

Good post William. The just "laying around" of excess power is generally referred to as spinning reserve. Here is Arizona we have a large excess generation capacity, spinning reserve, in the winter and almost none in the summer. Right now California is buying lots of power from us when we do not need it; however, this summer it will be a different story. Currently Arizona has eighteen plants in various phases of work, from approval cycle to active construction. A lot of this power will be sold to CA until such time that we need it for our own use. With our growth rate it will not be long until we will use it all.

-- Lynn Goltz (lynngoltz@aol.com), March 30, 2001.

You might think of a career as a power producing company lobbyist Wilem, but I'm not buying it. There is power shipped between states, at least out west, in an ongoing fashion. From my home i can see the inverter station hooked to the biggest dc power line in the country.I'm in Washington and guess where it goes, L A and I believe that is in california. It seems to me most of these independent power producers are corporations and their sole purpose is profit for the shareholders. but they are going to look out for the consumer.ya, right. Give me the good old days when the power and phone utilities were recognized as monopolies and regulated in a way to protect the little guy. Only thing worse than big government is big business, in my opinion.

-- jz (oz49us@yahoo.com), March 31, 2001.

LA and the rest of CA are on different pricing scales, different utilities. LA has their own. When I moved to Oregon, 7 years ago, from western New York where we were served by NYSEG, (NY State Gas & electric)my residential electric rate was $.014 pre KwH, I have recently heard that it is $.016, that anint cheap. The rate here was less than 5c per KwH but since then we have had an increase of 13% and expect another of about 30%. That is still cheap electricity. what bothers me is that Oregon and Washington have to supply power to CA. at our expense, needless to say that we may have to suffer blackouts too. As a farmer/rancher, we are dependent on power to run irrigation pumps and we pay an additional 2c for that as well as a percentage of useage, pole charge. I have devised a plan where I can cut my power needs for irrigation by 50-60% this summer but I hate to think that I am doing it so someone in California can run their hot tub, heat their pool or run a AC. It takes a lot of water to make electricity here, we don't have much this year. There has been an on going project to save the Salmon in the Pacific north west and now, with a water shortage and the greater need for electricity, they may have to abandon the whole thing. As it is, my irrigations sorce will not last much past June or July. We don't have air conditioning, fans, yes, the tempertures can get over 100 degress here in the summer, (it is great for drying firewood). there is a constant threat of wildfires here and we need our water for those events too. Those of us who live in the PNW are getting the dirty end of the stick, try on our prices for Propane, $2.50 per gallon, diesel(off road) $1.36-1.50, Gas, $1.55-1.85, Kerosene, $2.00

-- Hendo (OR) (redgate@echoweb.net), April 01, 2001.

Greg,

I dont personally have any knowledge of hydro Cananda but I do still have plenty of contacts I can talk to for you if there is a particular thing that you are interested in.

-- William in Wi (gnarledmaw@lycos.com), April 02, 2001.

I'm not sure whether to respond to this question, living in southern CA. It seems that some readers place the blame of most recent energy increases across the country at the feet of the "whining yuppies". Here's my electric bill for February: Electric energy charge per kWh is $.19180 My bill went up 3 fold over the previous month. Other charges : transmission charge: 6.52 distribution charge: 42.50 public purpose programs: 3.33 Nuclear decommissioning: 0.61 Trust Transfer amount: 10.19 Competition transition charge: 10.53

Since many people have not been able to afford this kind of utility bill the state legislature has set temporary caps at this level:

baseline allowance 249 kWh @$.06367 non baseline cost is $.0838 The downside is that the balance is going to come due someday. And right now it looks like the burden will sit with the tax payers and the rate payers.

We are currently experiencing rolling blackouts. And we are having a late spring with mild temperatures. Business does place the largest demand on the grid. But soon, the temps will climb up into the 90's and 100's in my area and residential users won't have the option of running the AC. My last propane charge was $2.69 a gallon. And the cheapest gasoline is currently $1.76 for the lowest octane rating. We pay a premium for living in this part of the state, but our usage hasn't been the cause of this crisis. It was a political move towards deregulation of a public utility. Some say the shortage is artificial, to drive up prices. The two largest benifactors of the high cost of power in CA have both been large energy suppliers in Texas: Duke and Sempra. And President Bush says its Okay with him.

-- Dwight Duncan (summit1762@aol.com), April 04, 2001.

Dwight, we still operate under a capitalistic system in this country. If Californians don't want to build power plants for whatever reason, they should expect to pay to import the power from other regions. It is a simple matter of supply and demand. Lower your usage and the price will go down. Build more plants to produce power (at competitive rates) and the price will go down. If you insist on importing lots of your power from other regions, expect to pay as much as the market will sustain.

-- Lynn Goltz (lynngoltz@aol.com), April 04, 2001.

Even if everyone conserves, the fact is that homes have been designed to be completely dependent upon the grid. This combined with the businesses that are dependent, both of a necessity, and just by building designs causes a serious problem for more than just California. Lynn, have a heart. It isn't all yuppies sucking up energy like they can't run enough eletrical apliances simultaneously. In the summer when it gets beyond livable in the desert communities people are going to die from this. The economy is going to feel the effects tremendously. We are not insulated against that. Imagine all the people that will strive to move, and won't be able to sell. The dust bowl all over again. We pay for mismanagement, but please everyone, try to grow a little compassion.

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@excite.com), April 04, 2001.

Doreen, I live in the Sonoraian desert so I do know what hot weather is all about. In the last five years I have slowly worked on making my home more energy efficient. My summer power usage is now about half of what it was in 1995. We also have had the political will to build power plants. Yes, the plants may pollute somewhat. but that is our choice. California utilities own most of the largest nuclear power plant in the United State and it is located 50 miles west of Phoenix. We will have to pay taxes to decommission it, not Californians. I do have a heart, but it does not work very well for others that are not willing to be accountable for their own choices.

-- Lynn Goltz (lynngoltz@aol.com), April 04, 2001.

I live in So. Cal. and the rate hike was approved. I don't know how much conservation it will spark. Just last week temps were in the high 70's - low 80's and most people I spoke with were running air conditioning all weekend. Those temps are not even very hot for our area. What are they going to do in the summer when it can get above 100 degrees. The area we live in can get warmer that the coastal areas of our county and we manage just fine with ceiling fans.

Although outages would be a good wake-up call for most people I do worry about housebound seniors and people with medical conditions. My dad had a stroke last fall and I know the heat would be very uncomfortable for him.

Also of concern are the small businesses. Some may be able to continue with no power, but what about small markets and butcher shops. My sister is a self employed writer and works on a computer most of the day. My hubby and I took her to buy a generator that would run her computer and fridge.

Any way I hope people realize that this is a reality and not just a scam.

-- jennifer schwabauer (schwabauer@aol.com), April 04, 2001.

Why make this so complicated. We had regulated monopolies for how long? Customers had dependable, reasonable, electrical supplies. Suppliers got a 'Guaranteed' return on their money as well as the stockholders. When we called the power company we got to talk to a human ( not now , it's not cost effective in the competitive world.) Those were the days. And then along came GREED. Well guess who's gonna pay.

-- jz (oz49us@yahoo.com), April 04, 2001.

jz, greed may have played a part; however, the most important ingredient was stupidity. Stupidity on the politician's part thinking there was a free lunch.

-- Lynn Goltz (lynngoltz@aol.com), April 05, 2001.

Hi, I am living in Northern California in a 1700 sq ft house. Our baseline for electric usage is 360kWh per month. Last month, we used about 240kWh. And we are hoping that our usage does not increase much this month. We are not using our AC and close our blinds during the day so that the house doesn't get hot. At night, we open the windows and the breeze cools us down. Also, I have started shutting down my computer at home and make sure my monitor is switched off at the office when I leave.

The deregulation mechanism in California is a major embarassment. Perhaps the best model is in use in England and Wales and Victoria, Australia. There, they use a pool mechanism. All the generators are required to sell into a single pool of electricity and all the big buyers (distributors and industrial users) are required to buy from the pool. The price of electricity changes every half hour and is the highest price charged by any generator for that 30 minute period. Therefore, there is little incentive for generators to create any artificial shortages. The California system is a sucker for price gouging (I am not saying that capitalism is bad). I hope that the guys in Sacramento figure out how to undo the bad situation (I think it is going to be difficult). Meanwhile, let us all do our best to conserve electricity which is a good thing anyways.

Peace!

-- Neel Kumar (neelvk@terway.com), May 21, 2001.

Our last electric bill up here in NW WA for two months was $60 -- we have a strawbale house with woodstove heat and use a propane stove. The electricity runs some lights, TV, radio, computer, fridge, water heater and well pump. How does that compare to where you are?

-- snoozy (bunny@northsound.net), May 22, 2001.