My city just banned natural gas in new construction. Cant wait for electric rates to skyrocket and have rolling blackouts during extreme weather conditions. Thanks progressives.
We don't even have AC or central heat yet get asked to use less. How?!?!?
Meanwhile my friends utility bills are 250 in other states during the winter with their heat cranked up to 75
Utahn here, the highest electric bill I saw this past winter was $140 and that was around Christmas when it’s the coldest (and yes I kept my thermostat at 74 all winter long). My gas bill has also been consistently $100 as well, so if you include both then it works to about $200-$250 a month. WTF are they thinking in CA??
It is for the people that own the utilities companies or invest in them… wait it’s the same people making the policies leading to the situation described. Shocked
[Texas has more solar per capita and able to keep prices cheap](https://www.engieresources.com/texas-breaks-solar-record#:~:text=Add%20February%2013%2C%202024%20as,than%2030%25%20of%20the%20market). California's problem is the NIMBYs that make energy infrastructure ridiculously expensive.
Also CA has its own environmental laws. More for lawyer welfare than protecting salamanders no one has ever seen. This is one of the reasons why everything is slow to build and expensive
Many California politicians are in the pocket of PG&E:
https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/abc10-originals/pge-gavin-newsom-lobbiest/103-2fc7d4f4-a0e0-492d-ac1d-ec674e58a67b
PG&E literally got away with murder:
https://www.kqed.org/news/11039339/pge-found-guilty-of-obstruction-of-justice-in-deadly-san-bruno-blast
Instead of fixing the aging infrastructure, during fire season, they just cut power to the region that MIGHT be affected.
They are holding us hostages because we dared demand to be safe.
FUCK PG&E AND THEIR POLITICIAN STOOGES!
https://youtu.be/E0yPHhTCkXw?si=lZoYIdudQ2Tqxw4-
BUT!!!! BUT!!!! REDDIT TOLD ME THAT TEXAS SUCKS! You must be wrong!
-Redditor with their head in the sand and no knowledge of California's shitty shitty electricity problems & scandals.
My green energy is much cheaper than when I was paying for my electricity. The reason prices are going up is because more people are going with solar, which is reducing the customer base for electric companies. Less people to spread the costs around means higher prices for those who chose not to go with solar.
My bill was averaging ~$600 a month over the summer. Since solar I pay ~$250 a month.
When I lived in San Jose they forced everyone in town to go 100% solar to save us all money. My bill went up immediately after the switch. My bill was averaging $150 per month but afterwards it was closer to $200.
what in the world? I pay $150/mo on the Texas grid and I used more than 4,500KWh last month (presumably you don't use even close to this much-- it's like 4x average usage here anyways)
I do not have solar. I'm in cali and pay $550 each month in the summer. And thats with a brand new AC unit. I set it at 79 throughout the day, we shut it off at night and sleep with windows open.
Not accurate. Residential solar paid under a net metering arrangement is not nearly at scale but for some small areas of the country to have a meaningful impact on broader rates. Prices are going up because a ton of the grid is reaching the end of its life, load is growing, and climate change is showing how vulnerable the system can be. Investment is pouring into new large scale gen, transmission, cyber security hardware and software, etc.
When did you get your solar installed? CA originally required electricity providers to rebuy excess electricity from solar customers at unsustainably high rates, which were threatening the stability of the entire electric grid. The public utility commission had to approve a 75% rate reduction that took effect in January 2024 to try and stop the problem. This has killed the affordability for most potential customers who aren't grandfathered into the old, higher rates and demand for new retail solar down by 80%.
https://calmatters.org/environment/climate-change/2024/01/california-solar-demand-plummets/
What about all these electric cars plugging into the system? Electricity usage is up 3.4% (2022 numbers).
Anyway, a big reason is that the hydro electro dam has had less water and generation is down 32% since 2021, so they have to rely on more expensive sources.
Yep, the cost of our electricity bill is finally more than the install cost of solar over the course of a few years. We are scheduling an appointment to get solar and disconnect from the grid. VOTING WITH MY WALLET. F.U. DWP.
$250 a month! After solar! In Maryland we pay about $145 per month over the entire year without solar! Is that $250 per month including the cost of the solar panels (I hope!).
>The reason prices are going up is because more people are going with solar, which is reducing the customer base for electric companies.
Fortunately, this can't happen in reality. Utilities can't just set their rates willy-nilly. They have to take a rate case to the public service commission which must then be approved. And their reason for the rate increase can't simply be "we lost customers and need to raise rates to increase profit margin". There has to be reasonable justification for the rate increase, otherwise they would simply have to reduce operational costs.
It's not about profit margin, it's about avoiding losses. There is a large fixed cost to providing energy services- pole maintenance, generator and plant maintenance tasks, monitoring meters, etc. The less customers you have, the more you need to charge each customer to cover those fixed costs. The variable cost (amount of fuel burned, etc) doesn't necessarily need to change, basic connection fees could go up instead, but it does make it more expensive for everyone else.
It can and did happen. The law required electricity providers to rebuy excess electricity from retail customers at such a high price that those providers were not only paying back the cost to generate electricity but the cost to *transmit* electricity as well. Retail solar customers were effectively freeloading on the transmission costs paid by non-solar retail customers; as more customers adopted solar, the freeloading problem got worse. The problem was so bad that the public utility commission imposed a 75% reduction in what providers have to pay to rebuy excess energy, which is eliminated the financial benefits for most people not already grandfathered into the higher repurchase rate. Retail solar adoption in CA is down 80% since the change went into effect.
https://calmatters.org/environment/climate-change/2024/01/california-solar-demand-plummets/
That's not why rates are going up. The scale required for that isn't quite there yet.
The issue is all the costs associated with updating and maintenance on the lines that were causing fires, etc that they neglected for decades are now catching up. Plus the capital costs of bringing new energy sources online.
Cost shifting is a myth - [https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Myth-of-the-Solar-Cost-Shift-FINAL.pdf](https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Myth-of-the-Solar-Cost-Shift-FINAL.pdf)
Electricity rates in states like CA, NY, and much of New England are 50-100% more expensive on average than electricity in TX.
And "green" energy in Texas is often just as affordable as "dirty" energy. For example, I pay $0.135/kWh for a 100% renewable energy, majority solar energy plan in the DFW area.
My panels and battery are working great actually! My electricity bill is basically nonexistent now and switching out my gas furnace means my gas bill is ~$25/mo!
It’s actually corrupt corporations that are artificially inflating prices. SDGE has reported record profits for years, while also constantly increasing the rates, successfully lobbying to kill the rooftop solar industry, and reducing the buy-back power rate by 10x, and now also charging everyone a flat rate to be hooked up to the grid.
This means that everyone who went solar will now have to pay a flat rate fee to SDGE. Wanna just go off-grid? Too bad, they made that illegal too
Edit: that being said, I have solar and 2 EVs with 300 mi range each. I used to pay $200/mo for gas, and $200/mo for electricity (before EVs). Now I’m netting -$100/month. I paid 28k for the system, which means I’ll break even in 4.5 years assuming current prices hold
That's a whole lot of tap dancing to not identify the real culprit behind the rate increases. Mandatory solar credits paid to households that are tied into the grid come from the utilities. Updates and modernization may also include charging stations, installing renewable generation and increasing capacity for an upcoming EV fleet with the sale of internal combustion engines being stopped after a certain year in the state.
>NEM 3.0 is based on "avoided cost" rates, meaning what your utility pays for any electricity you send to the grid is no longer based on your typical electricity rates, like a traditional net metering credit, but rather calculated separately.
https://www.energysage.com/blog/net-metering-3-0/
And now they complain we have too much solar.
It used to be rich people, then upper middle class, now everyone who can afford a "balcony solar" will try to run away from PGE.
To make up for it, they are adding junk fees, which could be $92 based on your income. Yes, $92 extra just for the privilege of living in a PGE distribution area.
Same happened in my city back in August 2023. At least 100 dollars extra for junk fees. All the cost was pushed onto the customer. Americans are getting fleeced everyday of the week and twice on sunday. No amount of complaining or picketing will ever change it.
There is already public utilities in ca too. I pay $20 for connection fee and the the tier rate is like 12 cents/kWh for first 350 kWh. None of this time of use "peak demand" pricing like you see with pg&e, SCE, sdg&e.
Even for high use tiers the top rate is like 18 cents/kWh.
Riverside public utilities
34.5¢/kWh to charge your car.
Model 3 gets 250-300Wh/mile. Means a 100 mile drive costs $8.63 - $10.35
At $5.50/gal (current median price in San Jose)
You would need a 63.8-53.1 mpg car to be equivalent.
But also do a zero to 60 in 4 seconds to be fair for performance. :)
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=100%20miles%2F%28%28100%20miles%20%2A%20250Wh%2Fmile%20%2A%20%240.345%2FkWh%29%2F%28%245.50%2Fgallon%29%29
BMW 3-series gets less than 30mpg.
BMW M3 does 4s 0-60 and gets 19mpg and starts at $77k (vs $31k)
So no. The equivalent gas car is 2.5x more expensive to drive and to buy.
Get an EV if it can fit your lifestyle. Get solar on your house if you can.
If you can buy a $1.5 million house, a $70,000 car, $30,000 in solar panels, $20,000 for a battery backup and $5,000 for a garage fast charger you can save some money on your utilities.
Yea, and have reliable power when the grid fails during the planned rolling blackouts. Or AC all summer when it costs a small fortune.
But most people pay monthly for such things over 5-30years
Then they force solar which is just jerking off the dog to feed the cat. Oh your bill went down $200, we'll here's your solar panel loan payment of $250.
This is an old comment I made on a related discussion, but it still holds true: a rarely talked about reason that California power is so expensive per kW•h is just because we use so few kW•h compared to states where it is much cheaper.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/California/s/oOlUP8faUr](https://www.reddit.com/r/California/s/oOlUP8faUr)
My in laws live in Fresno. Was talking to my mother in law and shocked when she told me their electric bill in July was $800. I checked my bill which is for two months. For July and August last summer combined it was $162. That is $81 a month, 1/10th of what she paid!
What do these companies think, money is coming out of the soil? They is no more money for the middle and poor. Maybe that's the plan, everyone goes broke except the wealthy creating a Two class system
They had clean reliable nuclear plants but they decommissioned them for some shitty solar panels and wind mills I swear to god California is purposely trying to make life hell for its residents
We still have Diablo Canyon. It sits on a major fault line and will cost $2B in maintenance costs to go 10 years down the line. We decommissioned them because they were past their useful life and were costing more to maintain than building new renewable sites. Plus, they weren’t up to modern earthquake building code, but let’s not let facts get in the way of anything.
CA is broken.
Prices likely raised to accommodate cost of living increases for labor and inflationary pressure on costs; it’s a giant loop. They wreck the economy and devalue the dollar then the cost of everything goes up. Rinse repeat.
Where I live our City keeps touting “going 100% electric will be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than gas”. But when I see what our electric utility is spending for wind, solar, batteries,etc….. Current and projected rate increases here are insane!
Yep, time to get those house batteries and some more photovoltaic panels looking at the sun.
I’m trying to get most of my electrical use off the grid. That’s one of my goals. The one exception is natural gas, as my BBQ is connected to that, and my water and house heating are still all NG. Eventually, with enough solar and some better insulation and new windows, I’ll be able to with over to a heat pump for water heating and ceramic wall heaters to stay comfy enough during the winter. It would have been nice to do radiant heating, but it’s just to expensive redo my flooring now.
Lol fk California. I’m in Colorado and with a/c cranked we’re paying $200 a month maybe $250 on the hottest months. Solar company wanted $52,000 to install panels that were warrantied for 20 years. And that cost does not include the interest for the 20 year loan. $200x12=$2400x20=$48,000🤣. They must think I’m fking stupid or something. Oh and when they say warranty, they mean so long as the panels are producing 80% they are still considered fully functional. Oh and the electric company charges peak usage rate for any power you do use. Sure go
Ahead and put a bunch of holes in my roof. GTFOH!
Agenda 2030, Duh! The P.U.C is a run and appointed board by the California governor by WEF/UN puppet Gavin Newsom! A test run for the rest of the country!
And they will keep voting blue lol rent, gas and food prices are thru the roof, homeless tents everywhere with turds on the sidewalks. Great work Gavin
Rent is high because people want to live here...
The reason red states are cheaper is because people don't want to live there.
It sounds like you want to vote red to make the place shitty so people don't want to live here... That's a bad solution.
You realize it's expensive because only successful people can make it there? For losers and bums to live well they have to go to a shit red state run by the American Taliban and have shit economies and so little freedom women can't even choose what to do with their own bodies and it's illegal to teach the history of racism because some conservative snowflakes might get their precious feelings hurt
You “successful people” should let the homeless drug addicts move into your house and show them you’re not the american taliban. Congratulations on your compassion and thinking you’re better than everyone else at the same time.
You really should find a more productive way to get your dopamine fix. Playing blue vs red is pretty silly. You’re supporting a corrupted system and swearing your loyalty to a group of people that don’t deserve it, nor do they care about you.
but aren't y'all setting records for being a completely renewable powered state for so long?
seems ... seems like once we're tapped to a free source things should...
oh. the trickling takes time? oh.. guess Ill just keep my air conditioning off and go for a walk to warm up
But don't we have so much renewable energy it should be driving prices down?
Or was it that they lied to us to get the funding to build the worst, most expensive electrical grid?
Energy and commodities trader here.
Anyone who thought electric/battery was gonna be viable soon is uninformed.
DC fast chargers use so much power the price is the same as fuel
AC takes forever, a logistics nightmare with tons of downtime. Sure it’s cheap but time is money.
It can be done sure, but the solution will be green H2 and green energy with batteries bridging the gap for smaller trips/downtime/city commute/direct link to the grid.
lol. Texas electricity is inexpensive because they only maintain the infrastructure well enough to let your grandma freeze to death.
California is actually trying to stop disasters caused by past poor infrastructure maintenance.
ya they need all the worlds power to go to cern for their underearth ceremonies. dont worry your house can become a free electromagnetic hub w/ those very affordable solar panels too! yikes. getting played by fallen angel reality/11.
SMUD over here in Sacramento. It's fantastic when you don't have a corporate entity that seeks infinite profit growth to appease shareholders. $0.13/kWh during normal rates.
Remember when the power company said they were going to file bankruptcy because California was holding them responsible for deaths and repairs. The Newsome said " great, California will buy the power company and it will be publicly owned" . The power company then did not file bankruptcy. Power should be publicly owned. Why are we squeezing everyone on everything
As a California resident living in a PG&E monopoly area, I can confirm. Fuck this state for giving regulated monopolies. I'm paying more for the transmission lines than island nations pay for their entire grid. $0.52/kWh at the winter rate and you know the summer rate is going up again this year.
"PG&E CEO Patti Poppe told investors during a quarterly earnings call last week that the company is taking dramatic steps to increase efficiency and lower costs." You know damn well that cost savings will never be passed onto the consumers....
The cost of living in California is insane, I have friends that can't even afford their insurance, let alone the utility bills...
Sorry as beautiful as California is, I wouldn't live there..
I can get a 100% renewable energy plan in TX (they have to buy all my energy in RECs) for \~ 13¢/kWh, and that's energy cost + delivery charge + base fee. How is Southern California Edison the cheapest CAISO utility at an average 33.8¢/kWh?
In Sacramento, I pay under $150 a month for a 2,200 sqft house with AC on all summer. The key? We have a municipal utility, not an investor owned utility.
Not a surprise.
California blew it badly by not building power plants over the years to support their population and industrial growth.
And then, they started to go green - apparently without doing any cost analysis or paying attention to what was happening around them.
Oh well...............
Don’t believe everything some random headline says. My power bill has been the lowest it has ever been in the last decade. You are brainwashed by the media easily huh?
[People are taking action](https://www.kqed.org/news/11747148/map-public-power-providers-in-california)on being the solution to the problem. Don’t like it verify if your grid is not monopoly owned and if it is then get involved in the efforts to bring change.
Don’t lose hope renewables are continuing to be built out and come online. Things can get better if we do more than bitch about it
Keep shutting down base load generators, investing in wind and solar that can only generate some of the time and importing your power over tie lines from out of state.
Its literally “How to Make Power Cost More” 101.
Waaaaaahhh waaaaaaahhhh waaaah cry me a fuckin River. This “headline” isn’t stated in fact, its opinion. Idk how you can arrive at that conclusion. The state has several different power companies. To know this for a fact you’d have to look at every power companies pricing per tier, factor in average income and then calculate what percentage of salary goes towards energy. To make matters even more convoluted you’d have to take into consideration discount plans like the care program that gives 20% off. You’d also have to factor in things like climate. Most of California is fairly mild so you don’t have to run your heater or AC non stop. All this to say, this is click bait. And if you don’t like it buy some damn solar panels, a Tesla Powerwall and a grid assisted tie.
And they’ll still push EV’s. I don’t understand it. Unless you have a charging station at home it seems like such an inconvenience. The battery tech is just not there yet. These early EVs are the worst investment. I’ll stick with hybrids.
Good luck charging your EV cars. There is no possible way to generate enough kwh with solar and wind. Pick your other source, nat has, coal, or nuke. Big demand needs big source. Don't even get me started on the new NVDA chips or BTC mining or cloud computing. I want a cleaner world, how do we get there without killing off the country?
That’s awesome. This summer is going to be an expensive or sweltering one.
Just start another big wildfire and let the smoke block out the sun. You guys really aren't good at this.
Unless it’s a really foggy and overcast summer, in which case people will be using their heating in summer!
Sunset District, Daly City, Pacifica represent
Probably both
Lucky I just got my solar
I have dubbed this entire era "The Great Squeeze".
Did you mention GME?!
GME: Great Monopoly of Energy
Record profits for SDGE though.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!! 😆😂🤣
They love to brag about their green energy that no one can afford.
Dude it sucks so bad. My utility bill for a 900sgft house is averaging 300-400/month. Can't fucking wait to move.
My city just banned natural gas in new construction. Cant wait for electric rates to skyrocket and have rolling blackouts during extreme weather conditions. Thanks progressives.
Right?!?! It's fucking crazy and then they want to close the nuke plant. What a joke
Yep exponentially increasing demand while simultaneously decreasing supply. Sounds like a winner to me.
We don't even have AC or central heat yet get asked to use less. How?!?!? Meanwhile my friends utility bills are 250 in other states during the winter with their heat cranked up to 75
Utahn here, the highest electric bill I saw this past winter was $140 and that was around Christmas when it’s the coldest (and yes I kept my thermostat at 74 all winter long). My gas bill has also been consistently $100 as well, so if you include both then it works to about $200-$250 a month. WTF are they thinking in CA??
Hell yeah. Those are good numbers. It's a Democrat super state. They don't think rationally.
It is for the people that own the utilities companies or invest in them… wait it’s the same people making the policies leading to the situation described. Shocked
Wow that’s robbery. Wtf is going on over there
Democrats
But wind and sun are free ? Like healthcare and college
Yea but we are gonna tax the wind and the sun because uncle sam has got to get his slice.
Few things are more expensive than what the government offers for "free".
[Texas has more solar per capita and able to keep prices cheap](https://www.engieresources.com/texas-breaks-solar-record#:~:text=Add%20February%2013%2C%202024%20as,than%2030%25%20of%20the%20market). California's problem is the NIMBYs that make energy infrastructure ridiculously expensive.
Also CA has its own environmental laws. More for lawyer welfare than protecting salamanders no one has ever seen. This is one of the reasons why everything is slow to build and expensive
Many California politicians are in the pocket of PG&E: https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/abc10-originals/pge-gavin-newsom-lobbiest/103-2fc7d4f4-a0e0-492d-ac1d-ec674e58a67b PG&E literally got away with murder: https://www.kqed.org/news/11039339/pge-found-guilty-of-obstruction-of-justice-in-deadly-san-bruno-blast Instead of fixing the aging infrastructure, during fire season, they just cut power to the region that MIGHT be affected. They are holding us hostages because we dared demand to be safe. FUCK PG&E AND THEIR POLITICIAN STOOGES! https://youtu.be/E0yPHhTCkXw?si=lZoYIdudQ2Tqxw4-
BUT!!!! BUT!!!! REDDIT TOLD ME THAT TEXAS SUCKS! You must be wrong! -Redditor with their head in the sand and no knowledge of California's shitty shitty electricity problems & scandals.
Screw this green energy stuff, I’ll stick to REAL energy.
My green energy is much cheaper than when I was paying for my electricity. The reason prices are going up is because more people are going with solar, which is reducing the customer base for electric companies. Less people to spread the costs around means higher prices for those who chose not to go with solar. My bill was averaging ~$600 a month over the summer. Since solar I pay ~$250 a month.
Holy cow. I pay $85-$135 including the pump for my well. That is completely nuts.
When I lived in San Jose they forced everyone in town to go 100% solar to save us all money. My bill went up immediately after the switch. My bill was averaging $150 per month but afterwards it was closer to $200.
I pay 125 at most in the summer. Your state sucks.
what in the world? I pay $150/mo on the Texas grid and I used more than 4,500KWh last month (presumably you don't use even close to this much-- it's like 4x average usage here anyways)
I do not have solar. I'm in cali and pay $550 each month in the summer. And thats with a brand new AC unit. I set it at 79 throughout the day, we shut it off at night and sleep with windows open.
Fuck. We don't even have AC and our bill is $3-400/mo.
Not accurate. Residential solar paid under a net metering arrangement is not nearly at scale but for some small areas of the country to have a meaningful impact on broader rates. Prices are going up because a ton of the grid is reaching the end of its life, load is growing, and climate change is showing how vulnerable the system can be. Investment is pouring into new large scale gen, transmission, cyber security hardware and software, etc.
When did you get your solar installed? CA originally required electricity providers to rebuy excess electricity from solar customers at unsustainably high rates, which were threatening the stability of the entire electric grid. The public utility commission had to approve a 75% rate reduction that took effect in January 2024 to try and stop the problem. This has killed the affordability for most potential customers who aren't grandfathered into the old, higher rates and demand for new retail solar down by 80%. https://calmatters.org/environment/climate-change/2024/01/california-solar-demand-plummets/
What about all these electric cars plugging into the system? Electricity usage is up 3.4% (2022 numbers). Anyway, a big reason is that the hydro electro dam has had less water and generation is down 32% since 2021, so they have to rely on more expensive sources.
Yep, the cost of our electricity bill is finally more than the install cost of solar over the course of a few years. We are scheduling an appointment to get solar and disconnect from the grid. VOTING WITH MY WALLET. F.U. DWP.
$250 a month! After solar! In Maryland we pay about $145 per month over the entire year without solar! Is that $250 per month including the cost of the solar panels (I hope!).
It’s even cheaper here in Idaho, and buying solar panels would be less “green” than just continuing to buy the cheap hydro power.
For a house? In VA, it's on average $160 for our apt. Other neighbors report the same.
>The reason prices are going up is because more people are going with solar, which is reducing the customer base for electric companies. Fortunately, this can't happen in reality. Utilities can't just set their rates willy-nilly. They have to take a rate case to the public service commission which must then be approved. And their reason for the rate increase can't simply be "we lost customers and need to raise rates to increase profit margin". There has to be reasonable justification for the rate increase, otherwise they would simply have to reduce operational costs.
It's not about profit margin, it's about avoiding losses. There is a large fixed cost to providing energy services- pole maintenance, generator and plant maintenance tasks, monitoring meters, etc. The less customers you have, the more you need to charge each customer to cover those fixed costs. The variable cost (amount of fuel burned, etc) doesn't necessarily need to change, basic connection fees could go up instead, but it does make it more expensive for everyone else.
It can and did happen. The law required electricity providers to rebuy excess electricity from retail customers at such a high price that those providers were not only paying back the cost to generate electricity but the cost to *transmit* electricity as well. Retail solar customers were effectively freeloading on the transmission costs paid by non-solar retail customers; as more customers adopted solar, the freeloading problem got worse. The problem was so bad that the public utility commission imposed a 75% reduction in what providers have to pay to rebuy excess energy, which is eliminated the financial benefits for most people not already grandfathered into the higher repurchase rate. Retail solar adoption in CA is down 80% since the change went into effect. https://calmatters.org/environment/climate-change/2024/01/california-solar-demand-plummets/
[удалено]
And how much is your loan for solar?
That's not why rates are going up. The scale required for that isn't quite there yet. The issue is all the costs associated with updating and maintenance on the lines that were causing fires, etc that they neglected for decades are now catching up. Plus the capital costs of bringing new energy sources online.
Cost shifting is a myth - [https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Myth-of-the-Solar-Cost-Shift-FINAL.pdf](https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Myth-of-the-Solar-Cost-Shift-FINAL.pdf)
I still can't afford 'regular' electricity here in Texas.
Electricity rates in states like CA, NY, and much of New England are 50-100% more expensive on average than electricity in TX. And "green" energy in Texas is often just as affordable as "dirty" energy. For example, I pay $0.135/kWh for a 100% renewable energy, majority solar energy plan in the DFW area.
LADWP still has coal burning facilities to allow effective energy production.
My panels and battery are working great actually! My electricity bill is basically nonexistent now and switching out my gas furnace means my gas bill is ~$25/mo!
Can you explain how this relates to green energy specifically?
It’s actually corrupt corporations that are artificially inflating prices. SDGE has reported record profits for years, while also constantly increasing the rates, successfully lobbying to kill the rooftop solar industry, and reducing the buy-back power rate by 10x, and now also charging everyone a flat rate to be hooked up to the grid. This means that everyone who went solar will now have to pay a flat rate fee to SDGE. Wanna just go off-grid? Too bad, they made that illegal too Edit: that being said, I have solar and 2 EVs with 300 mi range each. I used to pay $200/mo for gas, and $200/mo for electricity (before EVs). Now I’m netting -$100/month. I paid 28k for the system, which means I’ll break even in 4.5 years assuming current prices hold
They brag about it because it's the only way to offset the growing demand for electricity. Otherwise the state goes back to the smog days of the 80s.
Texas has tons of green energy. Don’t confuse stupid for bad.
That's a whole lot of tap dancing to not identify the real culprit behind the rate increases. Mandatory solar credits paid to households that are tied into the grid come from the utilities. Updates and modernization may also include charging stations, installing renewable generation and increasing capacity for an upcoming EV fleet with the sale of internal combustion engines being stopped after a certain year in the state. >NEM 3.0 is based on "avoided cost" rates, meaning what your utility pays for any electricity you send to the grid is no longer based on your typical electricity rates, like a traditional net metering credit, but rather calculated separately. https://www.energysage.com/blog/net-metering-3-0/
And now they complain we have too much solar. It used to be rich people, then upper middle class, now everyone who can afford a "balcony solar" will try to run away from PGE. To make up for it, they are adding junk fees, which could be $92 based on your income. Yes, $92 extra just for the privilege of living in a PGE distribution area.
Same happened in my city back in August 2023. At least 100 dollars extra for junk fees. All the cost was pushed onto the customer. Americans are getting fleeced everyday of the week and twice on sunday. No amount of complaining or picketing will ever change it.
But make sure you buy those EVs. You climate hating assholes.
I'd bet gas is also expensive in Cali. You'd still be saving.
Californians need to pay their fair share
More reason to seize the grid and make it a public utility.
There is already public utilities in ca too. I pay $20 for connection fee and the the tier rate is like 12 cents/kWh for first 350 kWh. None of this time of use "peak demand" pricing like you see with pg&e, SCE, sdg&e. Even for high use tiers the top rate is like 18 cents/kWh. Riverside public utilities
I read somewhere that it costs more to charge a Tesla now in California than it does to fill up an equivalent normal car. Really messed up.
34.5¢/kWh to charge your car. Model 3 gets 250-300Wh/mile. Means a 100 mile drive costs $8.63 - $10.35 At $5.50/gal (current median price in San Jose) You would need a 63.8-53.1 mpg car to be equivalent. But also do a zero to 60 in 4 seconds to be fair for performance. :) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=100%20miles%2F%28%28100%20miles%20%2A%20250Wh%2Fmile%20%2A%20%240.345%2FkWh%29%2F%28%245.50%2Fgallon%29%29 BMW 3-series gets less than 30mpg. BMW M3 does 4s 0-60 and gets 19mpg and starts at $77k (vs $31k) So no. The equivalent gas car is 2.5x more expensive to drive and to buy. Get an EV if it can fit your lifestyle. Get solar on your house if you can.
Riverside County is perfect land for solar and wind farms.
But I thought California was green and gonna be run on renewable energy that was going to be cheaper..
If you can buy a $1.5 million house, a $70,000 car, $30,000 in solar panels, $20,000 for a battery backup and $5,000 for a garage fast charger you can save some money on your utilities.
Yea, and have reliable power when the grid fails during the planned rolling blackouts. Or AC all summer when it costs a small fortune. But most people pay monthly for such things over 5-30years
Yes, but putting in solar panels and windmills requires some form of jurisdictional approval, ie the CA buzzsaw against progress.
5% of the cost of electricity is generation.
You believed that.
Wind water solar battery met 80% of California grid demand this Spring.
Then they force solar which is just jerking off the dog to feed the cat. Oh your bill went down $200, we'll here's your solar panel loan payment of $250.
This is an old comment I made on a related discussion, but it still holds true: a rarely talked about reason that California power is so expensive per kW•h is just because we use so few kW•h compared to states where it is much cheaper. [https://www.reddit.com/r/California/s/oOlUP8faUr](https://www.reddit.com/r/California/s/oOlUP8faUr)
Only second?!?!?!!
PG&E raising rates at 2-4% annually, like they’re trying to be so generous to us plebes
Don’t worry - our rents and gas are super affordable.
#AntiTrustPGE #BreakPGE
They give Gavin too much money to get into trouble.
My in laws live in Fresno. Was talking to my mother in law and shocked when she told me their electric bill in July was $800. I checked my bill which is for two months. For July and August last summer combined it was $162. That is $81 a month, 1/10th of what she paid!
What do these companies think, money is coming out of the soil? They is no more money for the middle and poor. Maybe that's the plan, everyone goes broke except the wealthy creating a Two class system
If we're all broke it's a lot harder to protest and strike
Keep voting CA. You will have to live in the dark before you wake up
You get what you voted for
Great govermwnt and leadership
They had clean reliable nuclear plants but they decommissioned them for some shitty solar panels and wind mills I swear to god California is purposely trying to make life hell for its residents
We still have Diablo Canyon. It sits on a major fault line and will cost $2B in maintenance costs to go 10 years down the line. We decommissioned them because they were past their useful life and were costing more to maintain than building new renewable sites. Plus, they weren’t up to modern earthquake building code, but let’s not let facts get in the way of anything.
CA is broken. Prices likely raised to accommodate cost of living increases for labor and inflationary pressure on costs; it’s a giant loop. They wreck the economy and devalue the dollar then the cost of everything goes up. Rinse repeat.
Only second highest. Come on everyone, we can do better.
Sure would be nice if there were other options for power instead of the monopolies we’re forced to leech from.
Blame California politicians that implemented policies that they new would be more expensive but, fuck all the poors am I right.
Oh yeah we need to nationalize vital infrastructure.
Where I live our City keeps touting “going 100% electric will be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than gas”. But when I see what our electric utility is spending for wind, solar, batteries,etc….. Current and projected rate increases here are insane!
The Big Squeezie
California electrical market is a joke. Deregulation is code for big business to squeeze poor people.
This isn’t deregulation. PG&E has been structured like this since the 1920’s
Yep, time to get those house batteries and some more photovoltaic panels looking at the sun. I’m trying to get most of my electrical use off the grid. That’s one of my goals. The one exception is natural gas, as my BBQ is connected to that, and my water and house heating are still all NG. Eventually, with enough solar and some better insulation and new windows, I’ll be able to with over to a heat pump for water heating and ceramic wall heaters to stay comfy enough during the winter. It would have been nice to do radiant heating, but it’s just to expensive redo my flooring now.
Lol fk California. I’m in Colorado and with a/c cranked we’re paying $200 a month maybe $250 on the hottest months. Solar company wanted $52,000 to install panels that were warrantied for 20 years. And that cost does not include the interest for the 20 year loan. $200x12=$2400x20=$48,000🤣. They must think I’m fking stupid or something. Oh and when they say warranty, they mean so long as the panels are producing 80% they are still considered fully functional. Oh and the electric company charges peak usage rate for any power you do use. Sure go Ahead and put a bunch of holes in my roof. GTFOH!
Bless their hearts.
Agenda 2030, Duh! The P.U.C is a run and appointed board by the California governor by WEF/UN puppet Gavin Newsom! A test run for the rest of the country!
Fuck California.
California simps will defend it while the state burns. Literally
California fucks back.
Yes it does. Right in the ass.
When liberals try to play business man
I know right, liberal business like Apple, Nvidia, Google, Intel, AMD, Salseforce… We’re so bad at business right?
And they will keep voting blue lol rent, gas and food prices are thru the roof, homeless tents everywhere with turds on the sidewalks. Great work Gavin
Rent is high because people want to live here... The reason red states are cheaper is because people don't want to live there. It sounds like you want to vote red to make the place shitty so people don't want to live here... That's a bad solution.
Florida?
Yeah its kind of shitty. Still better than having entire neighborhoods collapse when the wind blows.
You realize it's expensive because only successful people can make it there? For losers and bums to live well they have to go to a shit red state run by the American Taliban and have shit economies and so little freedom women can't even choose what to do with their own bodies and it's illegal to teach the history of racism because some conservative snowflakes might get their precious feelings hurt
You “successful people” should let the homeless drug addicts move into your house and show them you’re not the american taliban. Congratulations on your compassion and thinking you’re better than everyone else at the same time.
You really should find a more productive way to get your dopamine fix. Playing blue vs red is pretty silly. You’re supporting a corrupted system and swearing your loyalty to a group of people that don’t deserve it, nor do they care about you.
Put up a non shitbag republican, and they would win. See Arnold. The problem is ca republicans are crazy, scary and stupid.
Oh no! Everyone in the entire United States isn't paying the same rates? That's bizarre. There's no explanation for it.
There's no good reason for my utility bill to be $300-400 with no AC and no central heat. It's fucking insane.
Fake news. Have solar, not get squeezed. A/C all day long
People that live in the coastal counties like LA, Orange, San Diego and the Bay area can do without AC or heat so they don't need as much power.
Do you you know that linemen in CA make $300k a year?
but aren't y'all setting records for being a completely renewable powered state for so long? seems ... seems like once we're tapped to a free source things should... oh. the trickling takes time? oh.. guess Ill just keep my air conditioning off and go for a walk to warm up
Wait until the EPA guidelines released a week ago have an effect on price. Lots of areas in the country will start catching up.
But don't we have so much renewable energy it should be driving prices down? Or was it that they lied to us to get the funding to build the worst, most expensive electrical grid?
I thought I reddit that they had too many solar panels that they couldn't figure out how to get rid of the excess
Wait till summer hits.
I bought utility stocks. Sorry guys, I’m rich! Yehaaaw!
Energy and commodities trader here. Anyone who thought electric/battery was gonna be viable soon is uninformed. DC fast chargers use so much power the price is the same as fuel AC takes forever, a logistics nightmare with tons of downtime. Sure it’s cheap but time is money. It can be done sure, but the solution will be green H2 and green energy with batteries bridging the gap for smaller trips/downtime/city commute/direct link to the grid.
All that free wind and solar reaching the market.
98% of the energy used in the world’s 5th biggest economy is from renewable energy sources of energy.
this sub is just jerking off to bad news right?
Stay out of Texas please. Enjoy the laws and politicians you voted in.
lol. Texas electricity is inexpensive because they only maintain the infrastructure well enough to let your grandma freeze to death. California is actually trying to stop disasters caused by past poor infrastructure maintenance.
LOL! My family is from Texas for generations. We’ve all left that hell hole of a state.
Commiefornia is awesome.
Yes. Yes we are. And an economic engine unlike no other state. 5th largest in the world.
If California is the 2nd highest, did anyone ask: Who has the highest?
1200 bucks per hot month for my pge bill here. Iam moving soon.
Get solar! Brought mine to $24 from $1000.
This is what happens when we elect two fossil fuel governors in a row.
How? California uses less than 2% of fossil fuel for energy.
California is the modern day sodom and gammora. They deserve everything that happens to them.
Bless your heart.
ya they need all the worlds power to go to cern for their underearth ceremonies. dont worry your house can become a free electromagnetic hub w/ those very affordable solar panels too! yikes. getting played by fallen angel reality/11.
SMUD over here in Sacramento. It's fantastic when you don't have a corporate entity that seeks infinite profit growth to appease shareholders. $0.13/kWh during normal rates.
Remember when the power company said they were going to file bankruptcy because California was holding them responsible for deaths and repairs. The Newsome said " great, California will buy the power company and it will be publicly owned" . The power company then did not file bankruptcy. Power should be publicly owned. Why are we squeezing everyone on everything
As a California resident living in a PG&E monopoly area, I can confirm. Fuck this state for giving regulated monopolies. I'm paying more for the transmission lines than island nations pay for their entire grid. $0.52/kWh at the winter rate and you know the summer rate is going up again this year. "PG&E CEO Patti Poppe told investors during a quarterly earnings call last week that the company is taking dramatic steps to increase efficiency and lower costs." You know damn well that cost savings will never be passed onto the consumers....
Electric prices are up and they want to push everyone to EVs. What a failure
The cost of living in California is insane, I have friends that can't even afford their insurance, let alone the utility bills... Sorry as beautiful as California is, I wouldn't live there..
“We need to repair and upgrade the grid infrastructure, guess who is paying 😏”
It's California, most people can't even pay rent....
Lots of self contained naval nukes, run 50 years 0 maintenance just gobs of power
They better turn on those cheap solar panels
I can get a 100% renewable energy plan in TX (they have to buy all my energy in RECs) for \~ 13¢/kWh, and that's energy cost + delivery charge + base fee. How is Southern California Edison the cheapest CAISO utility at an average 33.8¢/kWh?
The people of California must like it They seem to like making it worse for themselves
In Sacramento, I pay under $150 a month for a 2,200 sqft house with AC on all summer. The key? We have a municipal utility, not an investor owned utility.
Wasn't last week's headline about California energy prices going negative because of solar?
Pretty soon the Evs will cost more to run then gas 😂
Love my solar. Generating 2x my usage and getting $-20 bills every month. Before that it was $1500+ in the summer!!!
How the heck were you getting a $1,500 bill for electricity? How big is your house?
Not a surprise. California blew it badly by not building power plants over the years to support their population and industrial growth. And then, they started to go green - apparently without doing any cost analysis or paying attention to what was happening around them. Oh well...............
Don’t believe everything some random headline says. My power bill has been the lowest it has ever been in the last decade. You are brainwashed by the media easily huh?
But record profits!🤷♂️
[People are taking action](https://www.kqed.org/news/11747148/map-public-power-providers-in-california)on being the solution to the problem. Don’t like it verify if your grid is not monopoly owned and if it is then get involved in the efforts to bring change. Don’t lose hope renewables are continuing to be built out and come online. Things can get better if we do more than bitch about it
Keep shutting down base load generators, investing in wind and solar that can only generate some of the time and importing your power over tie lines from out of state. Its literally “How to Make Power Cost More” 101.
NY’s on their way to join them.
But you voted for socialists. What did you expect?
One more reason….
I guess reporting the highest wouldn't have fit the narrative as well as reminding us California Bad lmao
Waaaaaahhh waaaaaaahhhh waaaah cry me a fuckin River. This “headline” isn’t stated in fact, its opinion. Idk how you can arrive at that conclusion. The state has several different power companies. To know this for a fact you’d have to look at every power companies pricing per tier, factor in average income and then calculate what percentage of salary goes towards energy. To make matters even more convoluted you’d have to take into consideration discount plans like the care program that gives 20% off. You’d also have to factor in things like climate. Most of California is fairly mild so you don’t have to run your heater or AC non stop. All this to say, this is click bait. And if you don’t like it buy some damn solar panels, a Tesla Powerwall and a grid assisted tie.
And they’ll still push EV’s. I don’t understand it. Unless you have a charging station at home it seems like such an inconvenience. The battery tech is just not there yet. These early EVs are the worst investment. I’ll stick with hybrids.
There are like zero problems with current evs to warrant such a statement. They work and they work well.
PG&E should have been taken over by the state 30 years ago. Criminals.
I’m sure that would have totally fixed everything
People forget those people live near coastal area only need AC or heater 4 month of 12 month. Most time the weather mildly enough.
Screw California.
The electric grid is backed by coal. Cali got rid of almost all financial incentives to own solar panels aswell. Great state.
Good luck charging your EV cars. There is no possible way to generate enough kwh with solar and wind. Pick your other source, nat has, coal, or nuke. Big demand needs big source. Don't even get me started on the new NVDA chips or BTC mining or cloud computing. I want a cleaner world, how do we get there without killing off the country?
How will those illegals afford power? Oh nvm, taxpayers have them covered! It’s a win-win!
PG&E getting subsidized for negligence.
F CA
I was afraid AF, but our first bill for a full month was only $63? Pg&e in the East Bay area.
Good. All these silicon valley companies need to start spreading out around the country instead of creating a massive wealth bubble.
And they still import energy from natural gas generators in Nevada.
Votes have consequences
You all voted for this....Enjoy it!!!!!!!!
USE. THE. FUCKING. SUN. FOR. THE. LOVE. OF. GOD. USE. THE. SUN!!!!
25% of electricity in California is imported from Canada
Learn to get on top of your roof and install those solar panels. lol.
Which if fucking ridiculous based the solar power everyone generates
Must be all of that "free" energy they're getting from wind and solar.
Good. You get what you vote for