What are your electrical rates? is it affecting your hobby?

[bergzy]

living here in orage county, california...our electrical rates are enormously high.

the problem is compounded in that SoCal Edison delivers electricity in 'tiers'.

to complicate matters, Socal Edison has different rates for winter time and summertime.

and, finally (there are probably more), there is a different electricity allocation amount for winter and summer.

winter, we get to use 351 kWh.

summer, i will find out with my next bill.

now...

for winter: the first 351 kWh is $0.19027 per kWh

after the 351kWh rates increase to $0.12832 per kWh. this is called 'tier 2'. now, this may seem like after the 351 kWh, electricity gets cheaper but this is an illusion.

Socal Edison billing is extremely complex as there are generation charges, delivery charges and a 'once per bill' DWR charge for the baseline (the 351 kWh). without the 'DWR', the 351kWh would be $0.08875 less per kWh.

tier 3 is next. we get 246 kWh of $0.23636 per kWh.

tier 4 allots us 248 kWh with the glorious rate of $0.28482 per kWh

there is a tier 5 where i havent reached...yet. i would have reached tier 5 easily if i didnt have solar pv augmenting my electrical use. my monthly electrical use would be about 2100 kWh that would create an electrical bill of something like $550 to $600...easy.

the tier has recently been restructured. earlier this year it was just TWO tiers...but with more tiers, Socal Edison is able to disguise charging higher rates by fractioning it up more. for example, tier 2 rates were about 38 cents per kWh...but with the restructuring, you would reach the tiers much faster. tier 1 had a 'large' (much larger than now) allotment of kWh before advancing to the higher tier 2 (which i rarely went into).

there has been a 19% rate increase this year and i read that utilities will rise astronomically due to high gas costs this year (esp those generators that use natural gas).

we have a time of use option...but it is pretty much as stupid as you would need to use the majority of your electricity after midnight till 6 or 7 am. plus, you only get a 500kWh allotted. if you exceed that, you pay uber high rates. plus, the reduced cost per kWh is pretty much a tragic joke...

sooooooo.....

along with the record high gasoline prices, has your electrical rates risen to where it is affecting your reef hobby? and if so, what have you changed?

[Mariner]

Here in North Alabama we have some of the lowest rates in the nation. I just paid my bill this evening, and if my calculations are correct I'm paying .08279 per kWh. I live near the Tennessee River, within 10 miles of both a hydroelectric dam and a nuclear power plant. IMHO, use of these forms of energy should be encouraged nation wide.
FWIW,
Mariner

[ser_renely]

Free for me no utility bills.

[bergzy]

Originally posted by Mariner
Here in North Alabama we have some of the lowest rates in the nation. I just paid my bill this evening, and if my calculations are correct I'm paying .08279 per kWh. I live near the Tennessee River, within 10 miles of both a hydroelectric dam and a nuclear power plant. IMHO, use of these forms of energy should be encouraged nation wide.
FWIW,
Mariner

it just blows my mind that Scal Edison rates are so fiendishly high! it basically is criminal imo.

i full heartedly agree with you on the use of hydro and nuclear. not only do these not generate greenhouse gases...they are 'almost' from renewable resources (yeah, i have no idea how much uranium reserves there are). these methods are both clean and plentiful.

again, the frustrating thing about living in SoCal is that a HUGE solar electricity plant just delayed because of a ground squirrel habitat issue. and to add insult to injury, i just read that the government has stopped all solar projects. of course this makes perfect sense in these times of record high fuel prices.


ser_renely,

how do you get no utility bills? live with parents? incarcerated? siphoning off neighbors meter?

[SoCalSURFrider]

an extra 200 dollars a month to run my setup!!!

[kdblove_99]

I really dont know what mine is. I live in Nor cal and have PG&E and they are terriblely expensive as well. I hate em. But its the only choice we have in my particular area.

[dabears1983]

I live in Chicago, my total bill for 2007 was 2.959.00, is that crazy or what.

[tacocat]

Originally posted by bergzy
it just blows my mind that Scal Edison rates are so fiendishly high! it basically is criminal imo.

They have the TVA, which was established along time ago. Tenessee has so many waterways available to generate hydroelectric power and cool nuclear powerplants.

Unfortunately, nuclear powerplants are best suited to locations near wild rivers and or fault lines in CA. Also, we are tapped out on hydroelectric sources. Salmon and trout or hydroelectric - tough choice.

[eddnyster]

yeah L.A. County isn't much different than Orange...I guess it's the price for living in SoCal where EVERYTHING...and I mean EVERYTHING is within "fairly" short driving distances....i guess. So far...the most I've used is around 1400 kWh and that bill came in around $300. Again...this was during the winter months...
Summer...well...I'll find out soon enough!

[kdblove_99]

Originally posted by dabears1983
I live in Chicago, my total bill for 2007 was 2.959.00, is that crazy or what.

I think you got me. Mine is usally around $215 a month X 12= $2580

[Bryan]

British Columbia, Canada 6.5 cents CND per KWH

[ser_renely]

live on a military base

[das75]

No, but one of the reasons I gave the wife for swapping out the Iwaki with a Barracuda was we could save 60watts (obviously she seen through that story).

[BigJay]

Originally posted by bergzy
it just blows my mind that Scal Edison rates are so fiendishly high! it basically is criminal imo.

I hate to get political in a thread like this, but the problem with socal power has nothing to do with the evil energy companies. If they had enough supply and competition available, there would be no need or justifor high prices. Hold your government accountable for the lack of new power plants.

[mutualbill]

.08144 cents per KWH no matter the usage where I live so no worries here. On my May to June bill I used 2803 kwh of electricty and still only had a $232.00 electric bill! Woot for electrical co-ops!

[gcarroll]

bergzy- you left out a big factor on those So Cal Edison rates. To get your true cost/kilowattyou need to also ad in the delivery charges. when you add those in, your price/kilowatt for Tier 3 & Tier 4 are over $.30+/kilowatt.

I haven't paid much mind to my bill (typically I don't even look at it unless it is over $300) but I typically use between 1050 and 1200 kilowatts per month. couple of years ago I had a month in the summer where I used 2200 kilowatts (left the thermostat on upstairs A/C unit set at 76 degrees for the whole month). Just getting a more efficient skimmer has made by bill go down. other changes may help in the future.

[gcarroll]

Originally posted by BigJay
I hate to get political in a thread like this, but the problem with socal power has nothing to do with the evil energy companies. If they had enough supply and competition available, there would be no need or justifor high prices. Hold your government accountable for the lack of new power plants.

Sorry buddie, but deregulation led to this blunder! Deregulation allowed power companies to exploit CA by steering power away from the CA grid. Then the hysteria of the artificial shortages made power companies sign long term deals with outragious terms. How quick you Texans forget about Enron!

I will admit that building more powerplants will help with shortages but it will not help with prices. Why? Because nothing but the price of SUV's goes down in CA. Besides we pay high rates wheter the state is using 70% of its power or 100%.

Someone like you had some grand idea that competition would lead to lower rates. There are still cities in CA that did not buy into this fictional idea (Los Angeles, Anaheim, Corona, Riverside, ect. all have municipal controlled utilities) and still offer $.06 - $.08/kilwatt rates.

[qfrisco]

I live in a suburb of Dallas and my area is served by an electric coop. Our residential rates are:

May - October: $0.07854 per kWh
November - April: $0.07854 per kWh - First 700 kWh, $0.067810 per kWh- Additional kWh

I've always thought it was funny that in the winter months, they essentially give us an incentive to use more electricity by charging less per kWh after the first 700!

I'm going into my first summer with my reef, and we'll see how the power consumption is. I also just switched from overdriven T5s to 2x250 MHs last week, but according to my calculations the MHs should only increase my power bill by $15 or so.

[ScottL4619]

I've never really paid much attention, but looking at the last two bills (April and May), they are substantially different. I just used the total cost and total kWh to get .071 for April and .105 for May. This includes all of their extra fees, but I'm not sure why the difference between April and May. We have AEP and they don't actually tell you what the per kWh charge is...just how many you use.

[tony varrell]

You people should not be complaining I live in South Florida and Pay on average $568.00 per month for my electric. I have never broke it down to figure out out how much it was costing me to run my 300 gallon setup. Has anybody switched from 3X250Watt to 3X400watt and calculated the cost difference? I would be interested know how much it really is..

[gcarroll]

Originally posted by tony varrell
You people should not be complaining I live in South Florida and Pay on average $568.00 per month for my electric.

look on you last bill and tell us how much it was and how many kilowatts you used. we will let you know who should be complaining.

[tony varrell]

gcarrol I guess I should not be complaining I pay .052270 for the first 1000 and .062270 after that. Looking at the numbers posted here these are reasonable cost. I must be using a lot of power to pay almost 600.00 per month.. Scary..

[bergzy]

Originally posted by gcarroll
look on you last bill and tell us how much it was and how many kilowatts you used. we will let you know who should be complaining.

looking up florida power and light:

http://www.fpl.com/rates/pdf/electri...f_section8.pdf

and adding up their 'almost as complex' billing system as Socal Edison...and unless i added things up wrong (possibly)...

i get a flat rate of $0.16242 per kWh...at peak/most expensive usage times...

not cheap but definitely not even remotely close to what Socal Edison charges...

[hypernesia]

Go solar!!! I currently pay $0.11 kWh roughly $165/month. My wife is on the green kick and WE have decided to go solar, the initial cost is expensive but you never have to worry about future price hikes. Plus WE energies in Wisconsin has an agreement that if you produce electricity via wind or solar and are residential they will purchase this electricity from you for twice their going rate before you use it. So essentially you only need a solar array that produces half of your usage to have no electric bill!

[Esquare]

6.3 cents per kWh 1,636 kWh used.

Ahhh California...the land of Nuts and Honey!

Supply and demand, California doesn’t have the supply so they pay for the demand.