An Article regarding Electricity Prices in the USA I found interesting

[solar pete]

Hi All,

I read this article on solarreviews.com and thought I would post it up, in the interests of full disclosure it was written by my bro who is the guy who pays to keep the light on here, cheers

https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/whats-driving-your-rising-electric-bill

[sdold]

That was really good, Pete, please tell Andy thanks. We live in the mountains in California and for the last three years straight there has been power lines coming down and underground going in all around us. I knew a huge amount of money was being spent, but the article explains some of the other factors I never thought of like natural gas prices. Our costs are about the same as Hawaii now, around (US) 40 cents/kWh where according the article the average is around 17.

[bcroe]

OK, the price of home energy is constantly rising. I realized things were
getting worse in the previous century, and used solar to end my purchases
when technology made it practical. The Cos that supply it are constantly
telling us why they have to raise prices, and then pretend to be our friends.
Like it is consumers fault, we are supposed to replace every piece of equipment
with something more efficient, except that will not reduce consumption that
much, or reduce rates at all. Payment plans are supposed to help us, actually
just making sure they get their money. All sorts of new appliances are offered
with possible discounts. In reality I can and have privately bought equivalent
stuff with no discount, for far less than they offered, They profit on those too.

The usual commercial scam is figure out what you want to do, then look for
some good sounding justifications to hide the real reasons. One excuse is
data centers will increase consumption 2%. So we all pay for better plant
equipment. First, the original idea was, we pay a rate, and that INCLUDES
the maintenance costs, etc. Now the suppliers are breaking up into
segments which may be unregulated, and we are supposed to pay ongoing
costs separately. If there is another 2 % being supplied, the 2% INCREASED
revenue should be paying, NOT US. What happened to economy of scale?

A more gross version, is where to supplier NOW says they just bid on the market
for unregulated energy. So our past big regulated supplier offers a lower price.
BUT IT IS NOT QUITE ENOUGH ENERGY. So a second source or even a third
offer a bit more energy, AT A MUCH HIGHER PRICE. Then ALL the suppliers
get paid the HIGHEST price of some small, expensive outfit. Some might say
this is fair, I say the system has been rigged so the suppliers are getting far
more than a fair profit. Our legislators need to understand this and find a
better way.

I got off propane in 2013, using solar Net Metering to avoid purchases. What
I saw winter 3013/14, the price of propane in FEB (just when so many will
need to refill their tanks) rose to over 5 times the summer price. The excuse
was, there was a propane shortage. In the first place everyone got propane,
so their was no shortage. MORE IMPORTANTLY, the suppliers had been
DELIBERATELY exporting as much propane as possible, to CREATE the
the high prices. The price was so high, changing to simple electric resistance
heat would be LESS THAN HALF as expensive, as buying winter propane. I
did not push this idea, because some people would no doubt burn down
their houses with inadequate wiring.

One more thing, I am tired of hearing, the old equipment needs replacement.
That should have been regular maintenance all along, instead equipment
was allowed to get too old while money was taken instead for profits. If
some years required little service, money should have been put into a
dedicated fund for when replacements should be done.

If you doubt the above, just FOLLOW THE MONEY. Some of these companies
are showing record profits and dividends.