Wholesale electric prices and what's charged the customer (in CA)

[bonaire]

I was flipping through data on the FERC.gov site yesterday and saw that generally, the wholesale price of electricity is not really different in California compared to other grid sections.

So, why is it that SCE and others charge as much as they do per kWh delivered?

Wholesale: http://www.eia.gov/electricity/month...le_markets.cfm

Is it their pricing based on regulations or CapEx + OpEx and other excessive costs that most other markets don't seem to show?

Or is it also related to growth in renewables and conservation efforts and thus the are not taking in the revenues of 2007-2009 and so rates need to be raised?

[Sunking]

Or is it also related to growth in renewables and conservation efforts and thus the are not taking in the revenues of 2007-2009 and so rates need to be raised?

That and they have to import 30% of their electricity from other states like AZ, NV, and OR who can charge whatever they want.

[bonaire]

So, who are the numbskulls running the California energy commission? Are they entirely political or do they use science at all in their decision making? And the citizens out there scrambling to put solar on their roofs are in fact raising the price across the landscape since (as you and others have said) renewable energy sources requires regulators to require generators to buy standby energy so a to be on the books just in case of renewables "slowdowns" during peak demand.

It's not hard to understand this but perhaps too hard for "government officials" to understand and govern to.

[Sunking]

So, who are the numbskulls running the California energy commission?

Democrats.

[SoCalsolar]

The system is rigged

So our wholesale price in Socal when all the nonsense is stripped away is about 4 cents a kWhr for SCE. Yes the up charge is all based on the expenses incurred by our utility companies. They list the reasons for the increase every time they ask for higher rates. They always list new infrastructure, maintenance and upgrades on existing infrastructure, and sometimes other stuff like the pension plan is underfunded or the suggested $470 million to re-fix the recently fixed nuclear reactor that is not currently operating. I could go into more detail but it's just a straight forward government supported monopoly. The pay and contracts these guys sign are ridiculous. If you can climb a pole and aren't making well over six figures with a pension come to CA. You don't even have to live here. You will travel the state staying in all the nicest motel 6s. Electricity generates a lot of tax revenue and political contributions in our government that's a sacred cow. I recently spoke at a small town electrical coop who is looking at a 20% increase due to their cost from generation plants located in AZ. They were telling me that this was all due to EPA regs etc. Anyways the point being is their average rate now is about 14 cent per kWhr. I believe that is the second lowest cost in the state. Other Muni power companies are in the 17-20 cents per kWhr. The smaller Muni and Coops have an incentive to control their costs the big boys if it costs more we charge more. I guess they are just really bad negotiators? I kind of rambled on there hope that clears some of the muddy water.

[bonaire]

It just seems wrong.

Nobody's done a Frontline or 60-minutes show on this kind of thing? It's friggin' ridiculous for the citizens, scares companies away and basically turns the community into a "support the system" state. Of course, politicians are going to support it since taxes are based on the rate and not the kWh count supplied. Better to charge .20 for 1 kWh than .10 for 2kWh, right? Customers might leave their lights on longer and crank up the .20/kWh count.

Then, interestingly, they offer TOU rates to EV owners using 2nd meters at dirt-cheap prices under .06/kWh for night-time charging. Imagine a family trying to get by on $40K a year having to deal with these costs which are also incurred by their shopping center, their workplace and other community services. It also seems like a huge trap-door for their economy where people live in 1500 sq. ft. $1M homes in places like San Jose propped up by a select number of Silicon Valley superstar companies who are themselves charging excess fees across the planet for software and other products they create to "manage all of us". Companies like Oracle, Apple and others charge an astounding fee for their products and create the products with outsourced employees in other countries and use those monies to exist in places like Silicon Valley. It all seems so brittle for sustainability. I'd never want to live in these "fantasy" environs. But - as they say - the weather is always pretty nice.

[Sunking]

Nobody's done a Frontline or 60-minutes show on this kind of thing?

Those two programs are Hard Left Politics. They support such taxation and policy. They are not going to say anything negative about it, they support it. CBS 60 Minutes goes as far as fabricating stories, just ask Dan Rather when he got caught.

There is only one way to fix California. Let them go bankrupt and suffer the consequences. They are too far in debt and insolvent.

[SoCalsolar]

We tried deregulation

We tried deregulation a few years ago I was in college and had other things to occupy me at the time. But I know we managed to screw that up pretty horribly too. Fired the governor over it if I remember correctly. Thanks for the help Texas (Enron).

and to say the weather is always nice is an exaggeration we have 1 week of winter where the temp dips down to 50's during the day and the 40's at night.

[bonaire]

We tried deregulation a few years ago I was in college and had other things to occupy me at the time. But I know we managed to screw that up pretty horribly too. Fired the governor over it if I remember correctly. Thanks for the help Texas (Enron).

and to say the weather is always nice is an exaggeration we have 1 week of winter where the temp dips down to 50's during the day and the 40's at night.

I'd take 40s at night compared to 20s here. Government should hand out their regulation documents that residents could burn in their fireplaces for warmth. I'm out in SF next week for work - looks like ok weather compared to Philadelphia.

Deregulation would be for the generators, right? But they would just charge .15/kWh for transmission or more to capture these expense costs which are out of hand.

[Sunking]

Fired the governor over it if I remember correctly.

That would be your current Governor Jerry Brown.

[SoCalsolar]

Governor Moonbeam is the current gov

Gray Davis was governor during Enron and he got recalled before the governator took over who was then followed by Brown.

[Sunking]

Gray Davis was governor during Enron and he got recalled before the governator took over who was then followed by Brown.

Gray Davis, my bad. However de-regulation was only part of the problem that allowed Enron to manipulate energy prices. The other half of the problem was retail rates were regulated and capped. You cannot have wholesale deregulated and retail regulated and capped. The root cause was California was not and still today does not have enough generating capacity to meet demand. California is dependent on out of state for all energy needs due to energy policy. That allowed traders like Enron to manipulate prices by shutting down out of state gas pipelines and taking generators off line to cause spikes in wholesale prices and shortages.

[bonaire]

Laws should protect people, not cause chaos. Sounds like the lawmakers need some type of real-world economics education.

[inetdog]

Laws should protect people, not cause chaos.

A quote from Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago, in conjunction with charges that the fighting over protests outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention constituted a "police riot":
"I will have you know that the police are not here to create disorder, they are here to preserve it!"

He was also an advocate of nuclear power: "I see a bright future ahead of us once the technologists have learned to harass the atom."

[bonaire]

I guess once governments see people doing well without them - they have no reason for existence. So, basically - they need to create the chaos that they stand to protect us against. Nice of them