Electrical Service Rates

[storm5510]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

...Three Mile Island, PA. As Meat Loaf sang, two out of three ain't bad.

Prairie Island Nuclear Station is on an island in the Mississippi River just southeast of Minneapolis, MN.
I thought there was one on an island in the Missouri River, but after searching Google Earth, I cannot find it now. It was to be decommissioned.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by storm5510

Prairie Island Nuclear Station is on an island in the Mississippi River just southeast of Minneapolis, MN.
I thought there was one on an island in the Missouri River, but after searching Google Earth, I cannot find it now. It was to be decommissioned.

During the flooding of 2011, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant on the Missouri River looked like it was on an island.

It was permanently shut down October 24, 2016. It is being decommissioned.

[storm5510]

Attached is an image showing all the riders on my service account. It seems residential users are on a three-tier billing system. I will hit the highlights here:

Total usage: 1,111 kWh. Fancy that number!

1. First 300 kWh: $0.148799 per kWh.
2. Up to 700 kWh: $0.108297 per kWh.
3. Above 700 kWh: $0.098147 per kWh.

I would have thought the fuel adjustment would be higher than it is.

[sdbardwick]

Originally Posted by storm5510

Attached is an image showing all the riders on my service account. It seems residential users are on a three-tier billing system. I will hit the highlights here:

Total usage: 1,111 kWh. Fancy that number!

1. First 300 kWh: $0.148799 per kWh.
2. Up to 700 kWh: $0.108297 per kWh.
3. Above 700 kWh: $0.098147 per kWh.

I would have thought the fuel adjustment would be higher than it is.

At least your kW/hr rates go down as consumption increases. Here in SoCal it is the opposite.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by sdbardwick

At least your kW/hr rates go down as consumption increases. Here in SoCal it is the opposite.

Am I reading that right? First tier, $0.37 per kwh, second tier $0.47 per kwh (a 27% hike), high usage another $0.47 per kwh?

According to this article, San Diego Gas and Electric had to drop its high usage charge last year, per a ruling from the Utilities Commission.

It seems utilities are adopting "time of use" billing...

[sdbardwick]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Am I reading that right? First tier, $0.37 per kwh, second tier $0.47 per kwh (a 27% hike), high usage another $0.47 per kwh?

According to this article, San Diego Gas and Electric had to drop its high usage charge last year, per a ruling from the Utilities Commission.

It seems utilities are adopting "time of use" billing...

Highest rate is $0.47 per kWh. As you found, it went from a 3 tier system to a 2 tier system. IIRC, back when it was a 3 tier system, the highest tier was about 25% higher than the previous tier. The truly annoying part is that most of the cost is distribution, rather than generation. Annoying because you'd think that most of the costs for distribution are fixed and vary little with amount of current. I'd rather you pay for needed capacity upgrades for increased demand when they are incurred, rather than a speculative charge now.

Things may change in the medium term: the public is getting fed up with the continued rate increases due to mismanagement and regulatory capture. The investor-owned utilities might have exceeded the public's tolerance level for greed. I expect there will be ballot initiatives to modify the regulatory scheme, including changing the Public Utilities Commission's commissioners to directly publicly elected rather than appointed by the governor, as well as prohibiting ratepayers from being charged for management mistakes/malfeasance/negligence/criminal actions.

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by sdbardwick

you'd think that most of the costs for distribution are fixed and vary little with amount of current.

Typically end user power consumption is metered at the premises feed. Power lost in distribution before that meter is p=i² Rline, higher than linear with end user demand. When demand is high, transmission and distribution lines physically sag because they heat and expand. R is an increasing function of temperature, not constant. Voltage at the meter will droop due to line voltage drop, so some loads will increase time averaged current to meet required power demand, raising line loss higher by increasing current for same power. Now if we could just find those 350+ Kelvin superconductors that cost less than copper...

[DrobinsonPE]

Originally Posted by sdbardwick

Highest rate is $0.47 per kWh.

NorCal is not that much better. I was on the PG&E flat rate with Tier 1 = $0.28, Tier 2 = 0.36, and Tier 3 = $0.44 and starting to hit Tier 3 rates consistently. It was hurting the pocketbook so much I had to switch to a time-of -use plan and turn off a couple computers to bring the cost down. I am still paying $0.31 most of the time and $0.40 between 5-8pm but am looking into using "PauseWhileRunning" in undoc.txt to idle the CPUs during the expensive time period. Anyone know of an easy way to pause mfaktc?

I created a spreadsheet to figure out how much I was spending (see attached picture) it is not a pretty one. Scratch San Diego off my list of places to move to. My brother moved to Texas where his electricity is only $0.12 per kWh but Texas is not big enough for the both of us...

[kriesel]

Originally Posted by DrobinsonPE

Texas is not big enough for the both of us...

Maybe you could try OK and feel superior ;)

Two WI datapoints, normalized for a nominally 30 day billing cycle:

a) rural electric cooperative (Riverland Electric Cooperative); we'd expect fixed charges to be higher because fewer subscribers per mile of line. Offsetting that somewhat is that farms could be high users, with 3-phase connections. Also profits eventually get distributed back to customers prorated by usage as "capital credits".
  1) Metered-KWHR-Usage-independent factors:
    Basic service charge $1.18/day x 30 = 35.40
    Load management credit 1 water heater = -2.00 (they can drop load at peak times by radio signal)
    High pressure sodium security light on their pole = $10.08 (they replace the bulb too)
    Nontaxable facility charge $1.47
    Metered-KWHR-Usage-independent subtotal $44.95 (cost for zero KWHR/30-days use)

  2) Per-metered-KWHR:
    Base rate $0.1208
    Fuel adjustment -$0.0043
    Net $0.1165 / kwhr
    (No sales tax during heating season; 5.5% otherwise; 5% state, 0.5% county)
    Marginal rate $/wattyear = $.1165/kwhr *365 * 24 / 1000 = $1.02054/watt/year now, 1.07667 later.

b) residential subdivision (Alliant Energy for-profit corporation)
  1) Usage-independent factors:
    Customer charge $0.4932/day * 30 = $14.80
    State-wide low-income assistance fee = $3.15
    Usage-independent subtotal $17.95 (before the first electron flows)

  2) Per-metered-KWHR:
    i) 2021:
      Energy charge per metered kwhr: $0.11663
      Fuel cost adjustment -$0.002593
      Net $0.114037
      (No sales tax during heating season; 5.5% otherwise; 5% state, 0.5% county)
      Marginal rate $/watt-year =$0.99896... winter, $1.0539... summer.
    ii) 2022:
      Energy charge per metered kwhr: $0.13091
      Fuel cost adjustment $0.
      Net $0.13091
      That's a 14.8% increase from 2021 to 2022, above double the government's claim of 7% inflation rate.
      (No sales tax during heating season; 5.5% otherwise; 5% state, 0.5% county)
      Marginal rate $/watt-year =$1.14677... winter, $1.2098... summer.

Looks like I'll be phasing out some lowest-productivity/kwhr systems today.

[storm5510]

I just found an email from Duke Energy stating that my consumption, compared to the same date in 2021, is $13 USD less. Small miracle based on using my electric furnace a lot more.

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Am I reading that right? First tier, $0.37 per kwh, second tier $0.47 per kwh (a 27% hike), high usage another $0.47 per kwh?

This is crazy! I don't see how people can afford to live while paying these rates.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by storm5510

I just found an email from Duke Energy stating that my consumption, compared to the same date in 2021, is $13 USD less. Small miracle based on using my electric furnace a lot more.

This is crazy! I don't see how people can afford to live while paying these rates.

If you read the response, you'll see that as per the article I'd dug up, the high usage charge has been done away with, so there are now only 2 tiers, and the $0.47 is as high as it goes.

The high usage charge had "only" been 25%, which if it was 25% of the 47 cents rate, would have made the third tier $0.5875 per kwh.