Power rates up 20.8% in Alabama

N/A | 2/23/2023 | vanity

[Tell It Right]

To be honest, most folks are probably using 50-percent more KwH than you in a month....so you might be happy that you are in the lesser category.

In my original post I listed the kWh I pulled from the grid (594). But my true kWh usage during that billing period was 1776 kWh, according to my solar inverters. That's because 1,182 kWh of our power came from the solar system, my inverters had to pull 594kWh from the grid to keep up with my demand. So we paid for 1/3rd of the power we used in our all-electric home, including charging the EV that we do most of our driving in.

Obviously, energy cost inflation doesn't impact my budget nearly as much as it used to. Your post was about me being happy about consuming less power than most, you're right. I'm very pleased with the energy project I did to protect my retirement investments from stupid energy cost inflation. But I also hate it. I hate it for the people who aren't in a situation to generate most of the power they consume. I hate that the Dims forced me into the situation of either investing in my own energy project or pay a jizya tax to their gaia god.

[BobL]

“then Brandon made natural gas prices spike by limiting access to natural gas drilling”

I think the bigger effect on gas prices was having to run our liquification facilities 24/7 to send LNG to Europe to replace the Russian gas they had been getting. What you mention will almost certain show up in a few years, also.

[newfreep]

Here in SE Ohio (Dayton), the electric RATES from AES has increased 3x in past year.

[dynoman]

Were at .085 and .055 for separately metered electric heat.

[dynoman]

It’s not the power company’s fault. It’s all the government regulations and subsidies of unreliable power sources. The move away from traditional baseload power means rates have gone up and will continue to go up.

[Alas Babylon!]

My bill was $456.30 for 2890 kilowatts. Last month it was $721.18 for 4721 KW.

The culprit is the two heat pumps I have on 2 A/C units.

The coldest day was Christmas eve, which had a high of 31 degrees, low of 16. Folks, that's cold for the Deep South! My power for that single day was 394KW which cost me $59. For ONE day!

Heat pumps are great for a lower than normal temperature, say the 40s, which is usually the coldest it gets here. Totally inefficient below those temperatures!

No more. I find it cheaper to run a couple of portable heaters like this one in the rooms we occupy (living room, den and bedrooms).

These units consume 15KW per day. 3 of them 45KW per day. That's a lot more than my heat pumps, which used about 250KW on that cold Christmas eve.

From now on, I will not use the heat pumps on my air units!

[Tell It Right]

Were at .085 and .055 for separately metered electric heat.

Wow! I feel for people who live up north. I have no doubt if our power rates were that high here in the south the result would be all my neighbors would have as many solar panels as I do.

[Tell It Right]

You and I think alike. Our low was 9F on Christmas Eve. For that power bill (billing period Dec 22 to Jan 24) I paid $189.97 for 1,140kWh (after subtracting base charge that's $0.152692/kWh).

My solution was solar (installed May 2021 and added onto Aug 2022), converting my two natural gas appliances to electric (Oct and Nov 2021), replacing one of our used ICE cars with an EV (June 2022), and doing other energy saving projects to the house (sealing cracks, adding insulation). I wanted to do mini splits but I couldn't with a large portion of my downstairs in the ground (nowhere for the condensation drip to go to).

So I converted my old A/C and gas furnace to a variable speed heat pump, variable speed air handler, and with heat strips for the times it's too cold for the heat pump (like Christmas Eve). My hybrid water heater has a built-in heat pump to warm the water tank. I ducted (the one part of the project I did with my own hands LOL) the air intake for that from the attic. Why? Think about how many times you've been in your attic and complained about how hot it is up there (most of the year). Why not use that free hot air to warm the water tank? I also duct the free cold air coming from the water heater either to the attic in the winter months (like it is now so my home heater doesn't have to work harder to keep the house warm) or to our living quarters in the warm months (to use that free cold air to help cool the house so my home heat pump doesn't have to work as hard cooling the home). Why not use the free sunlight hitting our property to generate free power? Why not use the free hot air in the attic as heat where it's needed? Why not use the free cold air coming from the water heater to cool the house when needed? If you work all of these various components together as one system, they work better than the sum of their parts.

The cold Christmas Eve power bill that had 1,140kWh would have been 2,153kWh if my solar system hadn't supplied 1,013 kWh of the power we consumed that billing period. That's 47% of the power we needed was free. On average since September 1 (beginning with the final solar upgrade) the solar system has provided 69.1% of all the power we need in our all-electric home, including charging the EV. That's just for fall and winter weather when the solar is at its worst. As we're coming into spring and summer, the parts of the year that solar does best, I bet the average across the year will be 80% to 90% free power. My prior prediction for the upgrade was 85% to 95% free power. But that was before I realized how much my wife and I would drive the EV. LOL Charging the EV a lot more than I expected results in the solar system not being able to keep up with the overall load quite as much as I expected. Maybe my calculation this year will be as right as it was the first year I had solar. I predicted 50% to 60% of my power would be free: on the 1 year anniversary I calculated it was 58.5% free. Not too shabby for a software engineer born raised and educated in little ol' Sweet Home Alabama.

[minnesota_bound]

Go to https://nextdoor.com to read about the huge increases in California as an example from low 100’s to several hundred more the next month.

[minnesota_bound]

Examples:
A) 2 more replies to “I thought last month’s gas bill at $796 was outrageous compared to $170 the year before .”

B) We hardly ever turn our heat on, and ours was $680. 2 people, maybe turn it on in the morning for 1/2 hour… my DWP was 2,000. I don’t know how people make it in this state…