Posted on 04/01/2020 3:48:29 PM PDT by nickcarraway
What Happens If You Can’t Pay Your Electricity Bill? By Julianne Geiger - Apr 01, 2020, 5:00 PM CDT Join Our Community Electricity With over 3 million Americans losing their jobs, and many more forced into lockdown, utilities are facing lower demand and more consumers that can’t afford to pay the bills At a time when over 3 million Americans have already lost their jobs, and as many as 47 million may be added to the unemployment roster, all that virus-forced staying at home will increase energy bills for people with limited means of paying them--at least until unemployment benefits and the stimulus checks come in.
Until then, a number of states are moving to ensure that basic utilities aren’t shut off due to non-payment in this time of crisis--but not everyone’s on board, and the picture gets exponentially more complicated for the utilities that could face bankruptcy as a result.
The Energy Cost of Being Unemployed
Overall, energy consumption is expected to fall, with electricity demand during the week looking more like weekend demand, according to Genscape analyst Adam Jordan, who spoke to Bloomberg. Bars, restaurants, industry, and commercial businesses are closing up shop, denting power demand.
But this has also resulted in millions of workers throughout America being sent home. Some have been sent home to work from their couch in the comfort of their pyjamas. Others have simply been sent home.
Either way, residential electricity usage (as well as water consumption) is likely to increase. Between Zoom and Netflix, laptops, phones, and lights--even extra freezers to keep all that hoarded food--residential electricity consumption is set to increase.
This will result in higher bills for the average consumer. But do you have to pay it now? The answer to that depends on where you live.
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
In Florida and Alabama the power company disconnects the electricity from your house.
Georgia Power, Other Companies Suspend Disconnections Amidst COVID-19 Concerns
By TAYLOR GANTT • MAR 16, 2020
Windup lanterns, solar chargers, pedal power generators. ....ditch the fridge. ...scrap the TV. ....
Oh hell, don’t worry about it. Uncle Sugar will pay it.
That went away at least a decade ago. Now it's a couple of keystrokes at the office.
PG&E used to charge for just the amount of gas and electricity used plus a few taxes. The fires that PG&E were responsible for starting in 2017/18 and were sued to cover individual’s losses totaled into the billions. The CA Courts informed PG&E that it could not simply raise rates to pay for the law suit judgement. They didn’t, instead PG&E has added a delivery charge to everyone’s monthly bill and, at least for me, the delivery charge is higher than the combined charges for my energy usage. The CA PUC had to approve the delivery charge thus circumventing the Court order to not put the financial burden on the current customers. Everybody with a brain knows Kalifornia really really sucks.
I left my cable job in 1997. They might have improved the tech, but not the mindset.
I think they’re worse now.
But we also have some nice alternatives that didn’t use to exist.
I dumped cable in favor of a cheap DSL line and streaming plus hooked the in house cable wires to an antenna for the OTA channels.
It is not a given that being home will significantly increase the use of electricity.
For one thing, much of the weekend bump is due to playing catch up with all the household chores. Laundry, cleaning etc. Otherwise people don’t have a need to use more power. Spreading the weekend power usage out over 7 days may not translate into significantly greater overall use.
OTOH, my wife thinks that people turn their air/heat higher/lower when gone during the day and will use more juice when home and not doing that. I’m not convinced that those savings are significant and that staying home will jack up consumption that much.
I can’t speak from personal experience because she is retired and I work at home so our power usage is consistently level, weekends are no different than weekdays in that regard.
That is not as crazy as it sounds to Americans under age 65.
I grew up in India without any fridge whatsoever, and for my first 20 year of life, it was everything cooked from scratch every day, and that wonderful, healthy and tasty home cooked food is the only thing I miss from India.
The biggest electric bill hog for me is the air conditioner, living in Florida. I have to set the thermostat as high as possible (ususally 80-81-82 deg) in summers and 64-65 deg in winters for the heat pump. In hot weather when the a/c kicks in it takes out humidity and with fans running it is quite tolerable. In cold weather, just wear more warm clothes.
It is better for your lung health that way because it is unhealthy to walk out of the home into a big temperature difference outside.
I agree with you. I lived in Florida for many years. Which is why I left LOL.
The question is are you using a dramatically different amount of electricity during the week if you are home compared to not being home.
My experience in Florida was that setting the air conditioning up much while we were gone during the day didn’t really pay off because of the load it had to suffer getting things back down after we got home.
Anyway, it is my own scientific opinion that the position of this article is just not accurate.
“Send a letter to Generac.”
That’s what I’m thinking. In Texas, if we can’t get to a post office to mail in our electric bill, we simply fire up our generators!
We sold our 1100 SqFt condo in June and moved into a 1600 SF house. Would you believe my electric bills are actually lower now? The A/C in condo was a new unit so it was just as modern and efficient as in the brand new house.
The problem was my 3rd floor condo had all the windows facing west. And the windows were huge, and in spite of heavy curtains to shade the sun, the condo still was always hot in summers.
So when I picked out this new house, I made sure that it had very few windows facing west. The 2 car garage faces west and there is only one small window facing west but there is a covered porch in front of it. On the east side we also have a huge covered lanai. Behind the backyard is thick woods with tall trees. So we get exposure to sun only in the morning for less than 2 hours. The living room and kitchen stay unbelievably cool all day!
One more thing, the attic has blown in insulation, but none was over the 2 car garage. Last summer the garage was very hot. So in winter time, I laid down 6 inch thick insulation rolls in attic over garage. So far so good, we already had a 90 deg day, and the garage was fine. We shall see what happens in the middle of summer.
FREE ELECTRICITY!
*right?*
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