Posted on 05/10/2024 4:58:41 PM PDT by george76
Millions of middle-class California households are poised to pay an extra $24 per month for electricity, regardless of how much electricity they use. Regulators are hoping this utility billing policy will rescue their agenda to move everyone to electric cars and appliances by redistributing the massive costs of the state’s electric grid so utilities can lower their usage rates.
But critics say the income-based premium will likely further hike utility costs for millions of Californians—nearly one-fifth of whom are already behind in paying their bills after household electricity rates almost doubled in the last decade—and likely won’t do much to cut the state’s sky-high electricity rates. The premiums are supposed to subsidize lower-income household electricity costs, which will be reduced by 5 cents to 7 cents per kilowatt hour, in a bid to make charging EVs and using electric heaters and appliances cheaper.
The policy comes as California Democrats struggle to reconcile their goals of ridding the state’s energy grid of fossil fuels in favor of costly wind and solar—a push that has led to massive spikes in electricity costs—while also forcing households to swap gas cars and appliances for electric versions.
But critics say the price-per-kilowatt hour reduction plus the premium won’t move the needle on making it more affordable for Californians to replace their fossil fuel use with electricity. Analysis from the pro-renewable energy group Clean Coalition said the lower rate still can’t compete with "modern high efficiency gas appliances" and won’t come close to justifying the expense of replacing them.
"It’s not going to bring down the rate enough to improve the economics of electrification," said Jenn Engstrom, state director for the California Public Interest Research Group.
The premium could hit Californians as soon as next year. California households that don’t qualify for subsidies—those earning $62,150 for a family of three—will be charged the additional $24 per month. Lower-income households will pay fixed fees ranging from $6 to $12 a month depending on their income.
The policy has been criticized by the public, advocates, and politicians spanning the political spectrum, and comes as Californians already pay the second-highest rates in the nation behind Hawaii. Ahead of the final vote, residents said their electricity costs have already "exceeded the level of tolerance" and they can’t afford another increase. Others complained that switching to solar power promoted by the state has led to higher bills. It is backed by the state’s major utility companies as a way to help fund the costs of electrifying their grid and following California’s energy mandates.
State regulators said the policy will lower people’s bills while boosting California’s electrification agenda.
"This billing adjustment makes it cheaper across the board for customers to charge an electric vehicle or run an electric heat pump, which will spur greater uptake of these technologies that are essential to transitioning us away from fossil fuels," California’s utility commission president Alice Reynolds said in a prepared statement.
Governor Gavin Newsom (D.) has stood by the policy, saying it will help fight "climate change" by encouraging people to convert move to EVs and electric appliances. The rule was mandated by a provision tucked into a sprawling state budget bill passed in 2022.
Won’t this put a crimp in the reparations loot?
“ Won’t this put a crimp in the reparations loot?”
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Surely California blacks, regardless of their household income, will be exempt from this monthly fee. /sarc?
The wealthy and well-connected usually don’t have to worry about these added fees.
My last electric bill was $0.55 per kWh.
I don’t give a fu$k about their pain.
I fact in Hawaii not are EV’s impractical
they cost way more than a $60,000 diesel
4 WD truck to use daily.
The evil effects of the climate crisis scam are unending.
Sounds unConstitutional.
Bohica!
Gov. Newsh$t with a wide open border-then raises the prices of everything so only the millionaires and billionaires can live there. The rest of us then get stuck with the mass emigration. Pretty sneaky! What an ahole!
I have 2, 19 yr. old, m/t TurboDiesel station wagons [~50 mpg] that will hopefully out-live me.
has to be unconstitutional...but then so was obamacare.
You know, Edmund Brown (Jerry Brown’s old man) was a liberal but he got things done. I mean CA was a paradise in the late 1950s/early 1960s. The best education system, water everywhere, people were flocking to it in droves.
“My last electric bill was $0.55 per kWh”
It would be the second to last one I’d get if I had to pay that rate.
“Regulators are hoping this utility billing policy will rescue their agenda to move everyone to electric cars”
Oh, yeah. Raising the cost of electricity is sure to motivate everyone into buying electric cars. Logic.
I hate to state the obvious, but this is a stupid agenda for a state that currently implements rolling blackouts because they can't generate enough electricity.
Utilities bill higher than usual? Telltale signs you’re being scammed out of internet, electricity and more
Yeah, that’s pretty high. Hawaii average in 2023 was around $0.42 per kWh, so the OP might live in a rural area of Hawaii. Do realize when comparing to Florida, the average monthly consumption was roughly 2.2 times that of Hawaii. So, the average monthly electricity bill in Hawaii (the usage charges) is not a great deal higher than in Florida.
Joe says “they have the money.”
Is it legal to take a suburban house off-grid in California?
“they can’t generate enough electricity”
It would crazy to build a power plant subject directly or indirectly to California regulators.
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