Posted on 04/19/2024 2:13:04 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Utilities inflation arguably hurts restaurants more than higher food and labor costs
Every time Oakland restaurateur Geoff Davis looks at his PG&E bill, he feels helpless.
“I talk about it a lot with my friends. It’s a big line item for us,” the chef-owner of Burdell told SFGATE. “Last month [PG&E] was like 40% of our rent. It’s an insane amount and obviously this is my first time being an owner, but I know from other places that I’ve worked that it wasn’t this big of a number.”
It’s an expensive time to run a restaurant — or to eat at one. Increased food and labor costs are driving up prices across the board. Commercial utilities, such as water, gas and electricity, have also risen significantly in the last year, according to five restaurant owners who spoke to SFGATE about the effects of commercial rate hikes.
In the Bay Area, where monopolies such as PG&E are often the only utility options, restaurateurs like Davis, a finalist for the coveted James Beard Award for Best Chef in California, have few alternatives other than to foot the bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Wait until everyone is sucking up power trying to charge their electric cars.
National suicide, all produced and directed by lawyers turned government politicians.
We just got socked with a huge bill this month. The number of KwH is roughly the same, but we got a “demand charge” which - to the best as I understand it - has to do with us using a large amount of energy for more than 15 minutes at a time. It had to do with running a steam generator for a few hours here and there. We had been using it for a while but never before saw such a charge. That “demand charge” jacked the bill 300% more than our usage charge - which is almost entirely off peak.
I was in the power industry for over three decades. You will love this irony. Utilities were pushing EVs in the 80s and 90s as a way to sell surplus power at night when normal daytime residential and commercial loads went way down and there was a lot of surplus base load capacity to sell. Now that rationale is gone because the greeniacs got rid of almost all coal and lots of nuclear. So now we don’t have the needed power
Well to be fair to PG&E, they have to recoup the $30 billion dollar fine from Sacramento somehow…
Who’d you vote for chef?
“Just the idea that a PG & E bill can be 40% of the rent in the Bay area is just plain wrong, “Markist” newspaper or not.”
Horse hockey! When I lived in CA my mortgage was $2400 per month and utilities in the wintertime were routinely $800 per month. And we WEREN’T running a restaurant!
The fly in the soup is that utilities have to run “parallel physical services”. Those services are in generating capacity. For every wind or solar farm, the utility, which is responsible for “reliable power” needs to build, maintain & have available an “old school” coal or oil generating plant.
Consider an analogy with your home, every modern home has an HVAC system for heat and AC. But in the analogy, your modern home will have two HVAC systems, one will operate when God provides sufficient wind and sun. And the other HVAC system for when sunless, windless days befall us.
But you’ve doubled HVAC purchase costs, 2 identical physical systems, different power sources. In addition to purchase, there is installation costs, maintenance and repair costs, etc. That’s what the utilities face. The days of the utility manifest for providing safe, inexpensive and reliable service are gone. Utility CEOs don’t even fight the Public Utility Commissions (PUC) anymore about fulfilling their manifest as a monopoly. If PUC says the utility needs 50% of their power grid to be renewable sources, the utilities sets into motion building “parallel physical services” and add the additional costs into the rate base.
The widows and orphans that own utility stocks are protected bec John Q Customer picks up the tab threw higher utility bills. Remember utilities are guaranteed a profit so long as they provide safe and reliable service, inexpensive not so much. But CEO replies to unhappy customers that the PUC instructed us what we need to do for our guaranteed profit, customer be D@mned.
“In general CA rates are very high due to green nonsense..”
Same democrat filth that’s killing the rest of the country,
What about the town that they blew up?
if these folks wish to remain in business, there only real option is to move out of california ...
“These idiot Californians continue to vote in democrats and their policies in year after year. “
That’s true of every single restaurant owner in all of California? How do you know that?
“I use one of those oil-filled heaters in my little cabin in the winter.”
We use 3-4 of those in the house except on really cold mornings when the electric furnace is used to warm up.
They are basically 100% efficient so no complaints. Just not over 100% like a heat pump.
9 cents/kWh.
Electric utilities have to plan for contingencies in re capacity. The generating mix has to be planned such as to avoid excessive dependence on a sibgle type. A dry winter in CA for instance can reduce hydro generating capacity over the summer.
And as you note, “green” systems are much worse in this. Around the world the go-to backup for both “renewable” systems and for peaking has been natural gas, both pipeline and LNG. Fortunately gas turbine plants are both cheap (relatively) and quick to build. An unheralded development btw.
Except in CA, of course, because of political idiocy.
We still pay much less than that.
Most of the CA population is urban and lives near the coasts. They require very little winter heating in spite of a general lack of insulation. Urban populations mainly have gas service, and gas pricing is much lower than electric. Though of course the idiots in Sacramento want to do away with gas.
So the effect of expensive electricity is overall less than one would think. There are exceptional cases of course. If you live in the Sierra and your home heating is electric...
Our temperatures are mild on the central California coast but my PG&E bill was never as low as yours. I started leasing Solar in January which costs me $148 per month, which is close to my lowest ever PG&E bill.
We’ve had really bad weather but in March (with solar) my PG&E bill was only $26, so combined it costs me $174. For April I’ll have a PG&E credit which may continue until next January. So far I’m loving my solar powered house and may purchase a hot tub and sauna as my solar will produce more than I’ve ever used. Now I’m thinking battery backup.
Yeah, they’re very good, my complaint is that my electric bill
DOUBLES those months I use it, with no other consumption change(s).
On the electric side there are "CCA's" in certain areas (usually "Blue" cities/areas), But again after PG&E delivery charges not much savings to be had. But lefties get their "Virtue Signaling" wind & solar props. that way.
https://www.pge.com/en/account/alternate-energy-providers/community-choice-aggregation.html
Then there are the "small" utilities in certain areas:
https://www.mid.org
https://www.smud.org
Others:
https://cecgis-caenergy.opendata.arcgis.com/documents/c69c363cafd64ad2a761afd6f1211442/explore
Well in the great PNW solar is not an option; now if there was a wsy to convert rain and overcast into electricity ...
Including ‘The French Laundry “...?
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