Posted on 06/10/2024 5:17:38 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Maggie Robbins lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights. Because she has no air conditioning, dishwasher, washer or dryer, she uses little electricity.
As a result, the net amount she pays Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to deliver electricity to her home could go up by about $20 a month in early 2026, when the big utility implements a new rate structure for some costs of distributing electricity to homes. Under the new scheme, PG&E’s residential customers will pay a fixed monthly charge based on income, but pay a bit less for each kilowatt-hour used.
The Chronicle analyzed bills from a dozen PG&E customers around the Bay Area and found that based on past usage, most will pay more. People who use lots of electricity — such as those in hot inland areas, especially if they are low-income, and electric-vehicle owners — will most likely come out ahead, because their usage-based savings will exceed their fixed charge. Those who use less energy will typically pay more.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
For now it’s legal to be off grid in California.
Sad to say, it doesn’t look like I’ll ever be able to move back to CA. Every day, in every way, it gets worse there. Bad government can destroy even the best places.
Or live in a city such as Roseville or Santa Clara that has its own utility. Roseville is currently about 75% less than PG&E though rates are going up and will end up around -40%
We are trying to keep the light on for you.
Santa Clara?
I’ll take how to push people who can afford it off the grid for five hundred Alex.
If Texas did this dumb s**t I would just flip the master breaker and tell Oncor to pound sand. My solar plus second life battery banks more than cover my daily uses. I’ll have to give back the battery banks either when they fail which could be spectacular or at the end of my testing period. I have been cycling them at 2C or more daily trying to get them to fail. The company I am testing them for is a friend of mine’s so far so good for NMC cells in one bank and LFP in the others. I gave up solar charge them too slow for torture testing so they now do charge at off peak at what the main breakers will take and dump 2C+ at peak times. They would last three times longer on slow solar charging but that’s not the point of the testing.
Cali can shove off. I used to live in Socal never again they lost their minds shame that weather is soooooooo much better than Texas.
Why are utilities communist when they are implementing mandated programs?
What the media doesn't tell you, is that PG&E is heavily regulated by government mandates. PG&E isn't communist, but the PUC certainly is (Public Utilities Commission). San Francisco County and other state entities have been trying to take over PG&E for the last century. As if local government has a success record in running anything efficiently.
My wife worked as a manager at PG&E before retiring, and saw constant interference by outside government entities. They forced PG&E to sell (or give away) profitable enterprises while mandating costly changes. One was to not to cut away trees more than a few feet away from high voltage towers, to preserve natural habitats... then fires happened and PG&E got sued in expensive lawsuits over fires. PG&E can't win with oversight like this.
Don’t forget the CA govt. “AB1890” that caused the 1st PG&E bankruptcy.
Yeah, I’m honored to be at the forefront of the movement to pay four times the national average for power.
So they want to access your financial records? Would that be tax returns? And then the government would say it ‘has’ to federalize power companies to distribute energy ‘fairly’?
How do they know your income?!?
“So they want to access your financial records? Would that be tax returns?”
You voluntarily submit your records to qualify for lower rates.
“How do they know your income?!?”
You submit your records.
How do they know your income?!?
For now the CPUC is going with “CARE” and “FERA” income guidelines (income/tax data from the CA FTB was legally unavailable to be released to utilities, etc. w/o taxpayer written permission).
Initially will be a $24.15 “infrastructure” base charge for most people and $12. for people on FERA and $6. for CARE eligible.
Full CPUC order here (162 pages...beware LOTS of reading!):
https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M531/K094/531094134.PDF
“News” articles:
https://yubanet.com/california/cpuc-approves-flat-rate-billing-structure/
My water co charges a $40 base fee, but my actual usage is only $4.
Believe it or not. Now pretentiously named Silicon Valley Power. When I lived there it was 40% less than PG&E. This from their website:
Santa Clara’s municipal electric utility, Silicon Valley Power, was established in 1896. The utility is one of the larger public power systems in California, serving more than 58,000 customers with a peak demand around 586 megawatts.
13 years ago I moved from my home of 46 years, Seattle, for rural Kentucky. I still go back there once a year to see relatives, including one daughter (the other two got out as well, but five or six years later).
It’s a lot worse than it was when I left. I don’t miss it at all. I got my fill of it. I was an avid bike rider and commuted by bike for about 15 years. There is hardly a corner of the area I’ve not been on with my bike. It was getting bad when I left. It’s intolerable now. Tacoma is much nicer, with the exception of a few areas, which is true of all cities in the US.
The problem is that it is still California. I broke my rule about never going there again when I went to Palm Springs to meet up with my high school friend (may be the last time I see him). I like the desert (I was born in eastern Washington), and if it wasn’t California, it would be a nice place to live. But we all know how much everything costs there and how high the taxes are. So NOW I’ll never go back to California.😎
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