Dang, they said a small increase, my bill went up a nice chunk, 60.00 bucks!! And I used less then last month,been getting warming in the days here,so no heater on all day.Plus there is another increase that will kick in a few months,going cost a lot more cash to grow indoors this year...got to charge more...thats sux's!!
Your electric bill could have gone up even if you used less. here is what happened around my state and is probably around you too. My electric cost is crazy cheap from what I hear others say around the net. We were paying 8.3 cents a kw/hr.
A couple years ago they raised it just a tiny bit to like 8.9 and they did that for 2 years and placed that extra bit they collected in escrow. They did this to help prepare people for the rate hike that was coming. The hike happened this past year. When they did part of the hike. Then they took the extra money that people paid over 2 years and applied it to their electric bill to offset the rate hike. They did this so people were not slammed and unprepared for the rate increases.
Now the escrow money is gone so this past month we got bills for the actual amount. We still only pay 11.75 cents a kw/hr. That is why you could have used more kw/hr at 8.3 but are paying more now with less usage because you are paying 11.75 and you don't have the applied money from the escrow.
There is going to be another increase coming too. A 1000w at 11.75 cents a kw/hr is $1.41 per day or $41 an hour. Still pretty cheap in my book. I used to pay $29 a month to run a 1000w.
hahahah $41 an hour and we would all have our medicine outside, or not have it all .
PG&E raised rates an average of 15% per annum. They are projected to continue, and that's a compound calculation there, too. These are publicly traded utilities, i.e. they have stock/shareholders.
I see fishwhistle has read a bill breakdown, and yes, that's how it works. You/we (the ratepaying customer) pays for the infrastructure monthly. Yet, we have no rights to the infrastructure. It might actually be a good idea to invest in companies like PG&E, because they're in bed with the CPUC. If folks knew how the California Public Utilities Commission actually operates, they'd be up in arms. Or maybe it's just that we, collectively, don't care. United States of Apathy and all.
In *any* event, this is why I pushed so hard to get our home on solar when the offer came down the pipe last year. Thanks to federal stimulus funds, these electrons are being created and delivered to you via solar power. We pay down the (0% APR) loan over 15 years, and we own the solar array and generator outright. Increase the value of our home while making ourselves almost completely energy independent will ultimately prove far more valuable. Not that installing a 12KW solar array increased our home's value all that much, but ya gotta do whatcha gotta do, ya know?
Btw, we used to see power bills from PG&E in the $500-$800 range, BEFORE I ever grew a single plant inside.
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