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General => General Discussion and ??? => Topic started by: ZooCity on January 22, 2013, 05:43:30 PM
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Just gotta vent- what a scam... we are paying 3x more per kwh because we are on "demand" billing. Our 1750 sf shop uses about 13-25k kwh per month. We have no recourse whatsoever on this.
I call b.s. on that. Our last bill would have been 137.82 for electric at standard rates but instead it's 357.53. Yay!
I do understand how a super large operation would stress out the grid, leaving the utility provider to incur the costs of being able to bridge these surges and peak usage times but nobody has explained to me why/how our shop is defined as such or where that line is drawn.
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That's scary to me. Didn't realize the potential to be charged more " because you use more".
Even "if" you used 10% more than last year or 10% more than the average business, they charge you At a higher rate? That seems like thievery.
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Ours is time of use penalties. During a certain time if the day rates double or worse. Makes me want to print graveyard shift
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I know from what we getted billed they take some sort of "average" and if you use more then that, you get hammered on billing. totally agree it seems stupid. I believe ours is a total use for a month, not a particular time. I haven't seen our 3 phase bill, but with my press running full bore its using about 130-140 amps...I'm sure its not going to be pretty
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They explained it to me that they take the highest amount you used out of all the readings and use that to bill you for the day. It gets read or whatever every 15 minutes. They said, in a really big shop you could turn on one bank of lights at a time, one machine at a time, every 15 minutes to keep from having one big pop but that's seriously dumb to have to do that and wouldn't you peak still be your peak regardless?
I'm not clear on how this is legal. I signed nothing that said "we're going to hose you for 3x the kwh we charge everyone else b/c you have a 'business' service" when our new service and meter were installed.
Energy groups must have pushed this through the utility regulators at some point, probably long ago, not sure how long this has been the norm.
A little more is ok with me. 3x more? eff that. Why should I give anyone hundreds of extra dollars per month for no actual reason?
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Just gotta vent- what a scam... we are paying 3x more per kwh because we are on "demand" billing. Our 1750 sf shop uses about 13-25k kwh per month. We have no recourse whatsoever on this.
I call b.s. on that. Our last bill would have been 137.82 for electric at standard rates but instead it's 357.53. Yay!
I do understand how a super large operation would stress out the grid, leaving the utility provider to incur the costs of being able to bridge these surges and peak usage times but nobody has explained to me why/how our shop is defined as such or where that line is drawn.
??? using your numbers:
-- if you used 13000 KWH, you're paying $.027 per KWH
-- if you used 25000 KWH, you're paying $.014 per KWH
In either case, your electric bill is a bargain... most people are paying $.10 to $.14 per KWH
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You guys would love So Cal Edison..... ;) Yeah right. I dont even ask about the electric bill anymore.
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Sheesh we pay $.14+ not counting peak, its insane paying for electric in this crummy state that has only one player in the game.
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we average $.19 by the time you toss all the extra fees in.
It's a rip.
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I wish. I added a zero with the nomenclature there.
This bill was 0.27 per kwh.
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We are at .13 per kwh
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we average $.19 by the time you toss all the extra fees in.
It's a rip.
Yep same here, there is so many other line items tacked on it easily gets in to the $.20+ range. Peak times is way way higher as well. Funny thing is we are in the only town in the whole state that generates its own power, so we are actually cheaper than NU which controls the entire state minus Wallingford. Here is the kicker, Wallingford generates so much extra power they sell it to NU which in turns sells it to their customers at much higher rates, thats total BS if you ask me.
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Ha, I know fedex has a depot that sells power back to the utility company. Most of their draw is lighting, so they have the roof space for tons of solar panels. Imagine what they would produce if they were better than about 6% efficient. It's not worth it for a building like ours...lots of draw, small footprint.
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I got cha electric bill.... right here.
Well it's not mine, but my employer pays over $10 million a year.
We buy our electricity at the "transmit / transform" level of 120,000 volts.
We have two incoming feeders and a substation on the property.
A typical daytime load is about 20 megawatts/hr (20,000 KWH)
The good news...
Our "blended rate " fee is about $.072/kwh
Blended rate is based on day use (peak), night use (off-peak) and demand charges.
We almost installed a 13 megawatt combustion turbine about 7 years ago... it would have provided cheap electricity and about 100,000 pounds of steam/hr. We use steam year round (heat in the Winter & spin turbine chillers during the cooling season).
We couldn't get it funded by the executives... it would have paid for itself in less than 5 years.
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So get this, my home electric usage is actually similar this time of year, 12 000-19000 kwh. Same service amperage size too. The only difference is the shop is 3ph.
$0.27 shop $0.11 house.
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$10mil a year? WOW. I am surprised the execs wouldn't go for it. Well, not really. It's a no brainer, and sometimes they have no brains.
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$10mil a year? WOW. I am surprised the execs wouldn't go for it. Well, not really. It's a no brainer, and sometimes they have no brains.
Their explanation.... "we expect to return 28% on equity, this has a 16% return "
I don't understand why 28% is required.... hell they can borrow at 4%, so a 16% return would appear (as you said) to be a no-brainer.
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So get this, my home electric usage is actually similar this time of year, 12 000-19000 kwh. Same service amperage size too. The only difference is the shop is 3ph.
$0.27 shop $0.11 house.
In Minnesota we have a "public utilities commission" that oversees rate requests and helps establish rates.... Montana probably does also.
I would guess that it's a case of the commission shifting the burden of cost... OFF of homeowners and ON to business. The only logic behind that is... for a business, the costs are tax deductable.
That's flawed logic, but "it is.. what it is"
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and businesses are evil and have unlimited funds
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Well, I hate to micro manage the utility co. but where is that line drawn? Why is my shop on business rates and the home not when they both: draw the same kwh, have the same service amperage.
That's what I want to dig into- what defines which. Might be a way to get in there edgewise and get the rate reduced but probably not.
FYI, the way util co.'s are regulated, regarding rate setting, is designed to incentivize capital investment but it also builds an incentive for the util. to have large operating costs. This, in my opinion, invites all sorts of what I'll call "deuschy rich white guy problems".
In Montana, some jackhole, d-bag of a governor...what was his name? ...Mark Racicot, sold the state on the concept of deregulation but it was just a scam he had cooked up for personal gain. Think about the free market aspect of that, nobody wants to own power lines in Montana- miles upon miles of line and very few people to buy the power from you. So now almost half of our bills are just tithing whoever it is that owns the supply service.
/rant over.
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In 2000 Connecticut deregulated the power companies, well company. Back then it was called North East Utilities. They owned all the transmission lines and also all the power generating facilities, including Nuclear power. The Nuke plants have been shut down for a decade now. After deregulation which supposedly allowed customers to purchase power from who ever North east utilities restructured, they split in to two companies one was CL&P which owns all transmission, and the other is UI which sells the power. Now the funny thing is their is no competition for selling electricity, UI is still the only provider to the whole state minus our town which generates its own. So deregulation did zero to stop the monopoly on energy in this state, no energy company will get in business in this state because CL&P still owns all the lines and have to be paid to use their lines. Its all BS.
BTW I just read a power bill and nearly died, our normal KW is around $.14 but demand billing is $9.50 holy crap! Our bill is roughly half demand billing charges, and for you folks lucky to not have sales tax be glad because we have to pay sales tax on the power bill as well.
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Interesting. I know that in PA you used to have actual options. You could choose to get you power from a wind based co., for instance. Sounds like deregulation was mostly a scheme to get single entities monopolizing the power delivery and doing, essentially, whatever they want with rates. (they do have to work within a system but it sounds like rates skyrocketed almost everywhere this happened)
They just sold it to everyone on the concept that the "free market" of deregulated energy will bring better rates and service.
I wonder how many deuschy rich white guys it took to cook this up?
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Our supplier stopped producing its own power when they shut down the nuclear plants, get this all our power comes from Niagara which also supplies many other states, yet we pay much more than other states. It is a monopoly actually made worse by deregulating, a company tried to build a steam plant for generating power yet some how UI stopped them, god forbid if you have competition oh no, the CEO of UI wouldnt be able to get his mere $100,000,000+ salary.