In northern Illinois where I live, electricity is provided by ComEd. However ComEd is really two companies. One delivers electricity and the other generates electricity. In my last bill, that portion that was billed for "Electricity Supply Services" accounted for only 55 percent of the total bill. As the guy who writes the checks, the simple formula I use is Total Cost / kWh. This comes out to $0.149 per kWh. On the bill the stated cost of a kWh is only $0.06968.
I agree with your assessment as far as your bill goes. However, if you use ONE additional kwh, what is the additional cost ? I bet it works out to .069 cents.
In my area, the bill has a "fixed" cost, whether I use any or not, and a "useage" cost, which is based on the number of kwh I use.
If I use NO electric power for that month, my cost per kwh using your reckoning would be infinite. It's not unfair, just ambiguous. A power company has to cover it's fixed cost whether you turn on your lights or not, since you want it to always be at the ready.
I think 14.9 cents per kwh is a bit on the high side, but not unreasonabley so.
The distribution cost on my bill is also based on the number of kWh used. It goes up with usage. It is not a fixed cost.
Anyway, the reason I brought this topic up was an article that I read comparing cost/mile driven in an electric car versus a gasoline powered car. The advocates of electric cars used the nominal cost of a kWh to make it appear that electric cars are much cheaper to operate. (In my case, .069 vs .149). Also when I fill up my car at the gas station, I know that a large portion of a gallon of gas goes to taxes and a road repair fund. Are owners of electric cars getting a free ride on this also?
Hi, Same here in Alberta. 7 cents/Kwh but there are so many this and that charges, real billed price is ~double that. Same with water. They keep inventing new service charges to add.
The distribution cost on my bill is also based on the number of kWh used. It goes up with usage. It is not a fixed cost.
Anyway, the reason I brought this topic up was an article that I read comparing cost/mile driven in an electric car versus a gasoline powered car. The advocates of electric cars used the nominal cost of a kWh to make it appear that electric cars are much cheaper to operate. (In my case, .069 vs .149). Also when I fill up my car at the gas station, I know that a large portion of a gallon of gas goes to taxes and a road repair fund. Are owners of electric cars getting a free ride on this also?
Yes, those few owners of totally electric cars are not paying any road taxes as they are collected at the gasoline pump; but they are paying taxes on their higher use of electricity. The tax laws will have to be revised to correct the imbalance at some point, but similar things happen when you buy merchandise on line and pay no sales taxes vs. buying at a local store where sales taxes are added.
Because of deregulation, electric rates are no longer fixed, but vary month-by-month with a generation charge and fees plus a transportation/service charge and fees. Take your total bill and divide by the kWh that were used to find your rate for the month. That's the true rate because that's what you actually pay.
Not in my neck of the woods. Here's my breakdown- [National Grid- upstate NY] It cost me $185.59 for 1493kWh Basic service- 15.21 Delivery .05973x1493=80.59 [then + $2 or so for a series of adjustments, assessments, word salads, taxes and tariffs] Supply .04633 x 1493 -- $69.17 [and a merchant function and 'ESRM' based on kWh- $8.15] plus sales tax $3.
So, although they can honestly say they are charging 4.633 cents per kWh -- I am paying about 12.4 cents-- and will pay most of that if I use one more kWh.
[and I'm not complaining-- The power grid should be a benevolent, well regulated monopoly, IMO.]
Oh, just wait till the politicians start howling for road use taxes for electric vehicles. I know that some states require all interstate trucks to have receipts showing that fuel was purchased in that state when the truck goes through a weigh station.
That's the way I figure it (amount of bill / amount used). I skip all the fake costs (before the add the many fees and taxes). Like your example, there can be a big difference between what they say the rate is and what it actually is.
If it makes it less painful, just bend over and take it . Most appliances I see which try to calculate electric useage of late, seem to use 10 or 11 cents kWh. You got me curious now to see how much up the _ss I'm taking it of late. I'll try to follow up on this post and report back what I'm paying outside of Houston. We do have a choice of electric providers around here but IMO they don't differ that much.
unless they're using solar to recharge their cars, in which case, their tases paid could be pretty close to 0, or even negative if they're putting more into the network rather than taking it out.
In California, when you file your state income tax there's a section to voluntarily state the amount of purchases you have made through tax free outlets and you are then required to pay the sales tax for all those items.
I don't know who the "they" is that you're referring to. But as someone pointed out earlier, since they reduced some regulation and invited more competition in many places, it's not unusual for the electric to be billed in two parts, one for generation and the other for delivery. You can even choose to buy your electric generation from multiple sources here in NJ. And the bill is perfectly clear and easy to understand.
Check out that 'fixed' cost. It may be for them to 'make power available', thus when they fail on that contract, you should NOT have to pay.
When I lived in California [in one of the mildest climates in the world] we paid approx $300/mo for electricity for two people in a house with gas hot water and heating! one fridge, no freezer. I think they figured out how to charge what the market will bear. The utilities company got so greedy that they quit repariing and fixing their infrastructure, so transformers were blowing up regularly and the slightest windstorm would knock trees down causing power outages. It was a national disgrace - highest rates with the highest number of outages in the US.
Anyway, to hype the bill the utilities company started that long list of itemization with one of those charges for "making available" power so everytime one of those tiny winds came up and blew down a tree and we had an outage I DEMANDED A REFUND FOR THAT CHARGE based upon the fact that they had failed to perform and it is illegal in the US to collect for services NOT rendered. I got it, $0.06 credit for the power being off for 24 hours, but once customers started demanding their money back for failure to perform, suddenly there was money to repair the infrastructure and the outages diminished to more acceptable levels. I found out later that the movement to demand refund cost the utitlities company something in excess of several $100,000's every event. Probably included employee time to manually adjust each bill!
Now I live in AZ, where the builders seem to think electricity is free! the way they put in appliances, lighting, and stuff! Just noticed that everytime the news starts to carry comments about the high price of electricity, we suddenly have a power outage. Lasts about two hours, just long enough to make you panic and realize WE NEED POWER!, but not long enough time to destroy your food in the fridge, etc. ...and the news stories stop. Now, you just have to ask yourself, "Do I believe in coincidences?"
Electricity at $0.06968 / kWh Delivery Services at $0.07932 / kWh
There's nothing wrong or even misleading on your bill. The cost of a kWh of electricity is $0.06968.
When you buy something on eBay, did you pay $50 for the item and $6.95 for shipping or did you pay $56.95 for the item?
I submit that you paid $50 *for the item* even though your total cost was $56.95.
It may be nothing more than numerical semantics, but since different parts of the purchase may be budgeted for and/or taxed differently, they really do need to be separated out.
In at least some places they can also come from different suppliers. Here in NJ you have a choice of several companies that you can choose to purchase the generation portion from. One of them is the regulated utility that also handles the distribution portion. The others are independent companies. So even though the same wires bring the electricity into your house, the source could be one of the new competitors.
Like you say, I don't see anything shady or confusing about it. It's very clear on my bill what the two seperate charges are for.
" snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net" wrote in news:8014092c- snipped-for-privacy@i18g2000vbx.googlegroups.com:
I'm in NJ as well, and our total cost here is higher than in Chicago(?), almost 19c/kWh here in PSE&G territory. And the costs are clearly specified as mentioned.
Same where I live. I can buy my electricity and gas from a few different suppliers, but it always gets delivered by the lone utility company in the area.
No one has ever been able to explain to me how they know which kWh hours are mine so that the ones I'm paying for end up in my panel. Are they bar coded or something?
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