Seen on reddit and other sources:
https://old.reddit.com/r/fresno/comments/1hxqlx7/the_more_i_try_to_save_energy_the_higher_the/
Its already 50c or more per kilowatt hour… https://www.pge.com/assets/pge/docs/account/rate-plans/residential-electric-rate-plan-pricing.pdf
On top of the “The Electric Home Rate Plan includes a $15-per-month Base Services Charge”… because people were starting to get 100% of their power from solar and it was “unfair”.
Are you saying that someone who uses 10kWh of grid power per month should pay the same “connection fee” as someone who uses 990kWh per month?
No, they’re arguing that the price of power should be split:
This makes sense, because regardless of you much power someone uses, the costs associated with maintaining the infrastructure that allows them to draw any power at all remain the same. This also happens to be the model used in Norway, so it’s not an untested concept.
Another option, relevant when the cost of building the power plant is large and the cost of energy production is negligible, is that everyone connected to the grid pays a near-flat fee in total, which is distributed among consumers depending on how much power they use. I’ve never heard of that option being used before.
Generally you pay a grid connection based on the type of connection you have. A giant factory has a much beefier grid connection than single family residence, so the big factory has a higher connection charge.
Is the person’s connection to the grid using less energy a smaller connection, or is it the same? If they’re the same, why should someone using less be charges less of a connection fee? Why would usage impact a fixed on/off fee, especially with per-unit usage rates?
You would have a point if it were possible to downgrade a connection to closely match your consumption. But that is not the case. You can’t buy a 20A service when everyone in your neighborhood has 200A. It’s a matter of safety: service lines need to be sized based on the upstream current limited, but the current limiter for your service (the main breaker in your panel) is downstream of that service line. If you put an undersized service line to your house and it develops a fault, it will burn up before tripping the neighborhood “breaker”.
It is more reasonable to charge you for the generation and distribution of 2A than for your 2A service to be charged the same “connection fee” as your cryptobro neighbor.
You absolutely could pay for a lower rating if you chose to also pay for the equipment to step down the supply to your intake values. That what a transformer substation is for, and why the factory and residential lines can share the same upstream but get different local outputs. It’s just going to be so much more expensive that you’re never going to go that route unless you’ve got a lot of people that want to do the same.
Is that not what your consumption fee is for? You’re paying for generation/distribution for the power you use, and the power company also tacks on a base fee to account for other maintenance costs that had been bundled but were being lost due to net metering.
From a collective perspective, it makes sense to pay to connect, and also pay per usage when you have the potential to have distributes generation, but centralized maintenance of the shared infrastructure.
Based on that comment, I think I understand the issue.
In my state, I can purchase power from literally any of a hundred generators. I pay them to put power on the grid, for me to take off.
I also pay a single grid provider to (ostensibly) transfer that power from where it generated to me.
What I am talking about here is the fact that both the generator and the grid operator have costs that depend on “consumption”. The more power I use, the greater the load on the grid, and the more infrastructure they need. They might be able to use a single transformer to adequately serve 20 low-use households; they might need 5 transformers to adequately serve 10 high-use households.
Even though all 30 of these households have 200A service, It does not make sense that the cost of these 6 transformers should be evenly assessed. It does make sense that two high-use households (who use a full transformer) pay the same total fee as the 20 low-use households (who also use a full transformer).
The way it works here (the Netherlands) the monthly cost for the connection to the grid depends on the maximum current and number of phases.
Some examples: a 1 phase 1A connection costs €11,12 per month, 3x 25A costs €168,99 , 3x 80A is €408,94 (there are other capacities available with different rates).
To me this seems like a fair way of doing it, someone who draws more power (or higher peak power) needs a beefier hookup and that requires beefier and more expensive equipment and cables.
In Norway we pay a different fixed fee based on the maximum hourly use (average of three highest hours) during a month, so that consumers that need a lot of effect from the grid pays the most.
Assuming they have the same type of connection, yeah, why wouldn’t they?
Simplified scenario.
The cost for the grid provider to maintain a transformer is $1000.
A transformer can serve 20 low-use households, or 2 high-use households.
Both the low-use and the high-use households have the same, 200A service to their homes. Either can use up to 200A. In practice, neither actually does. The only difference between a low-use and a high-use household is in how much they actually use.
A neighborhood has 20 low-use households (1 transformer).
That same neighborhood as 10 high-use households (5 transformers).
This neighborhood of 30 houses has $6000 in maintenance costs.
Here are the two options we are talking about:
Fixed rate. Each household in this neighborhood pays a fixed, $200 “connection fee” to cover these costs.
Consumption-based. Each of the 20 low-use household pays $50 ($1000 total, for the 1 transformer they share) and each high-use household pays $500 ($5000 total, for the 5 transformers they share).
With Option 1, each of the low-use households is paying 4 times the maintenance costs that they actually incur, and each heavy-use household is paying only 40% of the maintenance costs they incur.
With Option 2, both low- and high-use households pay their actual maintenance costs.
Which option makes more sense?
Fixed fees only make sense for covering administrative costs, which scale per user. Grid maintenance costs scale based (primarily) on total consumption. Fixing maintenance fees forces low-use households to subsidize high-use households.
I feel like I’m in the fucking twilight zone here. The community does not seem to comprehend what they are demanding.