We are in the midst of a heat wave right now in So Cal - and my A/C has been on 24/7 for the past few days - with no end in sight.
I am not wealthy by any means and the a/c is set to 75, hardly cool - I have elderly relatives with health problems and may have to turn the a/c down.
I used less electricity and water than the same month last year but my bill is far higher.
I suspect the local pols will consider me and my neighbors “rich” (most are elderly on fixed incomes) b/c we own our own homes (and that isn’t fair to those who don’t) - and jack up our bills even higher.
“I am not wealthy by any means and the a/c is set to 75...”
YIKES!
I get the health concerns, but most everyone should be able to well-manage 79 or 80 with adequate hydration.
I start the day at 75 or lower, then let my place get to 79 during the daytime before the A/C kicks in to cap it there. After sundown, I step it back down to 77, and then back to 75 in the wee hours of the morning, if opening the windows hasn’t achieved that result, already.
But this all depends where you live; High Desert locations cool off nicely at night, so throwing all the windows open is free overnight A/C.
Palm Springs or Barstow — not so much. Yeah, it’s kinda cool to be chatting poolside in shirtsleeves with your Main Squeeze at 2am, but that doesn’t help you get your house prepped for the next day’s Solar inferno.
And anyplace in the Central Valley?? Fahgeddaboutit.
The big thing I see in this is how this billing scheme (and it IS a “scheme” in all the most nefarious senses of the term) will hit customers who ALREADY forked out the big bucks to install solar arrays.
THIS SINGLE MOVE — BY ITSELF — takes EVERY solar system consumer in California from being a fiscally responsible, considerate balancer of environmental concerns and personal costs, and recasts them all as reckless NET FISCAL LOSERS.
INSTANTLY.
These are my concerns EXACTLY:
Californians were “sold” solar on the promise of SUBSTANTIAL Return On Investment as the cost of their systems began to be increasingly eclipsed by the rising cost per kWh of electricity. Jacking up the “base” service fee puts a hefty knock in the timeline for recovery of their outlays, and definitely damages — if not destroys — one of the main marketing angles that has induced so many to “go solar” in the first place.
This base fee change instantly turns the ENTIRE history of the CA-government-driven “go solar” push into a MAMMOTH, and exceedingly FRAUDULENT “bait-and switch” scam, as those who signed up for the deal watch “the carrot” whacked down to a stump with withered greens poking out.
Late in the read, the author eventually gets around to how the change kneecaps solar power investors citing a resident who now “...worries her electricity bills will go up no matter how much energy she saves with solar, but details are nonexistent.
So, lets look at some. The new $51 Base Fee might not seem so big, but solar is so expensive that the before/after cost differential is already small. You can’t just focus on the electric bill; you’ve got a system you’re paying on, and that monthly already takes a big bite out of your net savings on your power bill. Now take that power bill and jack the baseline from $10 to $51 (or $73, or whatever). How does your $300/mo solar system bill look now that you’re no longer comparing it to a $200/mo average charge for electricity?? Project out ten years and consider how that $300/mo bill looks now that your future power bill is going to be $51, or maybe $67, and not the $475 that year-on-year $/kWh price increases projected it probably would be?
THAT’S the breed of unjust fiscal reality that’s being nervously swept under the rug, here.
And THIS — THIS is just CLASSIC:
“There have been a couple times in the last year where our bill has jumped up a couple hundred dollars and we haven’t been able to figure out why,” Jacobson said.
So, you’re a complete ignoramus as regards your own energy consumption habits, and too damnably lazy to get introspective about it, so you’re going to fob off your billing problem onto other people; many if not most of whom HAVE NOT been lazy like you, HAVE NOT shirked investigating their own usage habits, and HAVE, instead, taken action — often personally EXPENSIVE action — to combat the issue, on the DOWNSTREAM side of their own meter.
CLASSIC Leftist douchebag evasion of personal responsibility.
AND a PERFECT illustration of the value of a modern university Masters degree in sociology. I’d certainly take it in trade for what I scoop out of my cat box in any given week.
BOTTOM LINE: This pricing scheme is an end-to-end disaster.
For most of the world's population, anything below about 82F feels cold. They would never set the air conditioner that cool. In Belize, the tour guides on the air-conditioned buses wear winter coats, because the tourists from El Norte are accustomed to Arctic Circle temperatures.