KWh/ Mile? Justifying 19 cent KWh electric rate

$5 is a ripoff?

Let me tell you something.

The real cost to the utility to deliver power to a household averages to about half-and-half the cost of the power and the cost of the delivery system.

That means, if you pay $150 a month for electricity, regardless of how that's broken out, you're paying about $75 for the distribution grid and about $75 for the electricity itself.

The distribution grid in the US is a trillion dollar investment.

 

My duplex was formerly an old house, the landlord got tired of energy wasters and quit including electric in the rent , the utility split the connection and put on a 2nd meter for the upstairs guy.

My meter is from the 1920's his is from the 90's, my breaker box is only 40amps !!!!!

I pay $50-$60 a month and of that $3-$10 is usage.

The guy upstairs is in a very similar situation.

Historically that connection fee here was $8 a month.

This means the utility increased its fixed costs on this house 1100% in the last 20 years while also doubling the cost per kwhr!

Even sadder is that as my rates went up the "industrial " customers kept roughly the same rates and got reduced fixed fees.

There is something wrong with government mandated new unnecessary generation and mandated yearly profit increases for the utilities while consumption is going down.

I doubt other areas are different

Here is some court recorded testimony on the corruption in this field.

ERF - Public Comments

 

Unless your bill uncouples generation from distribution costs as a regulatory mandate, the labels of how much your are paying for each component of electricity supply to your home is unlikely to reflect much more than marketing and politics for the PUC.

I have lived in locales where the monthly charge is $30 and others where it $5, and both charge 9 cents a kWh for coal based electricity generation. Utility monopolies are never going to be streamlined, cost efficient businesses but it would take expertise and time to be able to pick out the really bad apples.

That said, I completely agree that the practice of guaranteed returns on capital investment is one of the more stupid PUC habits

 

Yeah,
I wish the practice was banned and put up to review process instead, wait here it is reviewed

The unnecessary coal plants have been used as justification to shut down hydropower plants for environmental reasons, which our DNR has supported but they don't remove the dam or gates just the generators.

My area still has high levels of nuclear and hydro but it was a much higher percentage when rates were low and overal consumption was higher.

 

Be glad that you are not in one of the regions that authorized new nuclear plants ... that will never be built but will cost 100s of millions anyway.

 

Did you miss how I said I was happy with it?
The ripoff is the combination of the minimum fee plus the fact that I get only 2-3 cents/kwh for over generation...while I am providing them with high value kwh all summer and their peak demand time (I have no A/C...all summer 75% of my generation goes to my neighbors where they get top tier rates (30 - 60+ cents per kwh). Yes, on high demand days some people are paying 20 times as much as I am selling it to the middleman for.

Before I got solar I was in the Smart rate program where I got ~3 cent discount all summer, except for up to ~10 smart days where my rates went up by ~5x from 2pm - 7pm. These are the exact days when my production is usually highest. The incentives are now backwards as I might as well charge my car during this time with no penalty...but I don't. And I'm still happy with it.

Mike

 

He would if his trip is beyond the car's EV range.

 

If that were true than people in certain parts of the country wouldn't be paying such a pittance for power whereas in California the cost is very high. The grid cost should be about the same in all areas, shouldn't it?

 

Not even close.

Land costs, type of installation (overhead or buried), when the system was installed (50 years ago or last week), population density (LA versus Wyoming), and energy intensity all play major parts in the cost of the distribution system.

 

I agree with this but it has never helped me understand distribution costs. As population density increases so typically does land value and local costs, but less infrastructure serves more people.

Put another way, normalizing distribution charges to population density leaves a lot unanswered. I'm not saying that one can conclude corruption -- far from it. I'm only saying analysis is really complex and the PUC has very little insight into whether utility charges are reasonable.

 

And then the discussion about electricity pricing would be oh so relevant

 

Yes well this 50% cost of the bill being the grid cost is too simplistic. I'm not buying it.


iPhone ? Pro

 

As I said, that's a rough average.

An indication of this:

EIA - Electricity Data

Industrial users are paying 6.64 cents/kWh, while residential users are paying 12.75 cents/kWh and commercial users are paying 10.25 cents/kWh. Commercial users use more electricity on average for the same distribution investment, and industrial users are mostly on the medium-voltage distribution grid which is enormously less expensive per unit of electricity sold because usage rates are higher, voltage is way higher (i.e. 13.2kV three-phase versus 240V single-phase for residential or 480V three-phase for commercial), and a lot of it is above ground rather than buried. Residential users use very little power on average (about 1kW for the US) and thus the distribution investment (which can be many thousands of dollars per house plus a lot per year of maintenance and replacement) can't be spread out among as many kilowatt-hours.

 

Interesting thread. I'm about ready to buy a Prime. I'm just waiting to see if the 2018 Prime has any improvements before I commit to one.

For grins I worked up some rough numbers to see what my cost per mile would be; gas vs EV. At 11 cents per kWh, and gas currently running $2.35 per gallon, and assuming it takes approximately 3 kw to travel one mile, and ignoring any extra regen braking range, and also assuming 6.7kW tops off an empty battery... assuming all of that, and also assuming my math is correct (big if), I came up with 4.7 cents per mile for gas, and about 3 cents per mile for EV. I would imagine that if gas prices dropped past a certain point, and/or if electric costs are high, it might not even make sense to plug the Prime in. Of course gas prices could sky rocket again making the EV side more cost effective. Where is Nostradamus when we need him?

 

The current FuelEconomy web site has both gas and electric rates per 100 miles such as the Prius Prime:
Compare Side-by-Side

• 25kWh/100 miles * $0.11/kWh = $2.75/100 miles
• 1.9gal/100 miles * $2.35/gal = $4.47/100 miles

There is another component, the distribution of EV versus gas miles. This is an individual issue so I can only share my experience. A week or so ago, I did a rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation and it looks like our first nine months was nearly equally split.

So here are typical miles from a survey: Distribution of Person Trips and Person Miles by Purpose

Our first plug-in is a 2014 BMW i3-REx:

• 29kWh/100 miles * $0.11/kWh = $3.19/100 miles
• 2.6gal/100 miles * $2.50/gal (premium/plus) = $6.50/100 miles

In our case, the hard requirement was a one-way range of at least 120 miles, Huntsville-to-Nashville. The stock BMW i3-REx handled that easily after coding the 75% SOC threshold for the REx. In fact the 75% SOC threshold was critical for the delivery drive home, 463 miles including a 2800 ft pass.

Bob Wilson

 

Here in Massachusetts, I pay about $0.13/KWh.
I've been getting around 27 miles per charge (when I've kept track) and accepting the 6.3KWh (which aligned to a measurement I was able to do with the 110V charge cable but I can't do now that I'm hardwired to 230V) point for a full charge, that would translate to $0.03/mile
On long trips I'm seeing around 60 MPG so the math I use is that using electricity is about cost equivalent to if gas was $1.80/gal.
Gas around here is just above $2.50/gal at the moment so I figure I'm saving $0.70 for every 60ish miles I can drive on EV.

For the poster that asked about $0.11/KWh electricity...My view would be to plug-in whenever gas is above $1.50/gal (which means always).
And that's not even factoring in the fact that I would pay more (probably only slightly) to drive on electric just because I think it's a better driving experience.

 

Hold on. 3 kw to travel one mile?

First off, you have the wrong units. It should be kwh (kilowatt-hours) not kw.
Second, where did you get that number? A much better number would be 3 or 4 miles per kwh.
In my PIP I actually get a bit over 5 miles per kwh. Or said the other way...about 200 watt-hours per mile.
My real number is usually more like 180 wh/mile...but this is mostly 30-45 mph driving with no heat or A/C.

Probably want to recalculate.

Mike

 

Where are you getting such cheap electric in MA? I'm in National Grid territory and I pay more like 22 cents/kWh once you factor in the supply and distribution charge.

 

Sleepy central mass town with our own municipal light department.
Just rechecked and last month was 1083 KWh for $135...Closer to 12.5 cents/KWh.

At 22 cents/KWh, aren't you better off just buying gas? At least as long as it's under $3/gal...

 

It's about $1.32 for 30 miles so for practical purposes it's basically a break even vs gas at today's prices. The convenience of not having to stop at the gas station gives it a slight edge.