Electricity Rates

[Texan]

How do you do your electricity rates in Australia? Is it whatever the electric company offers? Does the government dictate rates? Do you have options? I'm just curious.

We just got our electric bill and it doubled this month. We have deregulated electrical service in Texas. We have a common electrical service provider that maintains the lines and does connections and disconnections for a basic fee.(about 4 cents/kwh) The rest of our bill depends on who we buy our electricity from. We go to a website and choose our plan from dozens of options based on length of plan and price per kwh. ( www.powertochoose.org Use 75150 for a zip code if you want to check out our electricity rates) Once your plan is expired, they raise your rates and stick it to you if you don't immediately switch to a competitor to negotiate a better rate. That's where they got me for a month.

My new negotiated rate is for 8.1 cents/kwh for 22 months(that includes the 4 cents/kwh service charge), so I won't have to worry about getting slammed for the next 22 months. I need to get busy on installing solar power.

For privacy reasons, I did not give my zip code. I gave a valid postal code for a Dallas area suburb.

[Black Orchid]

I pay 0.289 cents per kWh. Supply charge is calculated on each day the bill covers. So they multiply the daily rate by the number of days the energy is supplied for.

It's a massive rip-off.

I also have natural gas which is higher than my electric bill. We sell our gas to Japan and the end users in Japan pay 1/3 of the price we do for our own gas. It's a disgrace.

[billy the kid]

Living in a high rise unit, I pay about $2.30 a day for electricity..dont know if
thats cheap or not..Im told by the B/C it is..???
Dont use the air con much unless its stinkin hot.....

[Texan]

Living in a high rise unit, I pay about $2.30 a day for electricity..dont know if
thats cheap or not..Im told by the B/C it is..???
Dont use the air con much unless its stinkin hot.....

I typically pay about $180-200/month for my electricity. Much less in the Winter because most of my energy is on air conditioning. I also have natural gas, but don't use it much. I pay about $100-130/month for water. I have a septic system, so I don't have to pay for sewage.

It sounds like your plans vary by where you live. Is it different in each state? Are the electric companies private or public? Is there competition or do electricity providers have a monopoly on their local markets? Do you have a national grid or several smaller grids? I'm just curious how Australia works.

We have several grids, but they are beginning to get intertwined. Texas has managed to pretty much have our own grid except where we sell power to other states. Texas has a few areas with independent grids that are customer owned called "Co-ops". It's a public-private hybrid utility. Those people don't get to choose from many providers like the rest of the state, but they own the power company so the rates are pretty competitive. The East Coast grids are so intertwined that there is big concern that a terrorist attack could cause a cascading failure of several grids. California buys 1/3 of all of their electricity from other states. They are screwing themselves by not preventing their forest fires. They refuse to clear brush from under power transmission lines in the name of "protecting the environment", but then fires are started under power lines and do far greater damage, but that and terrorist arson are another thread.

Billy, I think your energy costs are so low because your home and other homes share common walls and lose most of your energy through exterior walls. A corner unit will have better views, but it will lose more energy to climate controlling exterior walls. Also, the person who uses his AC least gets the most benefit from his neighbor's AC. Not a bad gig if you are wired that way.

[sprintcyclist]

We have solar, pay about $150 every 3 months.

Don't know how it all works out

[Mortdooley]

My electric bill falls below $100.00 two or three months out of the year and above $300 once or twice a year. The rest of the year it runs between $200 and $250 a month. Our home is about 3400 sq ft and we have a small pool with a pump that runs every day. We have a total electric home because only propane was available when we built our home. At the time I thought the price of our deep well and aerobic (sewer) system was outrageous but in the long run it has been a major money saver in both utility bills and annual water district tax. High speed Internet is not available here so after years of slow internet and a land line clogged with robocalls I dropped both and use my cell phone for WiFi tethering. My total monthly utility bills consist of Electricity and Cell Phone service if you count it. I would gladly pay up to $100 a month if I could have blazing fast Internet!