Electricity Costs

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Sherman

Has Met Willis
Joined
Oct 27, 2005
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Location
Central CA
Here's a casual discussion, with a less than casual question, so please don't feel obligated to answer if you're not comfortable, I'm just curious.

What is your electric bill each month?
What are you paying per KwH?

I'm in California, where the electric company has us by the.. horns. It's been a while since we've had rolling brownouts (intentional power cuts from different sections of the power grid so there's enough power for the rest of the grid. All done in a rotating manner.) However, we're still in a tiered system, as I'd imagine most are. We pay roughly 12 cents per KwH as long as we don't go over our alloted "baseline." How they set that baseline, we don't know. It's so low, it's impossible to stay in it. Before we had the aquarium, it was just my wife and I, in a small, very energy efficient home, and we blasted through the baseline like it wasn't even there. I think we're alloted about 400KwH per month, total usage. That said, everyone around here breaks into new tiers. You pay more for the 101%-130% tier, then more for the 131%-200% tier, then more for the 200%-300%, then highest for 300%+.

Just about everyone in my local reef club hits the 300% tier. Even friends without aquariums, swimming pools, or anything extravagent, are typically very closely approaching 200% of baseline usage.

We pay roughly $.36 per KwH when in Tier 3.

My power bill is the second lowest in the club, because in summer, I'm one of two who are actually able to maintain a bill lower than $200/month. $600-800 is not a shocker any more, and one club member broke $1100/month last summer.

So... go ahead, rub it in. What are you guys all paying?
 
im not actually sure what im paying per kilowatt hour. I do know im pulling over 70 kw a day though to run my tanks. I would guess $175 worth of my monthly electric bill is my tanks. Im too lazy to figure out what the math is on that, but im pretty sure its WAY less than you. sorry. :(
 
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$0.0745 kw/h up to 475kw
$0.0925 kw/h up to 1096kw
I don't know what the next tier is at.

Puget Sound Energy, Redmond, WA
 
lol. I didnt even know that there WERE tiers based on usage.

I have a choice of one power company, so its just one of those bills that needs paid every month regardless what it comes back saying.

On that note, do you guys have a choice of who you buy your power from??
 
lol. I didnt even know that there WERE tiers based on usage.

I have a choice of one power company, so its just one of those bills that needs paid every month regardless what it comes back saying.

On that note, do you guys have a choice of who you buy your power from??

NO. Not if you want electricity or gas.
 
$.0628/KwH - Avista utilities (eastern WA)

I figure the tank costs about $40/month- not sure I could do the $200 it would cost with those Cali prices:shock:
 
Orange co. the electrical company is robbing us blind!!!!!
Will get back to you with numbers....sheesh... look at the time! What the, I mean what am I doing awake???????????
 
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All of you guys complaining in Ca about your electric rates remember if they are public utility not run by a city of municpality like DWP in La, the rates are set by a government agency PUC.
 
i'm not sure how much exactly we pay but it's about 150 every month..... it's not as high but it still sucks dood.
 
When our tanks were running.......... Scott's 150 with 47 pumps and chiller and this and that; my 90 gallon and the 24 gallon with chiller... our high two month bill with the lovely PUD was $585. We have gas heat and hot water by the way.

When took ALL the tanks down, and our last two month bill was 380. Saving $205 per month right off the bat. That bill was for 6 weeks tank free so ultimately the full savings will be seen on the next bill.

I can't believe overall how much we are saving (that equates to how much shopping money I have now).

:)
 
Winter) Oct 1 - May 31 => $0.0365/KWH
(Summer) June 1 - Sept 30 => $0.0816/KWH
Avg. => $0.0515/KWH

We calculated energy use for my 75g reef at about 15-20 bucks/month. Not bad for all the pumps and 500w of metal halides. Good ole Public Power...
 
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OK, that's it. You're on my list. :)

Average 5 cents per KwH?! Like I said, we pay 36 cents!!
 
Prices will only get worse too. The cost of building new generation plants is way too high right now due to environmental restrictions that prevent any new coal, nuclear, or hydro plants from being built (for western utilities at least). For this reason, companies are being forced into upgrading conductors, transformers and other gear to more energy efficient versions, which they pass down to consumers via rate increases. I should know, I work for one of them =)
 

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