Way O/T

[davidh]

i have not complained too much about rising prices either on this forum or even in my every day contact with friends or customers, however, i just got my monthly electric bill that has been averaging $130 a month. not bad i figured considering everything i power up. on the "comment" part of the bill it reads:

"we have been informed by our energy supplier that there will be a significant increase in costs beginning in january. our wholesale prices dropped 6% from 2008 to 2009 but now are expected to go up by 38% for 2010"

holy crap ! i don't remember getting any kind of raise this year or last nor have i been able to raise my prices by more than a couple percent but our power supplier must be expecting me and my neighbors to pay for all the "green" energy the gov't. is insisting they find and use in the near future. those wind generators i know are expensive but .. .. .. ..

all i can say is "holy crap" hang on to your shorts, it seems to be coming our way.........................

davidh
retired but needing to work full time in my own business to make ends meet.

[Carld]

They are anticipating the Cap and Trade bill to pass in 2010. It has been side lined as of now but may be brought up again and passed. If so the energy prices are expected to rise drastically and guess who will pay.

They will tax the power companies for emissions and the cattle farmers for the fart tax. You surely don't expect them to not pass the tax along to us do you?

[TGTool]

We have an electricity price rise coming up here too. Kind of curious. It's primarily hydroelectric power. With the economic conditions there's been lower demand so they have to charge more for what they generate to pay the debt.

I wish I could do that in my shop. "So, you just need that one hole drilled and tapped? I'll have to charge $150 for that since I didn't have a customer all yesterday."

[MTNGUN]

We have an electricity price rise coming up here too. Kind of curious. It's primarily hydroelectric power.

Same here, hydro power, most of the dams built eons ago and long since paid for. Yet they claim their costs are going up ? Bull.

In fairness to the utility/monopolies, the supply of energy is limited, especially since coal is now frowned upon, yet as the population continues to increase energy demand will increase, too. I'll resist the urge to get up on my soapbox and tell you how I'd solve the world's problems, but ....... a picture is worth a thousand words.

[gnm109]

With Cap and Trade, energy prices are expected to double. That's a present from our new gummint. It's part of "Change you can believe in".


.

[Carld]

Yep, the goberment can't wait to get there hands on the cow fart tax and the coal tax.

[Tinkerer]

They are anticipating the Cap and Trade bill to pass in 2010. It has been side lined as of now but may be brought up again and passed. If so the energy prices are expected to rise drastically and guess who will pay.

They will tax the power companies for emissions and the cattle farmers for the fart tax. You surely don't expect them to not pass the tax along to us do you?

I agree they will be pushing this crap hard and fast.... cause they only have till Nov. to bury use as deep as they can. And if it does not pass the Utilities can pass out BIG BOUNCES to the brass. Either way we get it in the shorts.

[JoeFin]

They are anticipating the Cap and Trade bill to pass in 2010. It has been side lined as of now but may be brought up again and passed. If so the energy prices are expected to rise drastically and guess who will pay.

They will tax the power companies for emissions and the cattle farmers for the fart tax. You surely don't expect them to not pass the tax along to us do you?

Way to much evidence pointing to the whole "Cap and Trade" policy as being a scam for it to pass

but you never know......

[aboard_epsilon]

UK...we are going to have to sub the nuclear power stations being built ..think about 5 percent on our bills

we are currently paying about £0.12,5 a unit roughly 20 cents a unit

how much are you guys paying.

all the best.markj

[Mark McGrath]

I`m paying £0.075 a kw on all kw. £0.125 sounds a lot.
Mark.

[RichardG]

Wow, I wish my bill was only 130 a month. My bill is 309.00 a month and I'am on the budget plan ! We are sposed to have cheap electric here in the north west ,not!
Richard

[aboard_epsilon]

thats with no standing charge and average of uk

Average uk electricity bill per unit

Based on average cost/kw-h across the UK as a whole (17 suppliers costs). on 13/12/2009 is: (17 suppliers X 17 tariffs divided by 17) = 12.25227p per kw-h of electricity. (Average across UK only!)

all the best.markj

[macona]

Here in the Pacific Northwest the dams are run by the Army Corp of Engineers. Bonneville Power Administration gets the power from them for free (They dont pay to maintain the dams) and sells it to the local utilities.

Back when I did lighting we were paid to retrofit all the lighting in the Dalles, Bonneville, and John Day dams to save energy by BPA. Funny thing is the power that is used internally and on the dam site is separate from main power grid running off of "Fish Turbines" which run at all times no matter what.

[MickeyD]

Coal prices have gone from $160 a ton to less than $60 and natural gas prices are at insanely low prices, so you can't blame the fuel. A lot of the price run up is coming from finance charges. Most power companies went through mergers during the last couple of years (they either bought someone or someone bought them) and used short term financing to pay for it. Because the cost of corporate financing has gone up dramatically (noticed what your credit card rates have done lately?) this all gets passed on to you. Hmm, can you say blame the banks?

[rdfeil]

I am in central Washington state and our power prices are the lowest in the nation. The three counties with the lowest rates are Chelan, Douglas and Grant. These counties have Public Utility Districts which own and operate Hydro dams under license from the federal government, the Army Corp does not own nor operate these dams. There are other dams on the Columbia river which are indeed owned by Army Corp. Now for our problem.... our rates are also going up. There are several reasons for this, one is that the Public Utility Districts (PUDs) have invested many millions of dollars in non-power infrastructure (fiber optics (I love mine ), water and sewer) services. A lot of this money was bonded when the economy was in much better shape, but the payments still have to be made (the Chelan County PUD and a debt very close to 1 BILLION dollars yes $1,000,000,000.00). This is insane for a PUBLIC utility. Now on to the second problem, and this one applies to others as well. Our PUDs sell excess power to outside utilities at market grid rates. This price may well be 3-5 times what we as customers (owners) pay for power. Now we have had a fairly large influx of high-tech facilities (server farms) in our area recently which use a lot of power. They buy power at the normal customer rate because they are customers of the PUD. What this does is reduce the amount of power available to sell as excess at MUCH higher rates, thereby increasing income to the utility. So with less income guess who pays a higher rate .
Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate our low power costs, I just wish that the PUDs would be open and honest about how things work.
A simple example of this.... Our PUD had a Energy savings program for industrial plants about 10 years ago where they would pay a large percentage (up to 75% if I remember right) of upgrade costs for lighting, process control, heating etc... for more efficient ways to do the same thing. This was done under the assumption that conservation is good for our community (it is but....). I later talked to one of the power brokers for the PUD and was told about the projected payback for these programs due to the profit in increased outside power sales.... less than 12 months payback .

Think about it...............

Robin