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Yes, this model is common in other utilities in the US (both by water and gas bills are structured this way), with a large meter fee and a consumption charge in

Yes, this model is common in other utilities in the US (both by water and gas bills are structured this way), with a large meter fee and a consumption charge in line with the resource cost. Electricity could certainly be charged this way (and should), but it would be a huge change in how electricity is billed here, and the PUC would rather just make changes to just the net-metering system rather than open the can of worms of a full rate re-write.

Bilal_io 5y ago
That's how it is for electricity in Texas. You pay a delivery charge, and then usage charge, both based on kw/h.
- junon 5y ago
  You also pay for power you don't even use, from other power providers, in the case of extreme crisis, it seems. I've never lived there but from the outside Texas's power situation seems broken at best.
  - Bilal_io 5y ago
    That's accurate. We're in constant fear of losing power whenever there is a freeze warning (we're on that today and tomorrow at least), rain or heat. That's all thanks to the greedy for-profit system enabled by "conservative" politicians.
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      That's not really accurate. I've lost power 4 times total in 30 years here. Usually big Texas thunderstorms, never heat. The 100 year winter freeze I lost power for two days, that was the longest ever. Haven't lost power since then, didn't lose power for a couple years before that. We have the cheapest rates because of the way distribution and providers are setup. The problem with big user bills were SV companies like Griddy tricking people into buying variable rate electricity, something we made illegal since then.
      - Bilal_io 5y ago
        I am not denying your experience, but I was talking about my own. I lost power for over 3 hours just 2 nights ago. And since the horrible experience we had in February 2021 we (me and everyone I know) have been living in fear it might happen again. A quick look at Centerpoint's own outage tracker[1] shows outages everywhere in different parts of Texas. 1. https://gis.centerpointenergy.com/outagetracker/?WT.ac=OC_Image_Callout https://gis.centerpointenergy.com/outagetracker/?WT.ac=OC_Im...
        nomel 5y ago
        I don't see why "fear" is necessary. Power has never been a constant. When I was a kid we had a box of candles under the sink and warm blankets stacked in the garage, and some emergency food/water to last a week. Now that I'm an adult, I still have the same. I don't understand this trust and expectation of flawless infrastructure, where "fear" would come into play. Inconvenience, sure. You should be able to easily remove the fear aspect, with minimal preparation.
        Spooky23 5y ago
        Because in the pursuit of efficiency, we are less resilient. I maintain a old inefficient boiler for my home. It has a pilot light and stays lit as long as there is service. It costs me about $250-400 more annually vs an efficient boiler.
        Bilal_io 5y ago
        "fear" is necessary because I was stuck at an apartment for 3 days and nowhere to go with no heat and no water when the weather outside was -17 degrees.
        nomel 5y ago
        As my comment suggested, you could change that fear to inconvenience with minimal preparation: put some water jugs, canned/packaged food, and blankets+cheap snow outfit in your closet, and throw in a little campground propane burner for a nice warm meal. -17 outdoors is a warm ski day indoors. If you've known anyone that lives in a cold part of the country, having some preparation is an extremely common practice.
- secabeen 5y ago
  But that's the problem! The cost of the grid is the same whether it delivers you 100kWh or 10,000kWh. The delivery charge should be a fixed monthly charge, based on the size of your meter, not scaled to the number of kWh you consume.
  - thatfrenchguy 5y ago
    It encourages you to use more electricity though, which is not good.
    - zbrozek 5y ago
      The current system in PG&E territory encourages me to prefer gas to electricity everywhere I'm able to make the choice. That's surely worse.
      - Panzer04 5y ago
        Only if it means you’d prefer resistive heaters to heat pumps. In home gas is more efficient than a resistance heater.
        zbrozek 5y ago
        False; the heat pump is still more expensive. You need COP of >=4 with baseline rates, and it only gets worse from there (the baselines are tiny, and TOU is also bad). Heat pump water heaters only barely scratch 4 under ideal conditions, so you'll generally do worse with a HPWH than with a condensing gas one. Arithmetic is about the same for home heating systems. Basically around here (PG&E) you should only electrify if you can also get your electrons from not-the-grid.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Encourages you in what way? Your bill is still higher the more energy you consume, just increasing more slowly than if the rates were higher. Many believe (and I’m inclined to agree) that encouraging a switch from locally burned fossil fuels to electricity is better even if that electricity is currently* generated partially from fossil fuel. The theory is the electric plants could more easily become cleaner than if millions of home need to have their heating equipment upgraded. The problem where I am is that natural gas is so cheap (though less than previously) that it’s hard to make electric heating competitive. * no pun intended
- Dma54rhs 5y ago
  The way electricity market in Texas works in general looks very similar to EU countries.
- danans 5y ago
  In CA it's the same these days with the advent of community choice aggregators (CCA) [1]. If a CCA is available in your area, and you choose to use it, you pay the main utility for transmission/distribution, but the CCA for energy, both on per kWh basis. It all gets aggregated on the same (confusing) bill. Because they control the energy sourcing, CCAs can offer things like 100% carbon-free or 100% renewable plans. Some even subsidize batteries to add to homes in exchange for a portion of the stored energy capacity. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Choice_Aggregation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Choice_Aggregation
Arainach 5y ago
I've seen this model, but it seems counterproductive to any environmental goals. For instance, my water infrastructure bill absolutely dwarfs my usage. I could take an hourlong shower every day and barely notice the increase in my bill. It seems like it's sending the wrong message.
- secabeen 5y ago
  Is water scarcity a thing in your area? Perhaps your water is cheap because its readily available in your area. In Chicago, they have so much water in Lake Michigan, most homes don't even have water meters.
  - manquer 5y ago
    Living close to a water source or reservoir doesn’t make conservation less important.It is a intricate system with complex interconnects A lot of places downstream will be using the water from your Lake /Dam /river as their only source. Same reason why in some states like Colarado it is illegal to rain water harvest. Riparian rights and ethics are complex
    - secabeen 5y ago
      Fair. I still prefer an honest system that charges a fair, flat rate for the infrastructure, and then a usage charge for usage. If we want to disincentive usage, we can put a tax on the consumption rate; that's certainly better than wrapping up some/all of the infrastructure costs into the consumption rate just to make the latter higher.
      - manquer 5y ago
        It is not just about conservation and high consumption. For example, it is lot easier to build infra when you charge people 4x their consumption cost as single item, than split into line items. When you need to build a new power plant the infra costs are going to shoot a lot and nobody would want to pay for that when they see an line item for infra. Every SaaS company and all of Cloud is built on this human behavior . I would even go so far to say that even mortgage, insurance, any credit business depends on this behavior. Most people would pay extra for their server by hour or second rather than pay for consumption + infra. Also infra costs split equally is unfair ? if you consume more, more of the infra costs have to be apportioned to that person right ? Basically if power plant producer 1000MW the person consuming 900MW has to pay 90% cost of building the plant in addition to paying 90% for consumables for generating that 1000MW . The solution here is to have spread between buy / sell rates which account for distribution losses, maintenance, infra and storage and peak capacity planning etc

Bilal_io 5y ago

That's how it is for electricity in Texas. You pay a delivery charge, and then usage charge, both based on kw/h.

junon 5y ago
You also pay for power you don't even use, from other power providers, in the case of extreme crisis, it seems. I've never lived there but from the outside Texas's power situation seems broken at best.
- Bilal_io 5y ago
  That's accurate. We're in constant fear of losing power whenever there is a freeze warning (we're on that today and tomorrow at least), rain or heat. That's all thanks to the greedy for-profit system enabled by "conservative" politicians.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    That's not really accurate. I've lost power 4 times total in 30 years here. Usually big Texas thunderstorms, never heat. The 100 year winter freeze I lost power for two days, that was the longest ever. Haven't lost power since then, didn't lose power for a couple years before that. We have the cheapest rates because of the way distribution and providers are setup. The problem with big user bills were SV companies like Griddy tricking people into buying variable rate electricity, something we made illegal since then.
    - Bilal_io 5y ago
      I am not denying your experience, but I was talking about my own. I lost power for over 3 hours just 2 nights ago. And since the horrible experience we had in February 2021 we (me and everyone I know) have been living in fear it might happen again. A quick look at Centerpoint's own outage tracker[1] shows outages everywhere in different parts of Texas. 1. https://gis.centerpointenergy.com/outagetracker/?WT.ac=OC_Image_Callout https://gis.centerpointenergy.com/outagetracker/?WT.ac=OC_Im...
      - nomel 5y ago
        I don't see why "fear" is necessary. Power has never been a constant. When I was a kid we had a box of candles under the sink and warm blankets stacked in the garage, and some emergency food/water to last a week. Now that I'm an adult, I still have the same. I don't understand this trust and expectation of flawless infrastructure, where "fear" would come into play. Inconvenience, sure. You should be able to easily remove the fear aspect, with minimal preparation.
        Spooky23 5y ago
        Because in the pursuit of efficiency, we are less resilient. I maintain a old inefficient boiler for my home. It has a pilot light and stays lit as long as there is service. It costs me about $250-400 more annually vs an efficient boiler.
        Bilal_io 5y ago
        "fear" is necessary because I was stuck at an apartment for 3 days and nowhere to go with no heat and no water when the weather outside was -17 degrees.
        nomel 5y ago
        As my comment suggested, you could change that fear to inconvenience with minimal preparation: put some water jugs, canned/packaged food, and blankets+cheap snow outfit in your closet, and throw in a little campground propane burner for a nice warm meal. -17 outdoors is a warm ski day indoors. If you've known anyone that lives in a cold part of the country, having some preparation is an extremely common practice.
secabeen 5y ago
But that's the problem! The cost of the grid is the same whether it delivers you 100kWh or 10,000kWh. The delivery charge should be a fixed monthly charge, based on the size of your meter, not scaled to the number of kWh you consume.
- thatfrenchguy 5y ago
  It encourages you to use more electricity though, which is not good.
  - zbrozek 5y ago
    The current system in PG&E territory encourages me to prefer gas to electricity everywhere I'm able to make the choice. That's surely worse.
    - Panzer04 5y ago
      Only if it means you’d prefer resistive heaters to heat pumps. In home gas is more efficient than a resistance heater.
      - zbrozek 5y ago
        False; the heat pump is still more expensive. You need COP of >=4 with baseline rates, and it only gets worse from there (the baselines are tiny, and TOU is also bad). Heat pump water heaters only barely scratch 4 under ideal conditions, so you'll generally do worse with a HPWH than with a condensing gas one. Arithmetic is about the same for home heating systems. Basically around here (PG&E) you should only electrify if you can also get your electrons from not-the-grid.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Encourages you in what way? Your bill is still higher the more energy you consume, just increasing more slowly than if the rates were higher. Many believe (and I’m inclined to agree) that encouraging a switch from locally burned fossil fuels to electricity is better even if that electricity is currently* generated partially from fossil fuel. The theory is the electric plants could more easily become cleaner than if millions of home need to have their heating equipment upgraded. The problem where I am is that natural gas is so cheap (though less than previously) that it’s hard to make electric heating competitive. * no pun intended
Dma54rhs 5y ago
The way electricity market in Texas works in general looks very similar to EU countries.
danans 5y ago
In CA it's the same these days with the advent of community choice aggregators (CCA) [1]. If a CCA is available in your area, and you choose to use it, you pay the main utility for transmission/distribution, but the CCA for energy, both on per kWh basis. It all gets aggregated on the same (confusing) bill. Because they control the energy sourcing, CCAs can offer things like 100% carbon-free or 100% renewable plans. Some even subsidize batteries to add to homes in exchange for a portion of the stored energy capacity. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Choice_Aggregation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Choice_Aggregation

Arainach 5y ago

I've seen this model, but it seems counterproductive to any environmental goals. For instance, my water infrastructure bill absolutely dwarfs my usage. I could take an hourlong shower every day and barely notice the increase in my bill. It seems like it's sending the wrong message.

secabeen 5y ago
Is water scarcity a thing in your area? Perhaps your water is cheap because its readily available in your area. In Chicago, they have so much water in Lake Michigan, most homes don't even have water meters.
- manquer 5y ago
  Living close to a water source or reservoir doesn’t make conservation less important.It is a intricate system with complex interconnects A lot of places downstream will be using the water from your Lake /Dam /river as their only source. Same reason why in some states like Colarado it is illegal to rain water harvest. Riparian rights and ethics are complex
  - secabeen 5y ago
    Fair. I still prefer an honest system that charges a fair, flat rate for the infrastructure, and then a usage charge for usage. If we want to disincentive usage, we can put a tax on the consumption rate; that's certainly better than wrapping up some/all of the infrastructure costs into the consumption rate just to make the latter higher.
    - manquer 5y ago
      It is not just about conservation and high consumption. For example, it is lot easier to build infra when you charge people 4x their consumption cost as single item, than split into line items. When you need to build a new power plant the infra costs are going to shoot a lot and nobody would want to pay for that when they see an line item for infra. Every SaaS company and all of Cloud is built on this human behavior . I would even go so far to say that even mortgage, insurance, any credit business depends on this behavior. Most people would pay extra for their server by hour or second rather than pay for consumption + infra. Also infra costs split equally is unfair ? if you consume more, more of the infra costs have to be apportioned to that person right ? Basically if power plant producer 1000MW the person consuming 900MW has to pay 90% cost of building the plant in addition to paying 90% for consumables for generating that 1000MW . The solution here is to have spread between buy / sell rates which account for distribution losses, maintenance, infra and storage and peak capacity planning etc