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left the UK with the highest electricity prices in the developed world https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/news/new-energy-price-cap-level-october-december-2024-starts-to

left the UK with the highest electricity prices in the developed world https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/news/new-energy-price-cap-level-october-december-2024-starts-today https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/news/new-energy-price-cap-level-oct... Wha? Fair play if you think the US is not a developed country, but £0.255/kWh is towards the lower end of what electricity costs in California. Hawaii is at or above those rates.

lotsofpulp 2y ago
0.25 GBP per kWh ($0.33) is at the top end of prices on this list: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
- inferiorhuman 2y ago
  https://www.pge.com/content/dam/pge/docs/account/rate-plans/residential-electric-rate-plan-pricing.pdf https://www.pge.com/content/dam/pge/docs/account/rate-plans/... https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/documents/billing_and_payment/rates/effective_rate_summary/efs_2024_09.pdf https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/documents/billing_and_payme... I'm pretty sure SDGE (San Diego) rates are higher than PG&E across the board, but I'm too lazy to look it up since PG&E covers a huge swath of California and is already eyewateringly expensive.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    $0.45/kwh for me, but I expect this will go up because California mandated income based pricing for electricity. At this rate, wont be long before we have to bring a copy of our w-2 to the super market so that the cashier can figure out the price of groceries.
zdragnar 2y ago
Neither California or Hawaii are good metrics to compare against. California is a mess of self inflicted high costs, and Hawaii is too small to have any industry and too far away from anything for cheap transporting of goods. My own electric rate in the middle-north continental US is only a third of the £0.255/kWh rate.
- inferiorhuman 2y ago
  No, they're both perfect. The comment I was responding to put forth the idea that the UK is an outlier when it's not far off from the cost in big chunks of the US. What's going on in California is no more self-inflicted than the UK choosing to ditch coal or choosing to be heavily reliant on Russian gas.
  - zdragnar 2y ago
    California doesn't rely on Russian gas, and still has one (small) coal power plant. Even so, cross the border into Oregon and their rates are half... CA is literally double the national average price in the US. CA makes up about 11% of the US population. So, just short of 90% of the country pays half of what they do. CA is a big place, but simply is not representative of the country as a whole. They are, in fact, an outlier in many metrics.
    - inferiorhuman 2y ago
      … so? How is any of that relevant? I wasn't comparing the whole country to the UK, I was comparing California to the UK. There are more people in California than in a number of developed countries (e.g. Netherlands, Portugal, Taiwan, Singapore). PG&E alone provides electricity to more people (16 million across 5.5 million accounts) than the entire population of New England (15 million). California as a single market is an entirely valid comparison.
      - zdragnar 2y ago
        You said Wha? Fair play if you think the US is not a developed country California and Hawaii are both extreme outliers in the US, and aside from gasoline prices in California, both are on the extreme end of outliers in comparing to Europe on most metrics as well. Neither are good comparisons for what is "normal"... The only thing the comparison does is prove that the UK has high energy prices.
        2y ago
Kognito 2y ago
I was referring to this article which quotes the IEA for industrial energy costs at around $0.085/kWh, versus $0.34/kWh in the UK. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/26/britain-burdened-most-expensive-electricity-prices-in-world/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/26/britain-burd...
- inferiorhuman 2y ago
  https://www.pge.com/tariffs/en/rate-information/electric-rates.html https://www.pge.com/tariffs/en/rate-information/electric-rat... PG&E's non-residential rates aren't that much cheaper than their residential rates. The rate schedules are comically complex so I can't give you insight into what the differences are, but they're showing average rates of $0.42/kWh (A-1, Commercial), $0.19–$0.32/kWh (E-20, Industrial), $0.20–$0.32/kWh (B-20, Industrial), $0.51/kWh (AG-1A, Agricultural), etc., etc. As was pointed out by another commenter California and Hawaii are outliers, but then again so is Texas (where the uncapped market rate plans socked people with $9,000/month residential bills). Thing is both Texas and California are huge markets, so while parts of the US are much cheaper, parts of the US that are each larger than the UK are quite a bit more expensive. Honestly I had no idea how pricey the non-residential plans are and I feel like there are almost certainly incentives that would cut the net cost significantly.

lotsofpulp 2y ago

0.25 GBP per kWh ($0.33) is at the top end of prices on this list: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...

inferiorhuman 2y ago
https://www.pge.com/content/dam/pge/docs/account/rate-plans/residential-electric-rate-plan-pricing.pdf https://www.pge.com/content/dam/pge/docs/account/rate-plans/... https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/documents/billing_and_payment/rates/effective_rate_summary/efs_2024_09.pdf https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/documents/billing_and_payme... I'm pretty sure SDGE (San Diego) rates are higher than PG&E across the board, but I'm too lazy to look it up since PG&E covers a huge swath of California and is already eyewateringly expensive.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  $0.45/kwh for me, but I expect this will go up because California mandated income based pricing for electricity. At this rate, wont be long before we have to bring a copy of our w-2 to the super market so that the cashier can figure out the price of groceries.

zdragnar 2y ago

Neither California or Hawaii are good metrics to compare against. California is a mess of self inflicted high costs, and Hawaii is too small to have any industry and too far away from anything for cheap transporting of goods. My own electric rate in the middle-north continental US is only a third of the £0.255/kWh rate.

inferiorhuman 2y ago
No, they're both perfect. The comment I was responding to put forth the idea that the UK is an outlier when it's not far off from the cost in big chunks of the US. What's going on in California is no more self-inflicted than the UK choosing to ditch coal or choosing to be heavily reliant on Russian gas.
- zdragnar 2y ago
  California doesn't rely on Russian gas, and still has one (small) coal power plant. Even so, cross the border into Oregon and their rates are half... CA is literally double the national average price in the US. CA makes up about 11% of the US population. So, just short of 90% of the country pays half of what they do. CA is a big place, but simply is not representative of the country as a whole. They are, in fact, an outlier in many metrics.
  - inferiorhuman 2y ago
    … so? How is any of that relevant? I wasn't comparing the whole country to the UK, I was comparing California to the UK. There are more people in California than in a number of developed countries (e.g. Netherlands, Portugal, Taiwan, Singapore). PG&E alone provides electricity to more people (16 million across 5.5 million accounts) than the entire population of New England (15 million). California as a single market is an entirely valid comparison.
    - zdragnar 2y ago
      You said Wha? Fair play if you think the US is not a developed country California and Hawaii are both extreme outliers in the US, and aside from gasoline prices in California, both are on the extreme end of outliers in comparing to Europe on most metrics as well. Neither are good comparisons for what is "normal"... The only thing the comparison does is prove that the UK has high energy prices.
      - 2y ago

Kognito 2y ago

I was referring to this article which quotes the IEA for industrial energy costs at around $0.085/kWh, versus $0.34/kWh in the UK. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/26/britain-burdened-most-expensive-electricity-prices-in-world/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/26/britain-burd...

inferiorhuman 2y ago
https://www.pge.com/tariffs/en/rate-information/electric-rates.html https://www.pge.com/tariffs/en/rate-information/electric-rat... PG&E's non-residential rates aren't that much cheaper than their residential rates. The rate schedules are comically complex so I can't give you insight into what the differences are, but they're showing average rates of $0.42/kWh (A-1, Commercial), $0.19–$0.32/kWh (E-20, Industrial), $0.20–$0.32/kWh (B-20, Industrial), $0.51/kWh (AG-1A, Agricultural), etc., etc. As was pointed out by another commenter California and Hawaii are outliers, but then again so is Texas (where the uncapped market rate plans socked people with $9,000/month residential bills). Thing is both Texas and California are huge markets, so while parts of the US are much cheaper, parts of the US that are each larger than the UK are quite a bit more expensive. Honestly I had no idea how pricey the non-residential plans are and I feel like there are almost certainly incentives that would cut the net cost significantly.