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  1. TobysGrundlee on

    Right in the middle of all of that green and got solar when everyone said it was stupid. Now my electric is 1/3 what everyone else’s is *and* I switched to EV and have no gas payment, lol.

    Don’t listen to the idiots kids.

  2. Ooh, this is a fun one!

    My county (Santa Clara, CA) is listed on that dataset as having $0.303 – in reality, it’s actually a fair bit higher for most cities in the county because of added on fees, between flat fees + variable pricing it’s closer to $0.50 for most people…

    … *Except* in the city of Santa Clara itself, which is on a public utility and pays $0.17.

    Worth bringing up because at least 11 of the top 25 counties are all under the private utility company (PG&E) that Santa Clara (city) is distinctly independent from.

    *Also* worth bringing up because we get tons of solar here, and even my inefficient, poorly-built solar setup that doesn’t get economies of scale costs about $0.04-$0.08, most of that coming from the cost of the batteries (width in estimate depends on if the batteries are expected to last 15 or 30 years).

    *EDIT*: This is also *definitely* an under-estimate, at least for the expensive Californian counties. My friends in Alameda county (also Bay area) pay $0.65 after accounting for all the bells and whistles.

  3. As a Californian this really highlights how high our electricity prices are. As far as I’m aware most of the cost stems from distribution. It’s hard not to see aging distribution infrastructure as anything but a profit grab from PG&E. Or the tight relationship between the governing board and PG&E and Newsome as anything but corruption.

    We need to prevent catastrophes like the Paradise Fire and the annual natural gas explosions but negligence and mismanagement shouldn’t be the justification to raise prices on consumers. Incompetence should be the reason a utility is absorbed and becomes a public utility. We’re already bearing the cost of all the fire and aging infrastructure liability.

  4. I wonder how many border states CA electric rates subsidize.
    How many states does CA buy power from at above that states cost to local consumers?

  5. I love SMUD (Sacramento Municipal Utility District) They are the reason Sacramento County is lower than all its neighboring counties. All our neighboring counties use PG&E.

  6. California trying too hard to get me to not move there. Like I got the hint with $2K+ for ‘regular’ 1 bedroom apartments lol

  7. I love how it maxes out at what we paid here on the Big Island 15+ years ago. Damn, I wish it was only 29.3!

  8. Fallacy_Spotted on

    The government should *always* own the infrastructure and then private companies can supply the power if competitive. Of course public plants should also exist but private should have a shot if they think they can do it better. The floor will always be the public plants. Strict maintenance schedules and firewalled funding so it remains entirely independent. No one else can rob their emergency coffers.

  9. Seeing Southern Florida that low when the only reason it’s habitable is because of the invention of A/C is crazy to me.

  10. apackofblackbears on

    Nebraska – the only public power state! Electricity should be a state owned utility everywhere.

  11. I love how you can tell which parts of Cali have public electricity and which are stuck with PGE.

  12. Representative_Bat81 on

    How the fuck is California more expensive than Massachusetts? We literally import a very large proportion of our electricity from Canada with tremendous efficiency loss. Seriously, what are you guys doing?

  13. crankbait808 on

    Is this the average across the year because Georgia power increases their prices during the 8 summer months

  14. vroomvroom450 on

    Ours is $0.13 in NY according to this, but the transmission charges are half of our freaking bill. Last month it was slightly more than half. It’s not OK.

  15. This is really beautiful. I wonder what it looks like if it encompassed NA (i.e., include Canada) maybe central America as well, … But I can appreciate the data being lackluster in some cases. In BC residential tiered rates are 0.1172 and 0.1408 with lower purchasing power I think it breaks through the bottom of this graph’s lower limit? Would also be interesting to see comparisons with places like PR, DR and Mexico

  16. BelligerentWyvern on

    You guys are paying almost 30 cents a kW? Wow.

    Our provider rate is like 11 here and there is usually deals for other sub providers. I pay 7.5 cents.

    Why is it so much on the West Coast?

  17. I’m surprised Illinois is as low as it is, but I guess it’s because the nuclear power?

  18. Do these rates include the per-kwh delivery fee that lots of utilities charge? The site where this is from openei.org doesn’t make it clear, and that fee can sometimes be as much or greater than the electricity itself.

    This may be wildly inaccurate data, with artificially low prices listed in an effort to promote wattfax.com’s heat pumps.

  19. It’s surprising how much hate PG&E gets. In the utility industry they’re always leading the way connecting EVs, managing solar and batteries, etc. They’re always embracing new ways to integrate DERs we just don’t see elsewhere.

    I get the majority of the hate is due to rates and wildfires, but ultimately I don’t think any utility could manage that better. They’re really the industry leader pushing advanced tech.

  20. IamInternationalBig on

    For California, we can thank Gavin Newsom and the democrats for allowing the utilities to absolutely screw us on electricity rates.

    The electricity rates are regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Gavin Newsom appoints the directors for the CPUC. The directors are friends of Newsom and are in the backpocket of the utilities and have allowed every rate increase requested by the utilities.

    Gavin Newsom is scum. If you don’t want to get bent over on electricity rates in your state, I highly recommend not voting Gavin Newsom for president in the next election.

  21. Lmao at 35 cents for average for san diego, the most expensive utility in the us. That’s using the CCA rates, which then SDGE charges you for delivery and makes the price actually more then SDGE straight out. For just raw electricity (delivery+generation) bare minimum you will pay in san diego is 55ish. with all the other fees it ends up being 60+ effective.

    I Haven’t seen an effective rate sub 60 cents per kw in years. During multiple heatwaves last year, i got charged over a dollar a kw.

    To also add onto that, san diego has a 130% baseline for the “normal” rates. Anything past that is considered “excessive and abnormal high usage” and it skyrockets.

    100% baseline is 180kwh, meaning you have to hit 234 kwh before they skyrocket you from 55 to 72 cents.

    If you have a fridge, that’s 60kwh, and literally 1/3rd of your entire electrical budget gone for the month, and this is how and why literally no one in san diego pays the cheapest rate.

  22. Now do electricity rates divided by gas prices. The leader is trying to mandate EVs and is NOT California (and it’s not even close!)

    Edit: OK, I meant in lower 48

  23. I’m surprised that the southwest isn’t higher in general but why is NW new mexico almost as green as some of Cali?

  24. jewishkush84 on

    does anyone know why theres such a stark difference between NYC and Hudson/Bergen county NJ? I figured they would be similar at least compared to staten island.