We just got our PUD bill for the past two months. As some of you know, I live in western Washington. I'm not exactly whining yet b/c it is still relatively affordable. However, it is interesting that we personally reduced our electricity usage by 19% over the same time period last year (with the temperatures almost the same.) This is interesting b/c we are pretty frugal with the stuff anyway. However, our bill increased by 33%. We are now paying .068810 KWH and are slated for another 40% bump up this fall.

The California deregulation stuff has impacted us of course, as well as the Fish and Forest Regulations, and the drought.

I'm curious, though. Have you guys seen electricity price increases out your way (as a result of the West Coast debacle or for any other reason?) Or do you see it coming?

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

Answers

Our rate last month was .080458 KWH, and our rates have been that way for a while now. According to the little attached note this was a 5% reduction because of some Public Act 141.

I think you guys out there have been getting by pretty cheap and soon we will all be paying close to the same rate as the national grid is formulated.

Our only use is for lights, computer, refrigeration (freezing) and pumping water and we paid $90 this bill. Oh, electric fencer also...which as soon as we can afford the unit will go to solar.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

oh oh. "...as the national grid is formulated?" Diane, what have you heard?

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

sorry sheepish, no inside info here, just speculation. Has not the government taken over everything when there becomes a problem??? Most all of the "little grids" are joined together now and there is nothing to stop it from becoming a "national grid" in a formal sense, because it is in place already. Didn't mean to sound like a conspiracy theory type person...............just thinking in terms of logical sequence based on past occurances. IMHO

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

Oh goody. So now we get to pay for the higher cost of high-demand urban power.

I am so looking forward to that! LOL!

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

Our price we pay for electric went up a bit. Our bill is usually 50.00 a month, and now it's about 65.00. They are charging more per kilowhatever. Well, I just went and got the bill and it's back down to 50.00 for 820 KWH. Plus a fuel adjustment rate of 3.11 (.0032070). Most all of that is my hot water heater and well pump.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

I just checked my bill and it doesn't even say how much I'm paying per KWH! All the easier to sneak in a rate increase I guess.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

Sheepish, we pay just under 7 cents a KWH, and it gets somewhat cheaper as the usage goes up, should be the other way around to encourage folks to CONSERVE electric, I would think!!! When we lived in northern Ohio, we would pay around 10 cents a KWH, so we consider 6 cents or less a real bargain!!!

We are not to have any rate increases in the next few years here, we are an electric co-op, and have no incentive to increase the non existant profit margin, we have no profit margin, just keep ahead of expenses.

However, this is "dirty" electric for sure, soft coal fired power plants with little or no scrubbers on the stacks, we would pay alot more for eco-green electric power, I would say by double, at least!!!

Do you have hydro-power out there??? Do the local dams have fish ladders on them or not? Is there any local clamor to remove dams that don't incorporate fish ladders into them? I don't eat or buy wild salmon anymore due to the amount of wild salmon that cannot reach their "home waters" due to dams that block the way now, poor things, what a frustration!!!

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

We havn't even started the hot months yet and my electric bill was $212.00 last month. House kept at about 78-80. Solar clothes dryer in use. $90.00 sounds great to me. john

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

Yeah, like I said, I'm not exactly whining yet....just keeping an eye on things. Yes, we have mostly hydro out here. Yes, there is a clamor to take down dams...actually two are slated for removal (on the Elwah, and um, can't think of the other immediately. Both on the Olympic Peninsula.) Big hassles over salmon "rights"/barge traffic/wheat marketing on the Snake and Columbia (BPA land.) It just gets so complicated! It is said that the only really clean, non- polluting electrical generation comes from nuclear. Bwahahahahahah.

(I'm just rather curious to see what happens. Like, does California rule the world, dude? Is Gov. Davis going to be the next Dem. Prez. candidate, etc.? What is good for California, is good for the country. So they say.) ;-)

In the meantime, I will keep conserving b/c it's the right thing to do. And BPA can then sell the power I have conserved to someone else for a ransom! What's up with that, anyway?

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

My bill for last month was $48.00. We are not running the air conditioners yet because the temps haven't hit 100 here yet. We have been very fortunate and have had few days over 95. Anyway, that is about what my electric bill is here year round, so there hasn't been any price increase. We have to figure out our own KWH price here...they damned sure don't come out and tell you what it is. So far, Texas has been separated from the rest of the country with our own little electric grid, but the administration is pushing for us to be drafted into the main stream of power because Texas generates much more power than she uses, and sells the extra. If she is in the grid, the feds can regulate where the extra goes more easily. I personally would like to get a solar system in, but I'm too broke to do it. I don't like where the country in general is heading with this electricity "crisis" that has loomed up in the past year.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

We paid $159.00 dollars this month for 1,777 kwh usage(I'm too lazy right now to do the math). . . the highest electrical bill we have ever received. Of course it has hit the century mark about two weeks straight; hotter than usual this time of year. About $72.00 is a gas fuel surcharge that has been tacked on to us for eight months (since December), so I'm not feeling to charitable 'bout California power woes; if they voted for cleaner air, fine, but leave my Texas electric bill out of the loop willya?

July, August and September are our "brass monkey apendages" months for power bills so I'm not to optomistic about the light bill. A friend of mine got double billed recently. He always pays the bill by check, but somehow, the electric company "mistakenly" electronically (sp?) shook down his bank account. Keep your eyes on the bank statements folks.

Sorry, this fuel surcharge and high temps got me pitching a real fit down in deep south Texas. Don't worry; I'll cope.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

Our bill was $32 FOR 290 KWh last month. This covers lighting, efficient fridge/freezer, chest freezer and small appliances. We don't have AC or TV and we cook with wood. Our biggest drain is the 250W heat lamp on the new chicks Can't imagine paying over $200/month for utilities - I'd need to get a job!!!

-- Anonymous, June 30, 2001

Our electric co-op here in So.Utah is currently charging .0625 per KWH. Our last bill was for $44.66. We cook and heat water with propane, no AC but we run a fan all day when it's hot. Not too bad, glad we're not in CA anymore.

-- Anonymous, June 30, 2001

Here in Virginia we are paying .078 per kwh. Our bill this month was $207.59 but that was partly due to running the fans in the greenhouse. Now that it is shut down for the summer, the cost should go down some. We have already been running the air conditioner for the month of June so that is included in the bill. This just makes me more determined to find a way to convert some things to solar.

-- Anonymous, July 07, 2001

Let me tell you about our last electric bill!!! I was in shock! The bill we received the other day was for $613! I immediately called the electric company sprouting statements like "Impossible", "You've made a giant mistake", "How can this be?" Blah! Blah! Blah! The young lady who took my call explained in an extremely patient voice that our last three bills had been "estimated" and apparently had been estimated too low and now it was catch-up time. I told her there was "no excuse" for estimating our bill as the electric meter is located "in plain view" right outside our house. She gently suggested perhaps they had been operating with reduced man-power or the weather was too bad or some other reason why the meter didn't get read (never once blaming me, the customer). All the time she was extremely polite and patient while I was border-line crazy and not quite rude. Finally, I accepted that we'd have to pay the bill. All this time, my dh was standing there trying to talk to me but I couldn't hear both of them, so I tuned him out. After hanging up, he asked me to come outside and "look" at the meter, which I attempted to do, but alas, I couldn't find the meter. "Where is it?" I asked. He finally pointed out to me that the meter was in fact, hidden (quite well, I might add) by a "Christmas tree" we had planted years ago and had forgotten about. The poor meter-reader would have had to practically climb the tree to read the meter. If he was new, he never would have found it, much less read it! The estimated bills were for February, March and April, which my DH also reminded me, we were using the ELECTRIC HEAT because we'd run out of firewood. (Memory in old people is really pathetic because I had more or less forgotten this part!)

Bottom line is: the poor electric person was doing her best to calm an angry customer and was extremely polite and understanding, (but firm on the point that we did indeed owe the electric company over $600.

DH had now cut down the offending tree and I feel a very strong need to contact this young person and apologize. Next time, I might think before I jump in with both feet.

Thanks for reading.

-- Anonymous, July 08, 2001

Here in my area of Maine we're paying a little over .07 cents for our home and .05 cents (KWH) for our business. There is a possibility that the rates might go down as soon as one of our local paper mills downsizes it's paper-making business and becomes a local electricity producing plant. It can't happen soon enough for me! At least the price of gas has dropped below $1.40/gal. again!!

-- Anonymous, July 08, 2001

Our bills vary from the recent $24/month for two months ($48 total) to a high of $40 a month for two months ($80 total). We get billed in two month increments. We have a washing machine and deep freeze and fridge/freezer all electric, as well as central air conditioning, forced air furnace, ceiling fans, hot tub circulating motor/jets all on electric. No solar. Lots of windows for natural light. Oven and hot water are natural gas. No dryer. Outdoor lights are on switches, not dusk to dawn. We have cheap electric, I paid more for water (hot tub!) last month than electric! Deregulation is coming our way, so I foresee a raise in costs.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2001

Sheepish, where does your PUD get its power from? My son used to live in Washington (Longview, yech). They had their own hydro plant. His rate was 2 1/2 cents per kwh!

Our power rate went up from 5 1/5 to just over 6 cents per kwh a few months ago. I don't think it was related to the Calif farce, though. We are slated for another big jump late this fall, due to Bonneville's increasing its charges, I suppose due to Calif's scam, plus the drought, I guess.

We here in many parts of Oregon, have the highest rates in the state, because we are sending our money to Scottish Power Company, who bought PP&L from Pacificorps recently. Actually, it was already the highest. All the PUD's in Oregon are cheapter than all the private companies. Duh.

Ashland recently started a green energy project. They sent out a single mailer, asking for 110 families to volunteer to pay an extra four bucks a month each for green power. They got over two hundred! With this money, they started a solar power interface program, which pays people 25 cents per kwh to sell solar power back to the power company. Cool! If someone FORCES Scottish Power to do the same, I'll be installing solar panels asap.

Any others out there have any knowledge of similar programs in your areas?

JOJ

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

JOJ...here in Maine I know that if you install your own wind turbines or generators, Central Me. Power Co. will buy electricity from you. I don't really know all the specifics. Maybe somebody else from Maine knows??

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

Hey JOJ!

Our PUD gets its power from Bonneville, natch. We have just arranged some new contract (the details of which I have not reviewed) which is supposed to make us less hostage to price increases for another year (although I think it settled out to be another 20+% or so increase this fall.)

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001