Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods the Grid

Re:Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods... by rb808 on Tuesday August 07, 2018 @04:30PM (#17710464)

I can't say for sure, but quite likely renewables cause high costs like the article says. The problem is that electricity generators of all types have very high fixed costs. If you have a lot of wind and solar power its a problem that it ruins the profitability of the traditional generators half the year, so they need high prices in the other half to cover the capital costs.

Also California isn't most expensive, seems pretty much the same as many blue states. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/

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Re:Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods... by aphextron on Tuesday August 07, 2018 @04:43PM (#17710601)

>Also California isn't most expensive, seems pretty much the same as many blue states. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/

>Data for 2016

This lists California at $0.15/kWh. I've never paid even close to that anywhere I've lived.

The current PGE residential rate of $0.28/kWh [0] is about the same as Honolulu, Hawaii, where 100% of electricity is produced from burning natural gas and petroleum.[1]

[0] https://www.pge.com/tariffs/electric.shtml

[1] https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/billing-and-payment/rates-a...

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Re:Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods... by rconti on Tuesday August 07, 2018 @05:39PM (#17711082)

Silicon Valley Electric was 8c when I lived there, 10c now.

My PG&E's lowest off-peak rate is now 16c, though I'm on a TOU plan and just installed solar, and I have generation through Peninsula Clean Energy so my bill is somewhat more complicated than the charts involved to send Apollo 11 to the moon.

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Re:Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods... by mmt on Tuesday August 07, 2018 @07:47PM (#17711966)

> Silicon Valley Electric was 8c when I lived there, 10c now.

If you mean Silicon Valley Power, the municipal electric utility for Santa Clara, it's now (as of Jan 2017) 11.82c [1] for residential non-TOU for the upper tier.

It's also only for the city of Santa Clara. Palo Alto has a municipal utility, but its rates are higher, and these are exceptions. AFAIK, the vast majority of California is served by a private utility (e.g. PG&E).

[1] http://www.siliconvalleypower.com/home/showdocument?id=6253

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Re:Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods... by zyren on Tuesday August 07, 2018 @07:09PM (#17711758)

I live in San Diego and I pay on average 40 cents per kw after everything. I used under 1000kw this last bill and the electricity portion was around $400, gas was $15, total bill around $432.

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Re:Power Worth Less Than Zero Spreads as Green Energy Floods... by classichasclass on Tuesday August 07, 2018 @05:15PM (#17710883)

That sure isn't what we're paying with So Cal Edison. The municipal supply I used to be on was closer, but municipal supplies tend to serve smaller numbers of customers by their nature, so I doubt they're pulling the average down much either.

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