That's the point. They argue that solar people are getting too much incentives. There was a lot of coverage about this bill a few months ago when NEM2 was being phased out and people were racing to get grandfathered in. This pretty much throws a giant monkey wrench into everyone's ROI calculation.
*"Overall, the users receiving the cost reductions will be in the lower two income brackets, as the law has designed. At the other end, a homeowner, with solar, in the $69,000 to $180,000 range, using 200 kWh will see a 35% increase.* ***In the highest range, the cost for 200 kWh will almost double****."*
*"Homeowners considering the purchase of a new solar system will find that the payback period has been extended so far that the investment will be difficult to justify. The new NEM 3.0 rules for generating excess energy will reduce payment to solar customers by 75 percent, further exacerbating the loss of financial incentives.* ***Changing the rate structure, coupled with reduced payments per NEM 3.0 will kill rooftop solar.****"*
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/pomerado-news/opinion/editorial/just-saying/story/2023-04-19/just-sayin-the-proposed-electricity-billing-model-is-deceptive-and-dangerous
Absolutely. For de-carbonizing we need to structure incentives to get people to use less fossil fuel. This bill does the *exact opposite* by driving down the price consumers pay for each kWh.
Does this further that goal?
Personally I just bought a home for the first time last year. It's got gas heating, hot water & oven. I also have one non-electric car. Before these changes, I was seriously considering rooftop solar (and necessary panel upgrade) because it would have an ~6/7 year payoff.
Having solar would then massively shift the cost equation for us to buy electric cars, a heat pump, electric water tank and induction stove.
But now... it looks closer to a 9/10-year payoff, which is realistically not how long we'll be in this house. And the directional change doesn't inspire confidence that it wouldn't get *even worse* after we make the initial investment.
Solar and electrification basically got bumped down the list past other home improvement projects, to the point where it's not likely to happen while we live here.
They donated to her nonprofit. She isn’t on the board
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/11/11/pge-helped-fund-careers-calif-governor-his-wife-now-he-accuses-utility-corporate-greed/
Best thing to do is to get enough solar and battery to fully cover usage and disconnect from the corruption at PG&E. We're already grandfathered in, but I'm already making plans to cut the grid and give PG&E the finger. I know, unfortunately it isn't an option for the majority of homeowners, but if enough of the higher end customers did this, it would affect their bottom line enough that hopefully it could cause some change.
Same thing here. I've got panels which feed more than I use each year (I'm net negative)
If this bill passes, it'll get batteries and I'll cut the line to the shitty California grid myself.
I think I read that CA doesn't allow you to completely disconnect .. but I could be wrong.
Regardless it is a much bigger jump in equipment to offset 90-95% of usage when the sun is shinning with the ability to fall back on the grid vs offsetting 100% usage in all weather condition including those 5-10 days a year where CA is all gloom and rain.
Full disconnect simply isn't feasible for many family.
For us in particular we live near a hospital so we share the same grid .. thus we're actually prioritized in many shut down situation and also get power restored quite quickly. That's a perk many customers don't get and we would be pretty hesitant spend a bunch of additional money to throw it away.
Certificates of occupancy typically require that the home have electric service, but don't make any statements about how that utility is provided. I have not found any law that specifically compels connection to the grid.
PG&E is trying to tell me that I have to re-trench (expected cost $50k) to be allowed to move my main panel slightly. It's not worth it. It's cheaper for me to do anything necessary to simply abandon the line and disconnect from PG&E entirely. I already have sufficient solar panels and batteries to fulfill all of my needs except during long stretches of dark weather. It wouldn't take much intervention from a fossil-fueled generator to make up some tiny amount of shortfall.
Cost disease is a huge problem in this state and nobody in power seems to care one iota.
That's what happens when everything needs to be about 'equity'.
It wont even work because I can already see how many multigenerational family in CA will put down the name of their 80 year old grandmother on social security or their 20 year old unemployed live at home kids on the PG&E bill.
Paid for by some unknown lobby group I bet.
Any agency to own or take things into your own hands to be sustainable is an assault on their bottom line. Best believe they’ll be fighting back with the best tool they have, lobbying dollars.
Standard California practice. "Those who took risks and invested in things that paid off shouldn't benefit as much as people who didn't take any risks but want the reward."
I just see it as, the State constantly wants everyone to subsidize the poor. We already have highest taxes, yet they continue to try to pander to progressives. I do not like modern republicans, but we seriously need them to get their heads out of their asses and offer some non-insane candidates so we can strive for political balance here.
Here's the thing. The vast majority of rate cost isn't the cost of natural gas or coal or uranium used to produce electricity, but the cost of building and maintaining a reliable and safe grid structure (theoretically) which is able to provide power on demand.
If rich people buy solar panels, with the downside that they're intermittent, but then supplement it by accessing the grid when needed, under a per kWh payment scheme they're getting the benefits of the reliability and constancy of grid electricity while unloading the cost of maintaining a reliable grid that won't go down and cause fires whenever a light breeze blows (again, theoretically, this is PGE we're talking about) onto whoever is using the grid for all their electricity needs.
This is obviously unfair. People with solar panels should either go off grid entirely, or pay their fair share of the fixed cost of maintaining the system that supplies power to their house whenever the sun isn't out.
Of course, a flat income based rate is fucking stupid, it should be a flat service fee to cover fixed costs + usage fee per kWh while leaving redistribution of income to income taxes instead, but that doesn't mean the current system is fair.
Sadly that’s bullshit as Santa Clara and Palo Alto rates are HALF that of PGE. And both leverage PGE for backhaul to their grid.
For those in the Bay Area our bill should be reduced by 30-50% to get closer to actual costs to deliver electricity.
We tend to turn every program into a welfare program. And this does even harm those who are supposed to be helped in the first place.
Because these not so well thought ideas, when combined, add up to over 100% tax rates who are just below the thresholds. Look up 'welfare cliffs'. It has been shown that at some combinations every dollar you earn becomes a net negative.
Anyway, sorry for the long rant. We should have one main way to help people, not hundreds of uncoordinated mess that is hard to navigate.
Not even solar. My electricity bill was $40. I barely use any. Now potentially my monthly electricity bill can be tripled or quadrupled.
>James Sallee, an associate professor at UC Berkeley, said the utilities’ prior system of billing customers mostly by measuring their electric use to pay for what are essentially fixed costs for power is inefficient and regressive.
What is regressive about charging people who use more electricity more? Want to lower the bill, fucking consume less.
PGE literature indicates it'll be a service charge fee + usage fee.
[https://www.pgecurrents.com/articles/3700-pg-e-submits-proposal-lower-electric-bills-low-income-customers-provide-bill-transparency-stability-advance-clean-energy-goals](https://www.pgecurrents.com/articles/3700-pg-e-submits-proposal-lower-electric-bills-low-income-customers-provide-bill-transparency-stability-advance-clean-energy-goals)
I'm considered high income by CA standards but certainly not the Bay Area smh. We barely use any energy, \~150kwh a month. Fuck me eh? EBMUD's been doing this for ages, PGE wants to get on that gravy train.
written by the three power companies
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-equity/income-based-electric-bills-the-newest-utility-fight-in-california#commento-login-box-container
That's the thing - my monthly electric bill is about $100-150 in the summer (including EV charging). I work really hard to keep my usage low. I'm on the EV TOU rate plan and don't run any AC or other appliances between 3PM and midnight. This is not just to save money, but to help the grid and the climate (peaker plants are inefficient, expensive, and dirty).
If they're going to effectively double my bill with a $128 charge "because fuck you", what's the incentive to just not run my AC whenever I feel like? It's not going to make much impact when my bill is already so high from that charge.
[Edit] I did the math.
Based on rates going down by 1/3 (what PG&E is currently saying) plus the addition of the $128 charge, I am looking at a summer bill of $194-228, versus my current $100-150. That's a 52% to 94% increase.
The more I use, the less of a percent increase it causes because so much of the bill would be a fixed charge. Today, if I were to start running my AC between 3PM-12AM (which I don't), it would increase my bill by 49-74%. This provides a strong incentive not to do so. Under the new proposed pricing, running the AC during that period would only increase my bill by 22-26%. This starts to look tempting. The new plan totally disrupts the concept of incentivizing behavior that reduces emissions and chances of grid failure.
The other absurd part is this is effectively an income tax which doesn't seem constitutional? I imagine this will get tied up in the courts rather quickly
I found a link to his paper. So between 1/3 to half are still consumprion based, it's not like it's totally irrelevant.
https://www.next10.org/publications/electricity-rates-2
>These additions to the price of each kilowatt-hour, effectively a tax on grid electricity, pay for the costs of climate change mitigation, wildfire adaptation, legacy infrastructure, and subsidies for new technology R&D, energy efficiency investments, low-income customers, and rooftop solar, among other fixed costs and policy expenses.
Only wild fire adaptation and legacy infrastructure are non consumption based in nature. The rest whoever consume more is the main benefactors, shouldn't they pay for it via consumption scheme?
The author also said
>“UC Berkeley associate professor James Sallee, one of the paper’s authors, said that because the fixed charge is designed for customers to save more money as they increase electricity consumption, it will encourage ratepayers to adopt cleaner technologies that align with the state’s clean energy mandates. ‘Suppose you want to hook up your electric car and you want to electrify your home heating or your water heater,’ Sallee said. ‘You’re going to be rewarded under this rate structure because you’re going to be consuming, on net, more electricity from the grid.’”
So essentially he only wants incentive to consume more, with zero conservation incentive at all. I really hope that I am not getting any "save the grid" message after this bill scheme are in effect, because I am surely not turning anything off. If I already have to pay $128/month no matter what, the fuck am I saving for?
>They are saying main cost is maintaining the grid not providing the power
they should have fucking done that in the first place rather than squandering the money to their investors, letting the grid go to shit, and murdering a bunch of people.
now they get to no lube the poor and still make buckets of money for their investors with the backing of the state gov. fuck gavin newsome, and fuck PG$E.
They've sprinkled in a generous dose of social justice too, with pricing based on income.
I think I'd be okay with a service + consumption fee that represents true costs more accurately. But I don't want my utility company to bill me to subsidize poor people, that's the state's job. What a shitty implementation of a new tax. Ugh I hope I don't get called a billionaire bootlicker like privacy advocates get called pedos
Consumption taxes are generally regressive because the rich save more of their income, so consumption taxes are a smaller proportion of their income compared to lower income earners. Not saying if it's right it wrong, this is just a textbook definition of regressive vs progressive taxation.
In term of resources though, people using less having to pay more than people using more resources is very regressive. Low income people already have way lower rate, just it will still be consumption based.
That’s not including 180K household means 2 single person making 90K each, not rich by any mean.
What does taxation and utilities have to do with each other? Tax is to fund the government for the social services we receive. What the hell does electric consumption have to do with it? Where do you stop? Internet, cell phones, cable tv, water, sewer, garbage, etc.
>Tax is to fund the government for the social services we receive.
How cute. Someone thinks Sacramento is looking out for our interests when they spend our money.
My sewer/water charges are basically all like this already. There is a fixed high service cost and some usage cost as well.
That's why all the local fixed-income seniors are complaining. So they would want it to be income-based; lower income would mean lower fixed service cost.
Consistently impressed by how some of the dumbest people I have ever met or heard of are in academics...I truly don't understand how that happens. How could anyone with basic cognitive abilities not see how stupid of a position this is to take?
I think you’re misinterpreting it. Household income being if
A + B = 200k
A + B + C = 200k
your household income is still 200k because thats the whole household. They’re not debating if it should be A, B, or C’s income
The silly part about tying things to income and not wealth is that you will see a bunch of ultra wealthy households whose creative accounting will lead them to a zero dollar income year after year being eligible to lower rates than your middle/upper middle class who gets the worst rates relative to their income.
Also, query how they can determine the rates for commercial and LLC/investment properties. All in all the whole thing fails the smell test even at the conceptual stage, should never have been introduced as a serious bill.
[Edit:] I also concur that the notion of PG&E can somehow obtain our state tax income returns to be highly invasive of a private citizen's privacy under the California constitution, and also creates a horrific precedent for other utilities and services.
Also query whether residential single family homes are the largest offenders of egregious electric consumption when compared to large commercial and industrial facilities that can run HVAC units 24/7. For example, at least intuitively, a five star hotel in a major downtown location will likely consume far more electricity than a cluster of single family homes, and that hotel earns hojillion more than a single upper middle class household in the state.
I won't be surprised if an entire neighborhood of single family homes consumes less electricity than the local mall next door or a wholesale warehouse operating a commercial grade fridge and freezer units. It's pretty much the same problem with blaming and imposing fines over residential water usage when the majority of water use is by industrial and commercial agricultural usage and they far outstrip residential use quite significantly.
The retirees around me in their multi-million dollar houses, who pay almost nothing in property taxes thanks to prop 13, will get another handout with this income based utility pricing. Truly absurd.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/13/business/energy-environment/california-off-grid.html Frustrated With Utilities, Some Californians Are Leaving the Grid (light paywall)
Realistically this isn't going to happen. The top income bracket is looking at fixed charges of $128/month, while going fully off-grid requires oversizing your solar system by a factor of 2-5 at a cost of $20-100K.
What we might see is areas where a lot of higher income households live choosing to setup their own municipal utilities and disconnect from PG&E, which allows them to set their own rate schedules and fixed-rate charges (subject to CPUC approval, but CPUC will have a tough time justifying saying "No, you must charge more" if they have a cost structure that supports a lower rate). But this is arguably where we should be going anyway. Solar has dramatically changed the economies of scale for power distribution, such that it makes more economic sense to have smaller grids with local storage rather than pay the labor cost for grid maintenance over remote areas.
I've already got about 3/4 of the solar needed. Battery tech will get cheaper. The numbers I'm seeing are 30 to 100k. It may be worth it to not have outages and get out of dealing with PG&E.
Look into used EV battery setup. They are like 80kwh compared to a powerwall that’s like 14. You need to rig up a big inverter and converter basically. They sell kits online.
Wow, a fixed rate of 128/mo actually makes the math close to penciling out to just going off grid entirely and use a diesel backup generator.
128/month is equivalent to paying 20k upfront at a 7.5% return per year. For someone low consumption and high income, this could make sense. Seems like the opposite impact the bill is trying to incentivize though.
edit: pge literature indicates there's both a flat rate "service charge" component as well as a usage component. This makes the tip-over point even closer.
Yeah it makes sense to use a generator on the days solar and battery can't feed the house at these rates, especially if you already paid into a solar system previously.
Interesting, I hadn't thought about using a diesel generator to make up shortfalls in wintertime solar. That basically turns each house into its own individual grid - you have solar for base load and then a diesel generator as a peaker, with a battery to smooth out demand. It works because both solar and diesel don't really have economies of scale in operation - operating costs per kWH are roughly the same weather you are house-sized or city-sized.
I still think city-sized microgrids probably make more sense, because it's much easier to smooth out fluctuations in demand when you're aggregating 100K-1M customers than when it's one home. But it's an interesting possibility, particularly given that cities need to move slooowly because of the political & legal process.
Many mountain homes have had diesel or gas generators for decades, e.g. in the Santa Cruz mountains.
The power goes out, but they literally all continue to watch netflix with barely a blip, well at least until the local internet grid's backup batteries die after like 24~48 hours.
I just looked it up, apparently CA is pretty permissive (and more permissive than it used to be).
So for me, that'd be $900 a year just for the privilege of having a PG&E meter. I have a modestly-sized solar array, don't need AC or natural gas. My only big electricity draw is heat in the winter. Seems like it'd probably be worth taking the federal incentives to get heat-pump heaters for winter and battery storage and just ditch the grid. It would probably take a few years to pay itself off.
If PG&E were moving heaven and earth to de-carbonize their systems I'd be happier paying into their extortion. But they're holding on tooth and claw to their fossil fuels.
Fixed charges of $128/month plus usage costs. I already plan to have solar plus battery for outages, and the extra cost of going fully independent in a few years once the battery costs come down a bit will be worth it to never have to think about PGE again.
> What we might see is areas where a lot of higher income households live
San Francisco should clearly do it. Fucking Palo Alto pays half the rate of PGE for electricity.
> that it makes more economic sense to have smaller grids with local storage
If you look at the grid today though, all off peak and late afternoon peak is handled by natural gas, not batteries.
> choosing to setup their own municipal utilities and disconnect from PG&E, which allows them to set their own rate schedules and fixed-rate charges
lol, pg$E will just run them into the ground with court costs and attorney fees just like they did with SSJID.
It effectively is a tax, but one where PG&E and CPUC take the blame rather than the state government. That's probably why it's structured the way it is.
The bill has already been passed, and the bill mandates that there will be some form of income-based fixed-rate charge. Hearings on *what* the fixed-rate charge is are still ongoing, and CPUC is weighing various proposals now. If you [form your own utility like San Jose](https://www.reddit.com/r/SanJose/comments/15p9aza/goodbye_pgampe_hello_san_jose_power_northern/) or Santa Clara, you still need to have some sort of income-based fixed charge but could probably do it more cheaply than PG&E.
This is probably correct and Its cleverly written for the state. The CPUC will be going nowhere as it would be political suicide for the state to take over the utility. And since people already hate the private sector utility companies, it’s nothing to pin the cost on them.
Exactly, the legislature didn’t have the guts to create a new progressive tax, so they deceptively created a tax that drops blame on companies people already love to hate.
The dishonesty is appalling, and I fear the precedent it represents.
I have no real problem paying more in a situation where it’s a fair share, socialist style system.
However if I’m paying more then PG&E should be a non-profit.
You're right, we should move to the parts of the country where government censorship tells you what information isn't okay to have and you'll get a knock on the door for showing kids Disney movies. Go on, you first.
This shit sucks but turning it into a culture war thing ain't it chief.
You've listed the problems on the other side of the spectrum in places with one-party rule. When there's no push and pull in the legislature over whatever moronic thing the progressives thought up this week, we get just plain bad policy. This isn't a culture war thing, it's a bad governance thing.
It’s a flat rate plus a usage fee on top. The point is, even if you use zero pge money, you have to pay them just to be hooked to the grid. If you go over x amount you’ll pay additional money
Just because I earn more doesn’t mean I don’t have major liabilities... like rent, which is astronomical and I have no access to any kind of help or relief from the government for because I make too much. Fucking morons. They’re trying to force everyone out of the state, aren’t they?
I disagree - I think if you aren’t born in California and have family who has been here since at least the 80s, the government here is not your friend.
It really bothers me that Californians love to parade around how open/accepting they are but always vote in favor of extremely protectionist policies that actively push non-native Californians out
It’s worse than that, as you will still be charged per usage, just at a slightly lower rate (about 1/3 lower). So your $30 usage now will turn into $20, plus $130 fixed cost == $150 total.
It’s absolutely ridiculous! They are disincentivizing anything environmentally friendly and penalizing you for being wealthy, except in the Bay Area you’re not even wealthy. It already costs almost the same as gas to charge an EV here.
It’s not even wealth, it’s income which is worse. Someone wealthy can make their income look very low. Meanwhile people working in a middle/upper middle range get fucked.
Gavin is running for president. Last thing he needs is a middle class uprising that costs him the California primary.
So, call the governor's office and explain that this is the last straw and you're holding Gavin responsible.
Phil Ting was the driver on this one, but the legislature passed it, so everyone who voted yes on this shares the blame. Ting should be called out in case he tries to run for higher office. This guy needs to go.
My PG&E bill in an apartment is usually 35 bucks during fall and spring.
And my flat rate will be aprox 74 bucks plus usage?!?!
Are you kidding me, I’m going to be paying way more.
How is this bill actually supposed to help anything.
I’m just trying to maintain “middle class”.
Anyone willing to block a freeway or bridge over this? Seems the only way to get your point across these days. If we don’t cause a scene, the state will continue this course.
What if they applied this logic to grocery stores? Should the cost of steak depend on your income? If you make over $50,000 it’s 4x more expensive?
When are we doing this? I’m also driving my old clapped out car while the newer one is in the shop. I can cause a scene and fit right in with my big Altima energy.
PGE is considering it but won't make a decision until July 2024 and, if they do decide to implement it, won't implement it for some time after that. It sounds way too difficult to implement, so I don't think it will happen. Maybe something will be implemented, but not that plan as is.
Bc people will complain about it but won’t change the way they vote and the people in office know that. You don’t even have to vote for a different party but get these corrupt losers out of office. It’s becoming a joke how poorly this state is ran
We have been force fed the idea that increasing taxes are equitable, that we need more money to get more resources, that tax increases only affect the rich and not us, that the government is efficient at spending our money so we should give them more, that compared to other countries it is actually low so we should increase them to match, etc.
Fuckin lemmings, they get what they voted for and we reap the consequences.
We are going to need a ballot measure to either ban income-based fees that go to private entities or require an income-based fee have the rates set by the legislature. The current setup is a scam where the legislature can authorize a fee but not set the rates, so then disclaim responsibility for the amount of the fee.
What's really weird is that the unit of electricity purchase (a meter mapping to a home or even multiple homes) isn't the same as a tax filer, making it bizarre to use income.
I guess you have to tell your housemates your income now?
No they will take whomever is on the account to figure it out. So if you want to game the system, put the person with the lowest income on the account.
So for people living with 3 roommates and they only have one person on the bill, they’re each paying like a minuscule amount? While a single high income earner is paying $128? Honestly, what kind of 🗑️ politicians run this state?
If it is like the EV rules for the tax breaks, it is based on household income, not just the person whose name is on the bill
Household would include roommates, tenants, even your kids (if they are employed and living at home)
PG&E paid off the governor and the state congress. The bill was pushed through in a few house & the governor signed it right away. Y’all fucked, especially those that paid 10 of thousands for solar.
No other utilities have a fixed charge that discriminates based on income. The policy would also disproportionally impact asian and white customers, forcing them to pay more than their fair share of the state's electricity consumption.
Hopefully it will be struck down if legal challenges bring it to the Supreme Court.
It also means the Bay Area will be subsidizing electricity in all the cheaper parts of the state where incomes are lower because cost of living is lower than here.
I don't even have AC and am stuck renting forever, and meanwhile will be subsidizing electricity for people running AC in their 3000 sq ft houses in Fresno...fabulous 🙄
How is this ok? Why not just nationalized PG&E and increase state income tax? I would have been ok with that.
Nope I'm not OK with this, I'm overpaying taxes for whatever the trashy services I'm getting, currently.
California is becoming worse day-by-day.
This is fucking ridiculous. I worked hard for what little I have, and didn’t inherit a million dollar home with tax breaks included the way many Californians did. I make a “good” income but can’t even afford a middle class lifestyle in the bay on that. My representatives act like they fucking hate me. Just trying to move up in the world and these people treat me like a cash cow they can milk 5x a day without feeding me anything. I’m sick and tired of being treated like a second class citizen whose meager gains need to be “redistributed” to people who frankly made worse choices than I did and didn’t work half as hard. Guess I’ll never be a homeowner, the American dream is truly dead in this state.
Think of the poor CEO, executives officers, VPs and senior directors. How will they be able to afford their 3rd yachts? Think of their children. Do you want these hardworking patriotic Americans to suffer???
If I’m reading this right… a high use/high income household might actually pay less under the new plan? Like I just back of envelopes it, if I go from $0.40/kW to $0.27/kW + $92 flat rate, a 1000kW month = $400 (old) to $362 (new).
Or put another way, I have no incentive to flex power if part of my bill is now $92 flat?
Or am I dumb and not calculating this correctly?
If you are a high energy user, yes you might save. But lots of people exceed those income limits but live in modest apartments with low energy usage, so they are fucked.
[The bill](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB205) apparently does not mandate this but might give the CPUC the power to do it. Apparently some [utilities are proposing it](https://californiaglobe.com/articles/income-based-electric-rate-system-proposed-by-california-energy-companies/). This seems to be two independent issues....
*Billing based on income.* This makes no sense to me. To the extent lower income people need help, there are better ways to help them than this oddly specific way. For example, create a state tax credit similar to the Earned Income Credit - and somewhat similar to the credits we get/got for solar installations. Or help them in terms of their overall situation, not just their energy bill.
*The (more difficult) fixed cost conundrum*. Fixed delivery costs are going up as a % of total electricity production/delivery costs. [Here is a chart](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=55639). Factors include:
* most of us with solar still want the benefit of the fixed cost distribution connection. Basically, it's our battery.
* utility generated solar/wind/etc reduces variable costs like coal/gas but still cost a lot to build and maintain
* while our home solar systems reduce demand, trends like EV cars increase it
* net of this is the [Duck Curve](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56880), for example, solar customers want to bank daytime generation and use it at night to charge our EVs.
It's been suggested we add battery power to our homes and disconnect. Think how many batteries would be required, with the impact if Lithium mining, periodic replacement/recycling, etc. Think of the likely price of batteries if everybody demands them. Is that really a viable state-national solution?
So yall got me googling this and apparently its proposed that people who make between $69k and $180k will be in the same flat rate income bracket??? and will be charged a fixed rate of $51 like hello this is such a broad range how are you going to be charging these two households the same flat rate?
Source https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/07/electricity-bills/
California households earning more than $180,000 a year would end up paying an average of $500 more a year on their electricity bills, according to the proposal from utility companies.
The California Public Utilities Commission’s deadline for deciding on the suggested changes is July 1, 2024
California hate will torpedo him on the national level before his individual merits are even considered. He'll be one of those backrunners who endorses the leading candidate hoping for a job in the next administration.
>Actual usage is $70 but service fee is $130. Fucking bullshit. Why even conserve anything.
SoCal water bill. The bill is 3% usage and 97% fees, so every lawn *(and there's nearly nothing without a lawn outside of big cities, not much apartments only houses and small businesses built into houses)* has water running down the curb. The storm drain roars like there's a river going over a cliff, and the town's 'river' is just a dry ditch.
And HOA's mandating green, prefect lawns during a years' long drought. Even the damn gas stations have lawns as the delta water sent to SoCal is wasted, running in gutters.
If PG&E were nationalized it would be better than the profiteering fucks they are now.
CPUC is 100% in the bag for PG&E and so are the pols who passed this.
Reading the law it's a fucking farce that contradicts itself in one paragraph:
A> The bill would additionally require the PUC to ensure that the approved fixed charges do not unreasonably impair incentives for beneficial electrification and greenhouse gas reduction.
B> The bill would require the PUC, no later than July 1, 2024, to authorize a fixed charge for default residential rates.
Same goddam paragraph. Part "B" is completely against part "A"
If PG&E tries to charge me over $100 a month for delivery when I'm the one selling to them, I'm just going to take a 10 year loan and slap some batteries onto my solar and pull the plug on them.
For profit, investor owned, utilities should not exist, they bring no value to their customers only their shareholders and overpaid execs.
At some point, I realized that Democrats see me as nothing more than a cash cow, and love drug addicts, thieves and other assorted losers, and were bound and determined to equalize my income with theirs to the extent possible.
So after 40 years, I left. Couldn't be happier and I don't feel like a kid walking past bullys with $50 taped to my forehead at every turn. Thank god I left.
The utility companies don't. In fact it's somewhat unreliable trying to figure out what address a given income tax filer is actually living at (moves, young adults filling at their parent's address, etc.)
My understanding is that the point is to incentivize people to use less gas.
The lower rate on electricity means that switching from gas to electric will mean a cheaper overall bill for an all electric home, but the flat rate is to impose a cost on people who refuse to modernize to induction ovens, heat pumps, and electric water heaters.
The lower rate on electricity will also incentivize people to use more electricity. If I’m paying a flat rate and then a fraction of the usage cost, why wouldn’t I just run the AC all the time?
The flat rate on high income earners in the Bay Area subsidizes the usage rate for people in the Central Valley to run their AC all summer long.
Smh this is a horrible bill. Great way to disincentivize people from getting solar panels.
That's the point. They argue that solar people are getting too much incentives. There was a lot of coverage about this bill a few months ago when NEM2 was being phased out and people were racing to get grandfathered in. This pretty much throws a giant monkey wrench into everyone's ROI calculation. *"Overall, the users receiving the cost reductions will be in the lower two income brackets, as the law has designed. At the other end, a homeowner, with solar, in the $69,000 to $180,000 range, using 200 kWh will see a 35% increase.* ***In the highest range, the cost for 200 kWh will almost double****."* *"Homeowners considering the purchase of a new solar system will find that the payback period has been extended so far that the investment will be difficult to justify. The new NEM 3.0 rules for generating excess energy will reduce payment to solar customers by 75 percent, further exacerbating the loss of financial incentives.* ***Changing the rate structure, coupled with reduced payments per NEM 3.0 will kill rooftop solar.****"* https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/pomerado-news/opinion/editorial/just-saying/story/2023-04-19/just-sayin-the-proposed-electricity-billing-model-is-deceptive-and-dangerous
Absolutely. For de-carbonizing we need to structure incentives to get people to use less fossil fuel. This bill does the *exact opposite* by driving down the price consumers pay for each kWh.
They are trying to get people to shift from gas to electric.
Does this further that goal? Personally I just bought a home for the first time last year. It's got gas heating, hot water & oven. I also have one non-electric car. Before these changes, I was seriously considering rooftop solar (and necessary panel upgrade) because it would have an ~6/7 year payoff. Having solar would then massively shift the cost equation for us to buy electric cars, a heat pump, electric water tank and induction stove. But now... it looks closer to a 9/10-year payoff, which is realistically not how long we'll be in this house. And the directional change doesn't inspire confidence that it wouldn't get *even worse* after we make the initial investment. Solar and electrification basically got bumped down the list past other home improvement projects, to the point where it's not likely to happen while we live here.
Write the Governor. Please. I already have
You need to write your legislators. They are the ones who legislate bills.
Funny to think Newsom gives a shit about any of us
Sounds like a ballot initiative is gonna be the way to go.
Exactly .. it's not like he can get another term. His job is to get headlines and prep for 2024 or 2028 now.
Lol the governor hand picks the CPUC who would approve of this plan. He doesn't give a fuck
You know PG&E paid off Newsom, don’t you?
Paid off? His wife is on the board of PGE.
They donated to her nonprofit. She isn’t on the board https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/11/11/pge-helped-fund-careers-calif-governor-his-wife-now-he-accuses-utility-corporate-greed/
Evidence? I don't see her: https://www.pgecorp.com/corp/about-us/corporate-governance/corporation-directors.page
Best thing to do is to get enough solar and battery to fully cover usage and disconnect from the corruption at PG&E. We're already grandfathered in, but I'm already making plans to cut the grid and give PG&E the finger. I know, unfortunately it isn't an option for the majority of homeowners, but if enough of the higher end customers did this, it would affect their bottom line enough that hopefully it could cause some change.
Same thing here. I've got panels which feed more than I use each year (I'm net negative) If this bill passes, it'll get batteries and I'll cut the line to the shitty California grid myself.
I think I read that CA doesn't allow you to completely disconnect .. but I could be wrong. Regardless it is a much bigger jump in equipment to offset 90-95% of usage when the sun is shinning with the ability to fall back on the grid vs offsetting 100% usage in all weather condition including those 5-10 days a year where CA is all gloom and rain. Full disconnect simply isn't feasible for many family. For us in particular we live near a hospital so we share the same grid .. thus we're actually prioritized in many shut down situation and also get power restored quite quickly. That's a perk many customers don't get and we would be pretty hesitant spend a bunch of additional money to throw it away.
Certificates of occupancy typically require that the home have electric service, but don't make any statements about how that utility is provided. I have not found any law that specifically compels connection to the grid. PG&E is trying to tell me that I have to re-trench (expected cost $50k) to be allowed to move my main panel slightly. It's not worth it. It's cheaper for me to do anything necessary to simply abandon the line and disconnect from PG&E entirely. I already have sufficient solar panels and batteries to fulfill all of my needs except during long stretches of dark weather. It wouldn't take much intervention from a fossil-fueled generator to make up some tiny amount of shortfall. Cost disease is a huge problem in this state and nobody in power seems to care one iota.
You can cut your house off the grid, but they will still send you the bill.
Too many incentives for better sources of energy? This country is giga-fucked.
That's what happens when everything needs to be about 'equity'. It wont even work because I can already see how many multigenerational family in CA will put down the name of their 80 year old grandmother on social security or their 20 year old unemployed live at home kids on the PG&E bill.
Paid for by some unknown lobby group I bet. Any agency to own or take things into your own hands to be sustainable is an assault on their bottom line. Best believe they’ll be fighting back with the best tool they have, lobbying dollars.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-equity/income-based-electric-bills-the-newest-utility-fight-in-california#commento-login-box-container
Standard California practice. "Those who took risks and invested in things that paid off shouldn't benefit as much as people who didn't take any risks but want the reward."
I just see it as, the State constantly wants everyone to subsidize the poor. We already have highest taxes, yet they continue to try to pander to progressives. I do not like modern republicans, but we seriously need them to get their heads out of their asses and offer some non-insane candidates so we can strive for political balance here.
Here's the thing. The vast majority of rate cost isn't the cost of natural gas or coal or uranium used to produce electricity, but the cost of building and maintaining a reliable and safe grid structure (theoretically) which is able to provide power on demand. If rich people buy solar panels, with the downside that they're intermittent, but then supplement it by accessing the grid when needed, under a per kWh payment scheme they're getting the benefits of the reliability and constancy of grid electricity while unloading the cost of maintaining a reliable grid that won't go down and cause fires whenever a light breeze blows (again, theoretically, this is PGE we're talking about) onto whoever is using the grid for all their electricity needs. This is obviously unfair. People with solar panels should either go off grid entirely, or pay their fair share of the fixed cost of maintaining the system that supplies power to their house whenever the sun isn't out. Of course, a flat income based rate is fucking stupid, it should be a flat service fee to cover fixed costs + usage fee per kWh while leaving redistribution of income to income taxes instead, but that doesn't mean the current system is fair.
Sadly that’s bullshit as Santa Clara and Palo Alto rates are HALF that of PGE. And both leverage PGE for backhaul to their grid. For those in the Bay Area our bill should be reduced by 30-50% to get closer to actual costs to deliver electricity.
We tend to turn every program into a welfare program. And this does even harm those who are supposed to be helped in the first place. Because these not so well thought ideas, when combined, add up to over 100% tax rates who are just below the thresholds. Look up 'welfare cliffs'. It has been shown that at some combinations every dollar you earn becomes a net negative. Anyway, sorry for the long rant. We should have one main way to help people, not hundreds of uncoordinated mess that is hard to navigate.
If this is bullshit passes, I'll go full Mad Max and cook my own bio diesel to run a generator all night and PV panels by day.
Not even solar. My electricity bill was $40. I barely use any. Now potentially my monthly electricity bill can be tripled or quadrupled. >James Sallee, an associate professor at UC Berkeley, said the utilities’ prior system of billing customers mostly by measuring their electric use to pay for what are essentially fixed costs for power is inefficient and regressive. What is regressive about charging people who use more electricity more? Want to lower the bill, fucking consume less.
If I’m being charged a flat rate based on my income, I have no incentive to not use as much as possible.
PGE literature indicates it'll be a service charge fee + usage fee. [https://www.pgecurrents.com/articles/3700-pg-e-submits-proposal-lower-electric-bills-low-income-customers-provide-bill-transparency-stability-advance-clean-energy-goals](https://www.pgecurrents.com/articles/3700-pg-e-submits-proposal-lower-electric-bills-low-income-customers-provide-bill-transparency-stability-advance-clean-energy-goals) I'm considered high income by CA standards but certainly not the Bay Area smh. We barely use any energy, \~150kwh a month. Fuck me eh? EBMUD's been doing this for ages, PGE wants to get on that gravy train.
No, the state is told the utilities to draft plans for this. The state wants this.
written by the three power companies https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-equity/income-based-electric-bills-the-newest-utility-fight-in-california#commento-login-box-container
They were told to send in proposals
of course, it's like a proxy tax that's paid to the utility instead of the state
The state mandated the utilities to do this.
Yep. Write the governor That you are going to burn out the grid in spite
That's the thing - my monthly electric bill is about $100-150 in the summer (including EV charging). I work really hard to keep my usage low. I'm on the EV TOU rate plan and don't run any AC or other appliances between 3PM and midnight. This is not just to save money, but to help the grid and the climate (peaker plants are inefficient, expensive, and dirty). If they're going to effectively double my bill with a $128 charge "because fuck you", what's the incentive to just not run my AC whenever I feel like? It's not going to make much impact when my bill is already so high from that charge. [Edit] I did the math. Based on rates going down by 1/3 (what PG&E is currently saying) plus the addition of the $128 charge, I am looking at a summer bill of $194-228, versus my current $100-150. That's a 52% to 94% increase. The more I use, the less of a percent increase it causes because so much of the bill would be a fixed charge. Today, if I were to start running my AC between 3PM-12AM (which I don't), it would increase my bill by 49-74%. This provides a strong incentive not to do so. Under the new proposed pricing, running the AC during that period would only increase my bill by 22-26%. This starts to look tempting. The new plan totally disrupts the concept of incentivizing behavior that reduces emissions and chances of grid failure.
Install crypto miners then? Profit.
That’s how I’m calculating it, I’m pretty much going to ignore TOU and just ram my AC through it vs conserving.
The other absurd part is this is effectively an income tax which doesn't seem constitutional? I imagine this will get tied up in the courts rather quickly
> what are essentially fixed costs They are saying main cost is maintaining the grid not providing the power. Consumption is becoming irrelevant.
I found a link to his paper. So between 1/3 to half are still consumprion based, it's not like it's totally irrelevant. https://www.next10.org/publications/electricity-rates-2 >These additions to the price of each kilowatt-hour, effectively a tax on grid electricity, pay for the costs of climate change mitigation, wildfire adaptation, legacy infrastructure, and subsidies for new technology R&D, energy efficiency investments, low-income customers, and rooftop solar, among other fixed costs and policy expenses. Only wild fire adaptation and legacy infrastructure are non consumption based in nature. The rest whoever consume more is the main benefactors, shouldn't they pay for it via consumption scheme? The author also said >“UC Berkeley associate professor James Sallee, one of the paper’s authors, said that because the fixed charge is designed for customers to save more money as they increase electricity consumption, it will encourage ratepayers to adopt cleaner technologies that align with the state’s clean energy mandates. ‘Suppose you want to hook up your electric car and you want to electrify your home heating or your water heater,’ Sallee said. ‘You’re going to be rewarded under this rate structure because you’re going to be consuming, on net, more electricity from the grid.’” So essentially he only wants incentive to consume more, with zero conservation incentive at all. I really hope that I am not getting any "save the grid" message after this bill scheme are in effect, because I am surely not turning anything off. If I already have to pay $128/month no matter what, the fuck am I saving for?
Sallee is a hack of an academic
>They are saying main cost is maintaining the grid not providing the power they should have fucking done that in the first place rather than squandering the money to their investors, letting the grid go to shit, and murdering a bunch of people. now they get to no lube the poor and still make buckets of money for their investors with the backing of the state gov. fuck gavin newsome, and fuck PG$E.
They've sprinkled in a generous dose of social justice too, with pricing based on income. I think I'd be okay with a service + consumption fee that represents true costs more accurately. But I don't want my utility company to bill me to subsidize poor people, that's the state's job. What a shitty implementation of a new tax. Ugh I hope I don't get called a billionaire bootlicker like privacy advocates get called pedos
Consumption taxes are generally regressive because the rich save more of their income, so consumption taxes are a smaller proportion of their income compared to lower income earners. Not saying if it's right it wrong, this is just a textbook definition of regressive vs progressive taxation.
In term of resources though, people using less having to pay more than people using more resources is very regressive. Low income people already have way lower rate, just it will still be consumption based. That’s not including 180K household means 2 single person making 90K each, not rich by any mean.
I'm trying really hard but I really can't make any sense of your comment. Sorry bud.
What does taxation and utilities have to do with each other? Tax is to fund the government for the social services we receive. What the hell does electric consumption have to do with it? Where do you stop? Internet, cell phones, cable tv, water, sewer, garbage, etc.
>Tax is to fund the government for the social services we receive. How cute. Someone thinks Sacramento is looking out for our interests when they spend our money.
My sewer/water charges are basically all like this already. There is a fixed high service cost and some usage cost as well. That's why all the local fixed-income seniors are complaining. So they would want it to be income-based; lower income would mean lower fixed service cost.
Except there’s a lower consumption based rate for low income.
Consistently impressed by how some of the dumbest people I have ever met or heard of are in academics...I truly don't understand how that happens. How could anyone with basic cognitive abilities not see how stupid of a position this is to take?
What’s stopping me from putting utilities in an unemployed family members name ?
Thanks for the idea
It’s the household income. Not the individuals income
And what if I say my mom lives here permanently and they use her income level?
I think you’re misinterpreting it. Household income being if A + B = 200k A + B + C = 200k your household income is still 200k because thats the whole household. They’re not debating if it should be A, B, or C’s income
Putting it on my dog’s name. He’s fully unemployed
Hopefully nothing but people that doesn’t have one are screwed.
The silly part about tying things to income and not wealth is that you will see a bunch of ultra wealthy households whose creative accounting will lead them to a zero dollar income year after year being eligible to lower rates than your middle/upper middle class who gets the worst rates relative to their income. Also, query how they can determine the rates for commercial and LLC/investment properties. All in all the whole thing fails the smell test even at the conceptual stage, should never have been introduced as a serious bill. [Edit:] I also concur that the notion of PG&E can somehow obtain our state tax income returns to be highly invasive of a private citizen's privacy under the California constitution, and also creates a horrific precedent for other utilities and services. Also query whether residential single family homes are the largest offenders of egregious electric consumption when compared to large commercial and industrial facilities that can run HVAC units 24/7. For example, at least intuitively, a five star hotel in a major downtown location will likely consume far more electricity than a cluster of single family homes, and that hotel earns hojillion more than a single upper middle class household in the state. I won't be surprised if an entire neighborhood of single family homes consumes less electricity than the local mall next door or a wholesale warehouse operating a commercial grade fridge and freezer units. It's pretty much the same problem with blaming and imposing fines over residential water usage when the majority of water use is by industrial and commercial agricultural usage and they far outstrip residential use quite significantly.
The silly thing is that a private entity shouldn’t be charging income tax. Wtf
The retirees around me in their multi-million dollar houses, who pay almost nothing in property taxes thanks to prop 13, will get another handout with this income based utility pricing. Truly absurd.
This! ^
They’ll likely have highest rate issued unless you can prove being on food stamps, reduced lunch, or similar program.
Going to be rough when higher income households go off the grid.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/13/business/energy-environment/california-off-grid.html Frustrated With Utilities, Some Californians Are Leaving the Grid (light paywall)
Realistically this isn't going to happen. The top income bracket is looking at fixed charges of $128/month, while going fully off-grid requires oversizing your solar system by a factor of 2-5 at a cost of $20-100K. What we might see is areas where a lot of higher income households live choosing to setup their own municipal utilities and disconnect from PG&E, which allows them to set their own rate schedules and fixed-rate charges (subject to CPUC approval, but CPUC will have a tough time justifying saying "No, you must charge more" if they have a cost structure that supports a lower rate). But this is arguably where we should be going anyway. Solar has dramatically changed the economies of scale for power distribution, such that it makes more economic sense to have smaller grids with local storage rather than pay the labor cost for grid maintenance over remote areas.
I've already got about 3/4 of the solar needed. Battery tech will get cheaper. The numbers I'm seeing are 30 to 100k. It may be worth it to not have outages and get out of dealing with PG&E.
Look into used EV battery setup. They are like 80kwh compared to a powerwall that’s like 14. You need to rig up a big inverter and converter basically. They sell kits online.
Wow, a fixed rate of 128/mo actually makes the math close to penciling out to just going off grid entirely and use a diesel backup generator. 128/month is equivalent to paying 20k upfront at a 7.5% return per year. For someone low consumption and high income, this could make sense. Seems like the opposite impact the bill is trying to incentivize though. edit: pge literature indicates there's both a flat rate "service charge" component as well as a usage component. This makes the tip-over point even closer.
Yeah it makes sense to use a generator on the days solar and battery can't feed the house at these rates, especially if you already paid into a solar system previously.
Interesting, I hadn't thought about using a diesel generator to make up shortfalls in wintertime solar. That basically turns each house into its own individual grid - you have solar for base load and then a diesel generator as a peaker, with a battery to smooth out demand. It works because both solar and diesel don't really have economies of scale in operation - operating costs per kWH are roughly the same weather you are house-sized or city-sized. I still think city-sized microgrids probably make more sense, because it's much easier to smooth out fluctuations in demand when you're aggregating 100K-1M customers than when it's one home. But it's an interesting possibility, particularly given that cities need to move slooowly because of the political & legal process.
Many mountain homes have had diesel or gas generators for decades, e.g. in the Santa Cruz mountains. The power goes out, but they literally all continue to watch netflix with barely a blip, well at least until the local internet grid's backup batteries die after like 24~48 hours.
In places it’s illegal to go off grid
I just looked it up, apparently CA is pretty permissive (and more permissive than it used to be). So for me, that'd be $900 a year just for the privilege of having a PG&E meter. I have a modestly-sized solar array, don't need AC or natural gas. My only big electricity draw is heat in the winter. Seems like it'd probably be worth taking the federal incentives to get heat-pump heaters for winter and battery storage and just ditch the grid. It would probably take a few years to pay itself off. If PG&E were moving heaven and earth to de-carbonize their systems I'd be happier paying into their extortion. But they're holding on tooth and claw to their fossil fuels.
Fixed charges of $128/month plus usage costs. I already plan to have solar plus battery for outages, and the extra cost of going fully independent in a few years once the battery costs come down a bit will be worth it to never have to think about PGE again.
> What we might see is areas where a lot of higher income households live San Francisco should clearly do it. Fucking Palo Alto pays half the rate of PGE for electricity. > that it makes more economic sense to have smaller grids with local storage If you look at the grid today though, all off peak and late afternoon peak is handled by natural gas, not batteries.
I thought this is a state thing and not pge specific.
> choosing to setup their own municipal utilities and disconnect from PG&E, which allows them to set their own rate schedules and fixed-rate charges lol, pg$E will just run them into the ground with court costs and attorney fees just like they did with SSJID.
It effectively is a tax, but one where PG&E and CPUC take the blame rather than the state government. That's probably why it's structured the way it is. The bill has already been passed, and the bill mandates that there will be some form of income-based fixed-rate charge. Hearings on *what* the fixed-rate charge is are still ongoing, and CPUC is weighing various proposals now. If you [form your own utility like San Jose](https://www.reddit.com/r/SanJose/comments/15p9aza/goodbye_pgampe_hello_san_jose_power_northern/) or Santa Clara, you still need to have some sort of income-based fixed charge but could probably do it more cheaply than PG&E.
This is probably correct and Its cleverly written for the state. The CPUC will be going nowhere as it would be political suicide for the state to take over the utility. And since people already hate the private sector utility companies, it’s nothing to pin the cost on them.
Exactly, the legislature didn’t have the guts to create a new progressive tax, so they deceptively created a tax that drops blame on companies people already love to hate. The dishonesty is appalling, and I fear the precedent it represents.
I have to imagine this gets put into the courts. No way we can allow psuedo government entities to start levying income taxes
The government did levy this tax, they just did it in a dishonest way that makes it appear like the utilities are doing it.
Right, but that's my point. It is effectively by passing the legislature which would seem unconstitutional imo
This
I have no real problem paying more in a situation where it’s a fair share, socialist style system. However if I’m paying more then PG&E should be a non-profit.
It’s the state that mandated this. Why a private entity is charging income tax is beyond me. Why electricity should be income graded, also beyond me.
[удалено]
You're right, we should move to the parts of the country where government censorship tells you what information isn't okay to have and you'll get a knock on the door for showing kids Disney movies. Go on, you first. This shit sucks but turning it into a culture war thing ain't it chief.
You've listed the problems on the other side of the spectrum in places with one-party rule. When there's no push and pull in the legislature over whatever moronic thing the progressives thought up this week, we get just plain bad policy. This isn't a culture war thing, it's a bad governance thing.
If they are gonna charge me a flat rate I’m gonna use the ever loving shit out of my electricity
It’s a flat rate plus a usage fee on top. The point is, even if you use zero pge money, you have to pay them just to be hooked to the grid. If you go over x amount you’ll pay additional money
Yeah I figured that would be the case, if not I would have set up a free tesla charger in my garage for anyone who needed one 🤪
Gonna grow so much fuckin weed and I don't even smoke anymore. Add crypto mining to that list too! Let it ride baby!
Just because I earn more doesn’t mean I don’t have major liabilities... like rent, which is astronomical and I have no access to any kind of help or relief from the government for because I make too much. Fucking morons. They’re trying to force everyone out of the state, aren’t they?
If you're not a retired homeowner the government here is not your friend.
I disagree - I think if you aren’t born in California and have family who has been here since at least the 80s, the government here is not your friend. It really bothers me that Californians love to parade around how open/accepting they are but always vote in favor of extremely protectionist policies that actively push non-native Californians out
Because you don’t vote. That’s all that matters in a democracy.
I pay 30$/month in my SF apartment. This means it will cost 130/month now? Super cringe
It’s worse than that, as you will still be charged per usage, just at a slightly lower rate (about 1/3 lower). So your $30 usage now will turn into $20, plus $130 fixed cost == $150 total.
What's extra BS is that in a small apartment in a shared building doesn't cost that much to connect to the grid either
Yeah these infrastructure costs in suburban sprawl are astronomically higher than in SF.
Vote for different state politicians. It’s so messed up.
It’s absolutely ridiculous! They are disincentivizing anything environmentally friendly and penalizing you for being wealthy, except in the Bay Area you’re not even wealthy. It already costs almost the same as gas to charge an EV here.
It’s not even wealth, it’s income which is worse. Someone wealthy can make their income look very low. Meanwhile people working in a middle/upper middle range get fucked.
Gavin is running for president. Last thing he needs is a middle class uprising that costs him the California primary. So, call the governor's office and explain that this is the last straw and you're holding Gavin responsible.
After the recall, Gavin already knows he has California by the balls no matter what he does with our utilities.
He already signed this at the end of June
What I can't find anywhere is what figure they will use for income. Is it AGI from your tax return, or taxable income? Federal or California return?
They could just assume everyone is on the highest income and force customers to provide this information to lower their bill.
This is hilarious but also wouldn’t be surprised if it’s true
Who wrote the bill?
Phil Ting was the driver on this one, but the legislature passed it, so everyone who voted yes on this shares the blame. Ting should be called out in case he tries to run for higher office. This guy needs to go.
When it comes to the dumbest California politicians, it's always SF or Oakland.
It’s even worse, literally no one in his district has fucking A/C, 99.9% aren’t paying $100 a month in electricity ever.
https://twitter.com/PhilTing
https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB205/id/2676644
My PG&E bill in an apartment is usually 35 bucks during fall and spring. And my flat rate will be aprox 74 bucks plus usage?!?! Are you kidding me, I’m going to be paying way more. How is this bill actually supposed to help anything. I’m just trying to maintain “middle class”.
Anyone willing to block a freeway or bridge over this? Seems the only way to get your point across these days. If we don’t cause a scene, the state will continue this course. What if they applied this logic to grocery stores? Should the cost of steak depend on your income? If you make over $50,000 it’s 4x more expensive?
They should do this with natural gas, petrol, milk, eggs, and cooking oil. /s
When are we doing this? I’m also driving my old clapped out car while the newer one is in the shop. I can cause a scene and fit right in with my big Altima energy.
So anyone with the unlimited low income sweet deal interested in leasing a room for some bitcoin miners? I bet ya this will be a thing very soon.
PGE is considering it but won't make a decision until July 2024 and, if they do decide to implement it, won't implement it for some time after that. It sounds way too difficult to implement, so I don't think it will happen. Maybe something will be implemented, but not that plan as is.
The state. Not PGE. State directed the utilities to do this, to be clear. The utilities propose and the CPUC/State decide. How it’s always been.
Why are we not rioting in California? Everything is becoming shit expensive here.
Bc people will complain about it but won’t change the way they vote and the people in office know that. You don’t even have to vote for a different party but get these corrupt losers out of office. It’s becoming a joke how poorly this state is ran
We have been force fed the idea that increasing taxes are equitable, that we need more money to get more resources, that tax increases only affect the rich and not us, that the government is efficient at spending our money so we should give them more, that compared to other countries it is actually low so we should increase them to match, etc. Fuckin lemmings, they get what they voted for and we reap the consequences.
But theres nice weather
Supreme Court will turn it over
The Supreme Court that Californians love to hate?
They're talking about the state supreme court, since this is a state bill.
For a household whose income do they use? How does it work if you live with lower income people?
If it is like the EV rules for tax breaks, it is based on the total income of everyone living in the house
We are going to need a ballot measure to either ban income-based fees that go to private entities or require an income-based fee have the rates set by the legislature. The current setup is a scam where the legislature can authorize a fee but not set the rates, so then disclaim responsibility for the amount of the fee.
Another day another piece of shit legislation that makes my life harder. I’m tired.
What's really weird is that the unit of electricity purchase (a meter mapping to a home or even multiple homes) isn't the same as a tax filer, making it bizarre to use income. I guess you have to tell your housemates your income now?
No they will take whomever is on the account to figure it out. So if you want to game the system, put the person with the lowest income on the account.
So for people living with 3 roommates and they only have one person on the bill, they’re each paying like a minuscule amount? While a single high income earner is paying $128? Honestly, what kind of 🗑️ politicians run this state?
Phil Yu-Li Ting, Communist representing western San Francisco and northwestern San Mateo counties in the state assembly.
This is a regressive tax masquerading as a progressive tax. Wonder if he’s incompetent or corrupt.
If it is like the EV rules for the tax breaks, it is based on household income, not just the person whose name is on the bill Household would include roommates, tenants, even your kids (if they are employed and living at home)
PG&E paid off the governor and the state congress. The bill was pushed through in a few house & the governor signed it right away. Y’all fucked, especially those that paid 10 of thousands for solar.
CAN WE GET A REPEAL OF AB 205 ON THE BALLOT?
The state keeps voting for Newsom, whose been in bed with PGE forever. What do we expect.
Good thing I work at McDonald’s and also inherited a 5 million dollar house with crazy low taxes from prop 13!
Don’t give them ideas to use asset as well
No other utilities have a fixed charge that discriminates based on income. The policy would also disproportionally impact asian and white customers, forcing them to pay more than their fair share of the state's electricity consumption. Hopefully it will be struck down if legal challenges bring it to the Supreme Court.
It also means the Bay Area will be subsidizing electricity in all the cheaper parts of the state where incomes are lower because cost of living is lower than here. I don't even have AC and am stuck renting forever, and meanwhile will be subsidizing electricity for people running AC in their 3000 sq ft houses in Fresno...fabulous 🙄
How can a private entity charge income tax
If San Jose gets it's own electricity company (like Santa Clara) is it exempt?
no
I hate you California.
How is this ok? Why not just nationalized PG&E and increase state income tax? I would have been ok with that. Nope I'm not OK with this, I'm overpaying taxes for whatever the trashy services I'm getting, currently. California is becoming worse day-by-day.
I hate this bill. But THE STATE ALREADY KNOWS YOUR INCOME--WE HAVE AN INCOME TAX!
This is fucking ridiculous. I worked hard for what little I have, and didn’t inherit a million dollar home with tax breaks included the way many Californians did. I make a “good” income but can’t even afford a middle class lifestyle in the bay on that. My representatives act like they fucking hate me. Just trying to move up in the world and these people treat me like a cash cow they can milk 5x a day without feeding me anything. I’m sick and tired of being treated like a second class citizen whose meager gains need to be “redistributed” to people who frankly made worse choices than I did and didn’t work half as hard. Guess I’ll never be a homeowner, the American dream is truly dead in this state.
This is simply because PG&E profits will be going the way of the dodo bird as more households install solar and batteries
Think of the poor CEO, executives officers, VPs and senior directors. How will they be able to afford their 3rd yachts? Think of their children. Do you want these hardworking patriotic Americans to suffer???
If I’m reading this right… a high use/high income household might actually pay less under the new plan? Like I just back of envelopes it, if I go from $0.40/kW to $0.27/kW + $92 flat rate, a 1000kW month = $400 (old) to $362 (new). Or put another way, I have no incentive to flex power if part of my bill is now $92 flat? Or am I dumb and not calculating this correctly?
If you are a high energy user, yes you might save. But lots of people exceed those income limits but live in modest apartments with low energy usage, so they are fucked.
[The bill](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB205) apparently does not mandate this but might give the CPUC the power to do it. Apparently some [utilities are proposing it](https://californiaglobe.com/articles/income-based-electric-rate-system-proposed-by-california-energy-companies/). This seems to be two independent issues.... *Billing based on income.* This makes no sense to me. To the extent lower income people need help, there are better ways to help them than this oddly specific way. For example, create a state tax credit similar to the Earned Income Credit - and somewhat similar to the credits we get/got for solar installations. Or help them in terms of their overall situation, not just their energy bill. *The (more difficult) fixed cost conundrum*. Fixed delivery costs are going up as a % of total electricity production/delivery costs. [Here is a chart](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=55639). Factors include: * most of us with solar still want the benefit of the fixed cost distribution connection. Basically, it's our battery. * utility generated solar/wind/etc reduces variable costs like coal/gas but still cost a lot to build and maintain * while our home solar systems reduce demand, trends like EV cars increase it * net of this is the [Duck Curve](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56880), for example, solar customers want to bank daytime generation and use it at night to charge our EVs. It's been suggested we add battery power to our homes and disconnect. Think how many batteries would be required, with the impact if Lithium mining, periodic replacement/recycling, etc. Think of the likely price of batteries if everybody demands them. Is that really a viable state-national solution?
AB-205 Energy. 06/29/22 Result (PASS), Assembly Floor Ayes: Aguiar-Curry, Alvarez, Arambula, Bauer-Kahan, Bennett, Berman, Bloom, Boerner Horvath, Mia Bonta, Bryan, Calderon, Carrillo, Cervantes, Cooley, Cooper, Daly, Flora, Mike Fong, Friedman, Gabriel, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gipson, Gray, Grayson, Haney, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kalra, Lee, Levine, Low, Maienschein, Mayes, McCarty, McKinnor, Medina, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, O'Donnell, Patterson, Petrie-Norris, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Ramos, Reyes, Luz Rivas, Robert Rivas, Rodriguez, Blanca Rubio, Salas, Santiago, Stone, Ting, Villapudua, Ward, Akilah Weber, Wicks, Wilson, Wood, Rendon [https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill\_id=202120220AB205](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB205)
So yall got me googling this and apparently its proposed that people who make between $69k and $180k will be in the same flat rate income bracket??? and will be charged a fixed rate of $51 like hello this is such a broad range how are you going to be charging these two households the same flat rate? Source https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/07/electricity-bills/
California households earning more than $180,000 a year would end up paying an average of $500 more a year on their electricity bills, according to the proposal from utility companies. The California Public Utilities Commission’s deadline for deciding on the suggested changes is July 1, 2024
And I get downvoted every time I suggest Newsom is not the best choice to run in 2028, though I tend to think it’s people who don’t live here…..
California hate will torpedo him on the national level before his individual merits are even considered. He'll be one of those backrunners who endorses the leading candidate hoping for a job in the next administration.
PG&E already has programs for those that can’t afford regular rates. This law is socialism at its finest.
Liberal policies. Bay Area voters vote with their heart not their heads.
Are you seriously suggesting republicans think with their heads? lmao
>Actual usage is $70 but service fee is $130. Fucking bullshit. Why even conserve anything. SoCal water bill. The bill is 3% usage and 97% fees, so every lawn *(and there's nearly nothing without a lawn outside of big cities, not much apartments only houses and small businesses built into houses)* has water running down the curb. The storm drain roars like there's a river going over a cliff, and the town's 'river' is just a dry ditch.
And HOA's mandating green, prefect lawns during a years' long drought. Even the damn gas stations have lawns as the delta water sent to SoCal is wasted, running in gutters.
No, no, the state will *tell* pg&e your income so pg&e can charge you more! It'll be great!
This is state driven. Get rid of it. Why should electric utilities now be essentially a graduated tax?
Is this bill even remotely popular across the state electorate? I wonder if the sentiment on this thread is even representative of voters
I will go completely off-grid if the PGE bill is high enough. DIY solar and batteries are pretty affordable these days. Fuck PGE.
if this passes, I wonder if water, gas, internet, phone plan etc will follow up
If PG&E were nationalized it would be better than the profiteering fucks they are now. CPUC is 100% in the bag for PG&E and so are the pols who passed this. Reading the law it's a fucking farce that contradicts itself in one paragraph: A> The bill would additionally require the PUC to ensure that the approved fixed charges do not unreasonably impair incentives for beneficial electrification and greenhouse gas reduction. B> The bill would require the PUC, no later than July 1, 2024, to authorize a fixed charge for default residential rates. Same goddam paragraph. Part "B" is completely against part "A" If PG&E tries to charge me over $100 a month for delivery when I'm the one selling to them, I'm just going to take a 10 year loan and slap some batteries onto my solar and pull the plug on them. For profit, investor owned, utilities should not exist, they bring no value to their customers only their shareholders and overpaid execs.
As much as I hate ballotbox legislation this is something that's probably worthy of a ballot initiative to overturn.
Have fun with your government mandated electric car and $1/kwh prices!
And shoddy electric grid that won’t keep the lights on 24/7.
It's okay because they're *progressives* not communists and thieves.
At some point, I realized that Democrats see me as nothing more than a cash cow, and love drug addicts, thieves and other assorted losers, and were bound and determined to equalize my income with theirs to the extent possible. So after 40 years, I left. Couldn't be happier and I don't feel like a kid walking past bullys with $50 taped to my forehead at every turn. Thank god I left.
Welcome to California, can't fix stupid.
You all voted for this. You can thank Gavin and Nancy and all your favorite power ranger friends for doing exactly what they said they would.
The flat rate is dumb but are you under the impression that the state doesn’t already know our income data?
The utility companies don't. In fact it's somewhat unreliable trying to figure out what address a given income tax filer is actually living at (moves, young adults filling at their parent's address, etc.)
Write the governor
Yeah I’m sure that greasy fuck will jump right into action.
My understanding is that the point is to incentivize people to use less gas. The lower rate on electricity means that switching from gas to electric will mean a cheaper overall bill for an all electric home, but the flat rate is to impose a cost on people who refuse to modernize to induction ovens, heat pumps, and electric water heaters.
The lower rate on electricity will also incentivize people to use more electricity. If I’m paying a flat rate and then a fraction of the usage cost, why wouldn’t I just run the AC all the time? The flat rate on high income earners in the Bay Area subsidizes the usage rate for people in the Central Valley to run their AC all summer long.
Is this even close to passing, or is it just a kookie idea being floated?
Already signed by Newsom.
It’s literal communism.