Insane Electric Rate Increase $508.68/1522 kWh

Well, the deal you got is no likely longer available and probably will never be.
Also, it is totally unsustainable. The electric providers simply cannot keep paying people to produce electricity and turn a profit.

NOVEC (which the electric cooperative here) has a limit to how many megawatts of net metering generation they will allow to connect to their system.

The current limits are here: https://www.novec.com/Environment/Net-Energy-Metering-Caps-and-Remaining-Capacity.cfm

They aren't even close to hitting the limit for residential capacity.
 
It's awful anymore!
It doesn't matter to people that have unlimited income but us common people are having a tough time!
 
Well, the deal you got is no likely longer available and probably will never be.
Also, it is totally unsustainable. The electric providers simply cannot keep paying people to produce electricity and turn a profit.

It's great for you and many others that got in during the right time. That doesn't mean it will be the same for others.

It all hinges on how much you get credited for the energy produced by the array. And it people are getting less and less for each kwh their solar produces and these installations aren't really getting cheaper anymore as well. The math is making less and less sense.
And turning a profit is all they are worried about! Too much greed in this world. And the rich keep getting richer!
 
I'm sorry to hear this. My wife and I visited Germany in 2018, and absolutely loved it. The people were wonderful, and there was so much to see and do. I'm sorry to hear that the German people are facing hardship due to unrealistic environmental goals.
In 2018 it was still halfway decent, but the new "green" government is driving the country against the wall.
Today you would visit a whole different Germany.
 
And turning a profit is all they are worried about! Too much greed in this world. And the rich keep getting richer!
And you’re missing trees for the forest.

Perhaps you should place your attention to the people that are forcing, that’s right forcing these electric companies to buy solar.

This scenario isn’t anything new, it played out in Australia, Canada, Germany and other countries, the outcome is always the same, high energy costs except for the very few that got in early enough.

This has been debated in many threads, and the usual response is that “we will do it better” or “it’s different”, well the fruits of that labor are almost ready to be reaped in many states.
 
NOVEC (which the electric cooperative here) has a limit to how many megawatts of net metering generation they will allow to connect to their system.

The current limits are here: https://www.novec.com/Environment/Net-Energy-Metering-Caps-and-Remaining-Capacity.cfm

They aren't even close to hitting the limit for residential capacity.
Solar uptake in California is poised to drop off a cliff now that NEM 3.0 is paying what the output is worth (about $0.04/kWh) vs what it has previously been paying like what Jeff is receiving (>$0.30/kWh).
 
Solar uptake in California is poised to drop off a cliff now that NEM 3.0 is paying what the output is worth (about $0.04/kWh) vs what it has previously been paying like what Jeff is receiving (>$0.30/kWh).

In Virginia the cooperatives like NOVEC won't pay you anything for solar output. They'll give you a 1 for 1 credit against your usage and that's it. Unknown what happens if you terminate service with a large credit--does it stay with the premises so the next occupant gets it?

The investor-owned utility in the state, Dominion, WILL pay you for overproduction, at the normal electric rates as you'd pay for consumption.

This is separate from the SRECS which are currently something like $50 per megawatt-hour.
 
We were warned last year that rates would be going up this month. We have all electric everything, including baseboard heat.

Last month: $0.2320/kWh overall (supply + delivery)

This month: $0.3342/kWh

Increase: 44% overall (supply rate $361.95, Delivery $146.73 = $508.68)

Use: 31% less than last January (1522kWh this Jan vs 1987kWh last Jan)
- Ave temp was higher this year: 39F this Jan vs 26F last Jan)

House: a little less than 2700 ft^2; however, half of that is the unheated basement

TL;DR: all-electric heat stays off to the entire house most of the time. Switched to a cheaper supplier, but won't take effect until next billing cycle, earliest. Home energy audit Feb. Looking for obvious things to save money

Larger Loads:
- All electric heat: As some of you know, I've kept the heat off for most of the month (not low, off completely), since we don't mind hanging out in the 50s, which I know is extreme for some of you. The heat is controllable in each individual room, so it's not on in unoccupied spaces.
- I run three relatively new dehumidifiers for at least 12 hrs/day. The one in the bathroom in our main bedroom is used after showers since it's pretty much all just extra heat to the bedroom, so nothing is wasted out of the vent. The one in the basement is needed to keep < 50% RH.
- The hot water heater is probably at the end of its life, but it's wrapped in a fiberglass blanket. In the 50F basement, the temp between the heater shell and blanket is usually 40-50F higher than ambient. The setpoint is 122F at the farthest faucet.
- I have two fridges and a freezer. We tend to stock up on staples (like we just got 3# of chicken thighs for a buck a #, and we buy stuff from Costco when it's on sale, which sometimes means buying things like soup and other perishable items in bulk and either refrigerating or freezing them.
- Dishwasher: we use it pretty much daily and it's an older Bosch model. It has it's quirks, but does an excellent job. My wife, unfortunately, likes to pre-wash the dishes with the faucet on hot-high. I scrub the dirty dishes to break up any gunk and then use just enough hot water to get the chunks off. I do just enough to prevent issues with the washer. If I had to guess, she probably uses an order of magnitude more energy/water than the washer itself, but I can't quantify that.
- Washer/Dryer: 4 yo Samsung. The front loader is efficient, but my wife likes to run the dryer on medium instead of low. The dryness sensor isn't very good, so it tends to run longer than required. I use the lowest setting and check it as soon as it's finished the manual cycle an hour or so later. The dryness sensor is very inaccurate on the low heat setting, so even on the driest setting, it will stop the cycle too soon. Even on the mid setting, it will also tend to run the dryer too long on Medium.

The water heater and the dryer are probably the main offenders.

Short-term solutions
- I bought mattress pad heaters for all three of the beds, so the heat has been off in the bedrooms at night for the past week or so, whereas we were keeping it between 60-62F, maybe higher if we were feeling cold. It wasn't uncommon for my wife to want closer to 68-70F when she was feeling particularly cold. My wife/kids keep the pad set to 5/10 and have no complaints at all. I've been 2 or off (i like the cold). They control the thermostat in the rooms, so if they wanted it warmer they can do what they want. That was the compromise for keeping the living spaces colder.
- I have a home energy audit later in Feb. I know we need some upgrades. I know for sure that insulation will help, but, as I said, we don't use much heat at all, so 0 X anything = 0
- I'm going to start measuring other loads, such as the dehumidifiers, for energy usage with my smart plug to see if anything is going crazy.
- I lowered the hot water heater temp from 127F to 122F at the farthest location away from the heater

Long-term solutions:
- Last month we switched suppliers, and the paperwork states that it will take 1-2 billing cycles to take effect. We should have done this sooner. I'm kicking myself for dropping the ball on this! The price we locked in at is even lower than what we were paying before with the default supplier (new rate will be $0.1659/kWh vs last month's $0.2320/kWh), so, if this bill had been based on the new supply rate and the current delivery rate (that doesn't change), our bill would have been roughly $400, which is still very high for how little energy I feel we use.
- Add insulation
- Possibly replace the hot water heater, although prices are pretty high right now and I'm not sure I can use a hybrid tank at this moment due to such a cold basement. I'm looking into whether a diverter is possible, so I can exhaust the cold air outside during the winter, but inside during the warm weather to help dehumidify the basement.

I'll be going back through the related threads online to see if I'm missing something, but I don't think I'm missing anything obvious.
I try to avoid electric use as where I live, the delivery charge is very high.
The Delivery charge is progressive, the more electricity you use the more they charge to deliver.

So no more electric heaters in Winter.

Entire family only uses laptops as they take less power.

All light bulbs are LED (bright but very low power).
 
I try to avoid electric use as where I live, the delivery charge is very high.
The Delivery charge is progressive, the more electricity you use the more they charge to deliver.

So no more electric heaters in Winter.

Entire family only uses laptops as they take less power.

All light bulbs are LED (bright but very low power).

You are correct about progression and fuel taxation.

I like oil as a heat source, as long as I have a reliable supply and enough capacity to avoid constant worry.
Although you do control progression you do not control base cost.

If the house is setup for it properly - I prefer wood.
No progression
FREE or very low cost fuel can often be had to supplement harvested or purchased fuel.
The more work you put in, the lower your bill.
 
Solar uptake in California is poised to drop off a cliff now that NEM 3.0 is paying what the output is worth (about $0.04/kWh) vs what it has previously been paying like what Jeff is receiving (>$0.30/kWh).
Probably not as you would expect being that current Calif residential code requires every new detached single family home be "net zero" which in practice that means every newly built house is getting solar.
 
Probably not as you would expect being that current Calif residential code requires every new detached single family home be "net zero" which in practice that means every newly built house is getting solar.
Yes, and wasn't that announced first? So it's like "HA! you'll get wholesale for your solar, which makes it unattractive, but you'll have to buy it anyway!", which seems wholly idiotic given the already massive duck curve the state has.

It MIGHT encourage more storage? As time shifting could, maybe, pay better? Don't remember if that was in the NEM 3.0 update or not, but that would make sense. They don't need more solar, they need more storage if they want to reduce the duck curve effect, though one could debate the economics and merit of this whole approach... 🤷‍♂️
 
Yes, and wasn't that announced first? So it's like "HA! you'll get wholesale for your solar, which makes it unattractive, but you'll have to buy it anyway!", which seems wholly idiotic given the already massive duck curve the state has.

It MIGHT encourage more storage? As time shifting could, maybe, pay better? Don't remember if that was in the NEM 3.0 update or not, but that would make sense. They don't need more solar, they need more storage if they want to reduce the duck curve effect, though one could debate the economics and merit of this whole approach... 🤷‍♂️
The code change was announced around 2018 and went into effect in 2020. So it predates NEM 3.0 by a wide margin.

I suspect it will entice more storage.
I think CALIF is betting the farm on short term storage as a way to reduce peak demand.
 
I try to avoid electric use as where I live, the delivery charge is very high.
The Delivery charge is progressive, the more electricity you use the more they charge to deliver.

So no more electric heaters in Winter.

Entire family only uses laptops as they take less power.

All light bulbs are LED (bright but very low power).

You’re a smart dude. We have an old desktop, but I’m currently using an old iPad and my wife has a pretty economical little laptop that she uses 99% of the time.
 
You’re a smart dude. We have an old desktop, but I’m currently using an old iPad and my wife has a pretty economical little laptop that she uses 99% of the time.
You guys should not have to live like paupers to have reasonable electricity bills, this is a massive problem when the current shift it to push everything electric. My bill is ~$130 month right now (I assume my new heat pump will drive that up a bit) and I use close to 1,000kWh. I'm not mindlessly wasting hydro, but I'm certainly not running around making sure everything is off because the power company is going to give it to me without lube if I don't.

There's a far bigger "big picture" problem here with where things are supposed to be headed and this apparent reality and that should raise some serious red flags.

Ontario got boned starting in 2008 and the current administration has done a few things (cancelled all the new wind and solar contracts, moved the cost of the existing wind and solar contracts to the tax base, rebate you the tax on your electricity bill) to curb that impact and so while things here stalled, everywhere else seems to have gone bonkers heading down the same "road to ruin" and now we are, wildly, one of the ones with reasonable electricity costs. It's absolutely surreal, having lived through this and now out the other side better off than most.
 
Exactly @OVERKILL,

on top of that, if people start cutting their electricity usage in masses, to lower the outrageous bills, guess what is actually going to happen? The rates will go up even further.

That was exactly the scenario in Ontario circa 2008 like Overkill mentioned. People started cutting down their usage big time. People were taking advantage of various government incentives and rebates on energy efficient appliances, installing fluorescent bulbs etc. they cut down the useage so much that the electric company came out and said they can’t make any money, so they raised prices and continued doing so until the renewable contracts were stopped.

In the end I remember paying way more despite having a very energy efficient house, taking full advantage of lower night rates (we programmed laundry and dryer to turn on at night) and being mindful about our usage.

During summer, I used to cool the house at night to 19-20C, to take advantage of cheaper rates, then go up to 25C during the day. This way my AC stayed off until noon or 1pm. It worked pretty well. Still, the bills in summer were $250-300 range.
 
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It's awful anymore!
It doesn't matter to people that have unlimited income but us common people are having a tough time!
I agree with you but one must understand, what you pay is the people you elect to office in the voting booth. I know, I used to live on Long Island, NY.
Moved south 15 years ago to SC, my electric cost 50% (FIFTY PERCENT) less down here in land of the free which by the way, even after the failure to build two new nuclear power plants, most the fault of Westinghouse/Toshiba the state is still about 60% nuclear.

Ok, so get this, we just moved to a new home across the state line to the coastal area of North Carolina.
Im in shock! I thought our rate was going to go up to .13 (13 cents) kWr which is still great because there is no peak usage (I think)
Anyway the cost is still the same, roughly 10 cents kWr. Yay! I have to be honest (NO POLITICS) your state is run is how you vote.

Only 9 days in this bill, since we just moved in and contains a $10 fee for the name change from the builder into our name.
Screenshot 2023-04-08 at 10.12.10 AM.png

You could see how cheap low tax gasoline and cheap low cost electric diminishes the return on an all EV car and why some may not even know, according to Consumer Reports the rate of return is higher on a hybrid.

EDIT=
( just reading my bill for the first time, we do have peak usage here like I did in SC but perfectly manageable)

Screenshot 2023-04-08 at 10.36.50 AM.png
 
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Exactly @OVERKILL,

on top of that, if people start cutting their electricity usage in masses, to lower the outrageous bills, guess what is actually going to happen? The rates will go up even further.

That was exactly the scenario in Ontario circa 2008 like Overkill mentioned. People started cutting down their usage big time. People were taking advantage of various government incentives and rebates on energy efficient appliances, installing fluorescent bulbs etc. they cut down the useage so much that the electric company came out and said they can’t make any money, so they raised prices and continued doing so until the renewable contracts were stopped.

In the end I remember paying way more despite having a very energy efficient house, taking full advantage of lower night rates (we programmed laundry and dryer to turn on at night) and being mindful about our usage.

During summer, I used to cool the house at night to 19-20C, to take advantage of cheaper rates, then go up to 25C during the day. This way my AC stayed off until noon or 1pm. It worked pretty well. Still, the bills in summer were $250-300 range.
Yup, when you sign contracts at fixed rates, whether that power gets used, curtailed, offloaded on a foreign market...etc, somebody has to pay for it. If your ratebase is consuming fewer kWh, the price of those kWh's has to go up to cover the cost.

The other issue of course is that if you are regularly producing kWh when nobody needs them and have a fixed compensation contract, that's a cost for the ratebase with no tangible benefit.
 
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