Report: Electric bills set to shock

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=0a4626557d5c57ad

U.S. electricity rates are 46 percent higher than a year ago, an industry group said Friday.

U.S. wholesale day-ahead power prices in early November averaged $81.21 per megawatt hour compared to $55.72 per megawatt hour in early November 2004, said Platts National Daily Power Index.

The year-to-year increase, driven largely by much higher natural gas prices, was even greater before day-ahead wholesale electricity prices fell 21 percent, or $21.06, from early October, when the Platts National Daily Power Index stood at $102.27.

Natural gas prices have come down somewhat from their post-hurricane highs, and that means lower power prices, said Mike Wilczek, electric power market specialist for Platts.
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46% now that reminds you of Enron and California energy gouging!!!

There's no inflation problem. The economy is doing well under our enlightened leadership.

Don't worry. Be happy. :eyes:

Health Insurance... 46 % is brutal!!!

is in bed with our corrupt politicians so basically they get rate increases every other month it seems. Then they claim to me that my increase is because of my "usage" which hasn't changed in friggin' 3 years since I've lived here (got no kids, so I know what my usage is). I think it's a shell game, or hide the salami, or something...I wish I knew someone who worked for them so I could ascertain the basis for this gimmick.

I think hide the salami is another game entirely, isn't it? :shrug:

the word "usage" and the rates. It's probably more like the shell game combined with corruption.

and Perry's response to that news a few weeks ago was for Texans to shop around for other electric companies..how nice, so we can PICK and choose which corrupt pocket/politician gets our money??

We will wear layers of clothes and keep lots of blankets on the couch.

Luckily I don't live in snow country anymore and temps are still in the 50's at night. Weather during the day has been in the 50-70's.

With the gasoline prices I can only afford one or the other. We have electric register heaters and I don't even want to think what the bill could be.

F*ck the whole energy industry and this administration. They are not getting one extra dime from me!

...but it's not as cold here in Temecula. Good luck!

we are paying per kw/hr? i'd like to know exactly how much they're marking it up... $81.21 per megawatt hour translates to exactly $0.08121/kwh. what's the markup?

I'd be happy to pay a dime a KW these days.

local supplier. interesting. almost double.

think of the zillions that are coming in!!!

I'm in North Richland Hills and use Reliant Energy (cheapest so far)

its $0.062 / kwh retail from a city owned electric co. We use hydroelectric (thank god).

last year at this time the rates were the same, but the rates were $0.11589 up until Nov 2004 so it looks like ours has decreased a bit...

transmission. Generation is .05935/kWh; Transmission is .0046/kWh; Distribution is .0193/kWh. There are 10 different charges on my bill.

By early Nov. '05 I paid $1500 compared to $1200 for all of '04. I will probably pay $1650 by end of '05. This includes elect. heat.

BTW, I am single living in a mid-size condo (1400 sq. ft.) In summer my lowest bill was about $70. That included a couple of days' worth of air conditioning.

1071kwh usage

400kwh X $0.08275
671kwh X $0.06208

78% of ComED's power comes from Nuclear. See: http://www.icc.illinois.gov/ec/docs/050713ediscomed.pdf

My house has electric heat. I turned off the a/c in mid-September and turned on the heat only last night. Normally, during the "off" months like April, May, October, my Virginia Power was $80/month, reflecting general electricity use, and that was when my kids were still at home. But last month my bill was $150, and that when the thermostat was off and my kids are away at college. I can't face what my bill's going to be like in winter when the heat is on. Madness!

and so far the lower level is remaining at 70 (where the fireplace and our bedroom are) and the upper "main" level is remaining at least 64 when it's 29 outside at night. We also just installed a solar hot water system and will have whole house solar (sell back to the grid by day, pay for use by night) in place by January....

When we embarked on these upgrades it was more to help the environment. Kind of like when we bought our Prius, which has proven to be a fabulous purchase with the price of gas as it is. Now the solar looks likely to help us over the long run as well.... But the money we save on our electric will still be going to the power companies - we're helping my mom and my hubbies folks pay THEIR electric bills this year...

A lot of folks will be forced to choose between food and heat this winter I fear...

It's criminal.

Also the morons in Ohio who shorted out the Northeast so neatly a few years ago.

and a 2.6% excess fuel cost surcharge. This was for October. Does this mean it is still going to go up about 6 cents for November?

One more question, if anyone might know this. I'm on budget billing. My last few bills have been an "actual" $630.00+ but my balanced billing for electric is at 300./mth. Does this mean at the end of the budget year, that I pay the difference? None of my balanced billing for this year matched the "actual" cost. Also, they estimated for my budget billing this year, and my usage is lower this year than what they estimated, will that be taken into account?

Obviously, I'm very new at this. Any help understanding this better would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

That means when the utility averages your energy use over the entire year, you will pay less than market value in winter using a lot of natural gas, and more than market value when you use a lot of elecricity during the summer.

All averaged together, it should come pretty close to your actual price had you not used budget billing. It is in the companies best interest to make sure so.

:hi:

We have a municipally-owned electric company and I think they buy it from the Hydro plant 10 miles away..

of natural gas off line. Too much of it is still off line. Short supplies usually mean that the price goes up, and it has. Not too long ago, natural gas was $6 a unit and now its over $11 a unit.

There simply aren't vast quantities of natural gas in North America anymore, although new supplies may become available in 10 years or so from the Prudhoe Bay oil fields in Alaska and the MacKenzie River Delta in Canada. Natural gas is difficult to move and import by ship. We have only 4-5 ports able to handle natural gas imports, and they are going full blast. We are able to import quite a bit of natural gas from Canada by pipeline, but the Canadians are using more and more as their population grows, and they are using quite a bit of it to produce synthetic oil from their tar sands deposits.

In some areas, like Florida, Texas, New England and California, natural gas generators produce anywhere from 30-60% of the electricity. Modern gas combined cycle generators are very efficient and produce much less pollution than coal generators, but were built in an era of $2-$4 gas.

Because natural gas has become more expensive, and not just from the hurricanes, coal fired plants are becoming more popular. However, the rail lines delivering the preferred, less sulfurous Western coal are maxed out. There was also damage to the tracks out west that have further reduced coal shipments. At any rate, the price of coal has gone up as well due to tight supplies.

I don't doubt that there has been gouging, but an excess of demand over supply usually means that prices go up.

Hopefully when the Gulf is back in fully production, natural gas prices will moderate somewhat, but the latest reports don't put that until the second half of 2006. The damage was really that great.

On coal front, many companies have plans to build coal gasification generator plants that can use sulfurous Eastern coal more cleanly, and that can produce streams of CO2 suitable for sequestration when forced to do so.

Personally, I hope that more electricity will be generated by renewable means at the individual and corporate levels, but that won't happen overnight, and probably won't happen until we Democrats take over starting in 2006.

to last the winter, if the Northeast and Mid-West have a severe winter, people will NEED that NG to survive, there really is not an option for a lot of people. I just wonder how many will die this year due to inadequate supplies, most will be poor and elderly.

although the storage build has been o.k., thanks in large part to mild weather in September and October.

If * had any sense, he'd be asking for conservation in electric usage as well as conservation in natural gas usage for heating.

Another factor has been the closing of chemical and industrial plants that use natural gas as a feedstock, like nitrogen fertilizer plants, or use considerable natural gas for process heat. That means fewer jobs. Long term, we are really in something of a predicament.

starting in Jan.......telephone rates.(Verizon.Bell South....up $3-5 month.......garbage....up.....$12.every 3 months........haven't gotten my tax bill yet...

but our rates are going up to pay for other peoples insurance(Citizens Ins)......because they are state.....and going broke.......other INS Cos...HAVE to pay a 11-15% increase to help them out.....so my home owners will also be going sky high!................

I only wish that I had answers for your problems. All I can do is wish you good luck.

interconnected with the utility companies. When Americans get their heating bill in a couple months, coupled with gasoline cost increases s#@* is going to hit the proverbial fan!

it's doubled already and i haven't turned on my heat and i haven't used the stove a lot. My electric bill drops in the fall in the winter.

Nobody home during the day. No A/C at all, and just the fridge and two electric clocks on until 6 PM. I do about 5 loads of wash a week. That's the cost? Of course, that bill included a $75 fuel surcharge.

My gas bill doubled last month to almost $200. I had the heat on at night (in 40s at night) and a also a few days (40s and 50s). I don't want to know what THAT bill will be with the heat on all the time. Even if I lower it dramatically during the day when not home, I still need to put some heat on to keep the pipes from bursting, and my pets from FREEZING to death during the day.

The Bushies don't want solar or wind energy, because the sun and the wind are FREE! There's no way you can make a profit selling the sun or the wind because it belongs to everybody, so they want to bury that technology.

It's time to put someone in office who cares about the people and not the corporations!

during the winter. I've done a search and cannot locate it. There were links to solar wall heaters, ways to stay warm with the thermostat down (no, that was NOT on the list!) and other information. Can someone find it and ressurect it?

so the big gouging spree is on. The more inevitable a Democratic return to power looks, the more intensively they're going try to grab what's in reach while the people they've bought are still in control.

Harry Reid should announce a policy of personal CEO and shareholder responsibility plus treble damages paid to customers should the gouging be proven.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=255&topic_id=2125


I don't think there's much we can do to change the prices, but hopefully the tips on this thread will help you conserve you money!

LG

After reading that it made me realize little things can help so much!!!

This year it's me and the cats. I've been using a radiator-style electric heater in the room I'm in and leaving the thermostat down around 60. The cats aren't happy when I'm at work, but I open the blinds and they find a sunbeam to warm their old bones.

Easy plans for a window collector are on builditsolar.com.
I am off grid and my house has passive solar for heat. Rows of windows on south side and a row of 50 gallon drums filled with water in front of windows. The drums need to be painted dark on the south side and I painted the inside the color of the room and put plants on top. I live in NM where there is a lot of sun but I'm up in the fooothills of the mountains where it can get really cold.
Lots of good ideas are on builditsolar including using bubblewrap on windows.

Marilyn

Don't skimp on this. I bought Frost King (I should know better) and the tape wouldn't stick to the door or the attic fan frame. I bought the 3M brand and it held with no problem.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-katbills_11tex.ART.State.Edition1.133a6e29.html

Louisiana consumers are getting another hurricane shock in their mail: skyrocketing electric charges.

It's not that utility companies sneaked in a rate hike during the confusing aftermath of Katrina and Rita. But the storms shut down a huge amount of the Gulf of Mexico's natural gas production, driving up prices and an often-overlooked portion of a bill: the fuel adjustment charge through which power companies pass on increased fuel costs to the customer.

Mary Rockefeller of Destrehan was expecting a bill of around $200 from Entergy Louisiana. Instead, she was charged more than $500. "I was horrified," she said. "The fuel adjustment was twice as much as the power."

Public Service Commission member Jimmy Field said his office has been swamped by calls from consumers, but there is little that regulators can do. The fuel adjustment charge was started several decades ago – and has become a national standard – so power companies do not have to file a complicated request to hike basic rates each time fuel prices spike.

All public utilities should be regulated or owned by the government.

OK, we would have about 1/3 less millionaires, so what?