this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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Mildly Interesting

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It's still not earning you money to spend electricity because you still have to pay the transfer fee which is around 6 cents / kWh but it's pretty damn cheap nevertheless, mostly because of the excess in wind energy.

Last winter because of a mistake it dropped down to negative 50 cents / kWh for few hours, averaging negative 20 cents for the entire day. People were literally earning money by spending electricity. Some were running electric heaters outside in the middle of the winter.

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[–] Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com 129 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Renewables dipped below $0 for us in California too this year. Fortunately for the utilities, those savings don't get passed along to customers and I still paid $0.53 kW/h. /s

Lucky you.

[–] ABCDE@lemmy.world 48 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I still paid $0.53 kW/h.

That is surprisingly expensive, it's more than here (Cambodia), which is notoriously high for the region at around 20c.

[–] Mubelotix@jlai.lu 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If you want people to use less energy this is the only way

[–] vanontom@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Alternative: Create more energy, preferably renewable. Penalize heavy users only (raise costs). Incentivize (lower costs) those using renewables like solar panels. Raising costs for all is the laziest way.

[–] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

In the case of PG&E, they have to pay for killing a bunch of people and burning down some towns, so they're passing the expenses onto everyone else. Privatize the gains and socialize the losses baybeee. Gotta love state sanctioned monopolies.

[–] Wrench@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nah fam, here in Cali, you get charged extra for solar.

You're charged a monthly fee to be able to sell your excess energy back to the grid. But you can't opt out and disconnect from the grid, because CA regulations require all homes to be connected to the grid (probably for emergencies).

And pay pennies on the dollar for your excess energy.

I've heard that in fees alone, you still end up paying around $100/mo even if you're breaking even on energy (excess sold during the day >= grid consumption at night).

Ohh, and it's $0.53 / KwH during peak hours. Off-peak is $0.50, saving you a whopping 3 cents per kwh!

And then there's super off peak at around $0.22 which is like 10pm-5am (might be off by an hour or two), which is only good to do like one load of laundry before bed, and charge an EV over night.

[–] vanontom@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Good info, thanks. Generally, that's what I would expect from any area owned by the oil and gas industry (and/or just exceptionally corrupt). Kind of surprised that California still doesn't have more progressive energy policies. And allows PG&E to regularly embarrass the state.

[–] Mubelotix@jlai.lu 1 points 1 month ago

Except people are going to cheat like they always do

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

Why /s there?

Also fuck PG&E. Fuck that company. Assholes.

[–] artillect@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

A lot of that is the cost of transmission, which PG&E charges us out the ass for