Cost of Electricity in Your Area

[ABMax24]

If you're with a regulated rate provider in Alberta:

Energy cost: 9.769 cents/kwh
Transmissions and distribution: 11.79 cents/kwh
21.559 cents/kwh total

Fixed fees are $54.48 per month.

Of course add 5% GST on top of all this.

600kwh is the average household consumption in Alberta, for an average bill of $193.03 per month.

Just to compare natural gas is $7.198/GJ delivered to my house including the carbon tax (plus fixed monthly fees) or the equivalent of 2.59 cents per kwh. Pretty easy to see why all residential heating here is done with natural gas, and even why gas stoves and gas dryers are fairly popular.

 

[peakbagger]

Eversource New Hampshire

16.9 cents per KW all in plus $13.91 monthly fee (regardless of usage). Here is the breakdown

Note the state also charges a sales tax on energy use but its fractions of cent per KWh

The distribution charge is what the local utility charges to buy power from independent power producers and deliver it to the house (they do not own any generation so the power cost is listed separately as an energy charge

The transmission charge is tied to the regional grid operator which maintains the distribution system all over the region

Stranded Cost Recovery Charge is to pay for past mistakes between the utility and the state PUC. It used to fund how much the utility lost on getting bailed out of the Seabrook nuclear power plant, lately it is to cover the difference in what the utility sold their power generation assets and what they had them on the book.

System Benefits Charge is mostly energy efficiency programs. These are usually established by the PUC and funded by a combination of ratepayer money and Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative money (effectively a carbon tax on power generation). I got a big upgrade on my house to improve insulation and infiltration losses about 15 years ago from the program and a mini split rebate. That reduced my heating and cooling costs for the long term.

The energy charge is the "standard offer" by the utility, there are various private power plans available but in most cases they are bait and switch, get a low initial rate but when all the strings are figured in they are rarely lower cost in the long term.

So my first KW is $14.08 dollars per KW, the second would be $7.12 dollars per KW and as I buy more the unit price goes down as the fixed customer charge gets divided by more KW.

NH has a small SREC market that is manipulated by the utilities to keep it trivial, with my solar production I usually get around $150 to $200 a year so it just about covers my monthly customer fee. Thus in most years I pay zero for power. I try to carry a 500 KWhr minimum surplus on my account from net metering. By law the utility has to offer to buy it from me every year for their average cost of purchase power which is pretty close to the standard rate so I could sell it for 6.627 cents but its lot more advantageous to me to keep the surplus as a cushion so I do not get caught by a sudden increase in electrical use.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

not exactly sure whatthe cost is here any more..I just pay a 10 dollar a month connection fee Im net meter

 

[Grizzerbear]

$.085 per kwh with a availability charge of $25 and a county tax of $2.28. I used 1045 key last month with a grand total of $116.11.

 

[mellow]

.14/kwh all in here with my electric coop.

 

[Rusty18]

11.4 cents just went up to 12.6 cents/kWh here. Last summer I had one bill with over 3000 kWh on it!
turned the ac off after that one. That being said the aerator pump was burning over 1000kwh on its own.

 

[brenndatomu]

That being said the aerator pump was burning over 1000kwh on its own.

The septic tank aerator? Is that still going on? That's not right...that's 10 times what it should be using, you better get that checked out!
One of the first things would be to pull it out and make sure there isn't a bunch of rags wrapped around the shaft...that will make it pull more juice...after that I'd get the motor checked out, then the wiring going to it,

 

[Rusty18]

The septic tank aerator? Is that still going on? That's not right...that's 10 times what it should be using, you better get that checked out!
One of the first things would be to pull it out and make sure there isn't a bunch of rags wrapped around the shaft...that will make it pull more juice...after that I'd get the motor checked out, then the wiring going to it,

That motor was on its last leg but FLA is 7.5 at 220v. The new motor pulls around 5. Same fla rating. The wiring is fine, checked with the megger from work.

 

[old greybeard]

We’re paying .07 now, was .065 my previous supplier. We do have electric choice in PA, it has helped. And fracking has really lowered prices and emissions. My total bills in winter with a heat pump, electric water heat and a gas heater, and gad cook stove are about $150. Summer is $69-$85. But I live off solar at camp about 1/2 of the time.

 

[patrickk222]

12.57 per kwh in my area i belueve it use to be about 8.5 to 9 cents a few yrs qgo

 

[WiscWoody]

Here in my part of NW Wisconsin we pay 12.4 cents per KWh and $13 a month to be hooked up to the grid. I use about 1800 KWh of power a year and I work at two hydroelectric powerhouses in the area. The company I work for gets $47.50 per MWh of electricity Generated or 4.75 cents per KWh…

 

[Dataman]

Used 1k last month. We generate all power thru Hydro. Box Canyon Dam and some from Boundary Dam (See the Movie "the Postman")

Energy Usage 1,001 kWh @ 0.0612 $61.26
Service Availability Charge $35.50
Electric Service Subtotal $96.76

 

[old greybeard]

Propane costs up 50+%. Will be using electric for the majority of our heat this year at home. Heat pump is cheaper at those prices.

 

[WiscWoody]

Propane costs up 50+%. Will be using electric for the majority of our heat this year at home. Heat pump is cheaper at those prices.

Wood is even cheaper at least mine is.

 

[WiscWoody]

If you're with a regulated rate provider in Alberta:

Energy cost: 9.769 cents/kwh
Transmissions and distribution: 11.79 cents/kwh
21.559 cents/kwh total

Fixed fees are $54.48 per month.

Of course add 5% GST on top of all this.

600kwh is the average household consumption in Alberta, for an average bill of $193.03 per month.

Just to compare natural gas is $7.198/GJ delivered to my house including the carbon tax (plus fixed monthly fees) or the equivalent of 2.59 cents per kwh. Pretty easy to see why all residential heating here is done with natural gas, and even why gas stoves and gas dryers are fairly popular.

That’s a lot of money for power, I wander if anyone up there has gone solar off-grid because of the high costs there?

 

[ABMax24]

That’s a lot of money for power, I wander if anyone up there has gone solar off-grid because of the high costs there?

It is a lot, but you design/upgrade your house around that cost, most people are running all LED bulbs and efficient appliances, our house was new when we bought it so our stove is gas and our clothes dryer is heated by gas too. I'm averaging 225kwh/month on our house.

Solar off-grid really doesn't make sense here, the only situations where I'm aware of it are where grid power doesn't exist or is prohibitively expensive to bring in. Keep in mind the seasonal variation, my 3kw system makes 425kwh in July and about 50kwh in December. The system would have to be grossly oversized for winter loads or extensive use of a backup generator would be required.

Another factor is purchasing power and household incomes, the Canadian dollar is usually worth 20-25% less than the US dollar which makes our prices seem inflated. Also a shortage of skilled labor has occurred for decades here, wages have risen to attract workers, including for electric utilities, the costs of which are passed to consumers through higher power prices.

 

[stoveliker]

Our prices are similar (22 ct in total, I believe).

But I don't want to go off grid: those living where net metering exists don't need to go off grid to not have a big bill. I put solar on and have since then (and for 20 years from the installation date) only a $13 bill each month because in summer my meter runs backwards and in winter I use those kWhs when my panels don't produce enough. In essence, th grid is my battery. In 20 years that costs me about $3500. Much less than a real battery.

And by then, I think batteries will even be more affordable.

 

[ABMax24]

That's right, but up here net-metering doesn't exist, here its called net billing, every kwh of energy imported is charged a transmission fee, a fee that is not returned when power is exported. It's not as attractive to the homeowner this way though. I do understand the reasoning though, if everyone was on net-metering who would pay for upkeep of the grid? This way the grid operational costs still get funding and there is then some incentive to self-consume more electricity to reduce transmission fees.

 

[stoveliker]

Yes, that is what I know from others.
I don't know what my $13 pays for (grid?), but it won't be enough.

This is the result of govt incentives to encourage certain consumer behavior. I don't think this is feasible in the long run. I'm just lucky to have gotten in before they realize that... (Same with the fed+state tax credits; I only paid for 45% of my panels - the other taxpayers paid for the rest...)

 

[peakbagger]

Its a big battle between the consumer and the utility with respect to batteries and renewables. The private power companies or publicly owned utilities want to handle every KW of power. If they own power plants they want to run them, if they have divested the power plants, they want to be the broker handling power generated by others, if there is solar or batteries they want to own them. Why do you think one of Berkshire Hathaway's (Warren Buffet) biggest investments is power utilties?. Unless folks are completely off grid (no grid available) home batteries and solar are going to be costly to buy per KW than a utility can supply. The one big exception is if the capability to use an EV as a home battery gets commercialized, in this case the battery is sitting there. What has delayed EVs as batteries are two fold issues, the utilities want their fingers in the pie and the infrastructure to go two way via the grid connection has been a problem. much of the grid is set up for radial (one way) power production from central plants, many older substations cant handle power in two directions and needs costly upgrades. I run into this professionally when we try to hook up combined heat and power plants. The customers have to pay for the upgrade to the substations and sometimes these costs can kill the project. The second problem is EVs are not currently capable of two way power, they can be but there are no standards for this and it will raise the vehicle cost. Stationary batteries are being used for two way power in various utility pilot programs but connecting an EV back to the grid is still problematical.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

That’s a lot of money for power, I wander if anyone up there has gone solar off-grid because of the high costs there?

Mine is expensive too, however if the usage is low, the payback is slow on a solar system.

 

[stoveliker]

Mine is expensive too, however if the usage is low, the payback is slow on a solar system.

That's why I added a minisplit to heat - saving me also oil cost. (Ok, while adding up front investment, but we wanted some AC anyway.)

 

[peakbagger]

Long term home power storage is not yet a viable product and may never be. Us folks up north need a an affordable "battery" that stores power for six months, so we charge the battery up in the summer and use it in the winter. There are some "bleeding edge concepts" out there but mostly on the industrial and utility scale like flow batteries where electricity is converted into changing a stable chemical compound to another chemical compound. The compounds are stored in two tanks and when power is needed the chemicals in the charged tank are passed through a device that generates power and then the remaining discharged chemical is sent to the other tank. Its a reversible process but it still takes a lot of volume of storage. A similar approach generates hydrogen and stores it but hydrogen is difficult to work with and has a low storage density. The Hindenberg was filled with hydrogen.

 

[ABMax24]

There's the old adage of never say never, but I'm not sure that residential seasonal energy storage will ever be commonplace. For so many reasons it makes more sense to have that technologies on a utility scale to realize better utilization of that asset. To hold that kind of energy in a home would pose a safety risk of some kind from the reactants, I just don't see it being something the average homeowner is capable of dealing with.

There is a similar scenario playing out here right now with commercial solar power, we've went from about 50MW of installed capacity to 336MW in just over a year, the economies of scale make solar PV profitable for private corporations, yet residential solar PV systems are borderline viable without subsidies.

 

[EbS-P]

I’m torn Duke just got a 2% increase plus another 2% in two years which is ok I guess. But those profits are theirs to keep while they want to pass coal ash clean up on to end consumers. At times I really want a a deregulated power grid then I look at rates people were paying in Texas this past winter and regulation/monopoly seems ok.

Up to $0.134 per kWh.