Electric cars and plug-in hybrids

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by thomaszoo

I think Riverside is like LADWP where it is owned by the city. That type of electric utility is often used to subsidize other city services, hence the higher rates.

Which is in direct contradiction to you stating that SMUD is cheaper because it's publicly owned.

[thomaszoo]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Which is in direct contradiction to you stating that SMUD is cheaper because it's publicly owned.

To clarify, SMUD is a stand alone utility, not part of a city (or even county). Those city owned public utilities, such as LADWP, which is owned by the city of Los Angeles, often co-mingle their finances. I know of one such utility that actually had an ice rink on their books. But in general, customer owned utilities have lower rates than their private counterparts. The downside to the community is that the publicly owned utility usually doesn't pay property taxes on their facilities.

There are exceptions both ways, of course. I have also heard of publicly owned utilities that got locked into bad contracts that had a negative impact on rates. But I'm not aware of any privately owned utilities that have rates less than most of their nearby publicly owned counterparts.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by thomaszoo

I have also heard of publicly owned utilities that got locked into bad contracts that had a negative impact on rates.

Come up to Ontario where our provincial government has a PhD in doing stuff like this. I shouldn't complain too much as I am also a beneficiary as I am selling my solar produced power back to them for $0.389/kWh for 20 years.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by wayner

Come up to Ontario where our provincial government has a PhD in doing stuff like this. I shouldn't complain too much as I am also a beneficiary as I am selling my solar produced power back to them for $0.389/kWh for 20 years.

still can't believe Wynn is selling off Hydro 1. Bizarre

[wayner]

What's wrong with selling off H1 - I think there has been far too much government meddling in electricity in Ontario over the last century. It was only in the last year that we stopped paying for our parents' hydro bills when the debt retirement charge ended.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by wayner

What's wrong with selling off H1 - I think there has been far too much government meddling in electricity in Ontario over the last century. It was only in the last year that we stopped paying for our parents' hydro bills when the debt retirement charge ended.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one...enjoy our .40 a kwh rates, heading your way I imagine

[SWKerr]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

lucky guy. Isn't it funny, big business always say private ownership is cheaper. Except in electricity, healthcare, etc., etc.,

Here in Central North Carolina we pay 0.08756 per kwh. I have Duke Power which is a multi state regulated monopoly.

It has been a long time but at some point I did some analysis on the power sector as part of my employment at the time.

Most of the cost of power comes from the actual generation of power from the power plants the companies own. It is a high capital investment and the power source mix has a major impact on the cost. Example: Nuclear has a high investment cost but relatively low and stable production cost. A Coal plant would be cheap to build but cost of coal may vary based on market conditions, so higher run rate with less capital cost but more volatile.

Power generation is a problem because there is really no good way to store it and it has to generally be produced to match demand which varies by time of day. So a plant may be doing very little all night but running a max capacity on a hot summer day at noon. The mix of generation options makes a big difference here. So you need infrastructure to meet peak demand but since the capital cost is so high only just enough.

My work revolved around the impacts of deregulation which was one of those things that sounded like a way to use the free market to reduce cost but was implemented in such a way to make it a major cluster F...

The real problem with the smaller municipal power companies is that they generally lack the capacity to generate all their own power. They lack the economies of scale to efficiently manage all power generation locally. They may have some base power generation capability but are most often buying it on the open market with limited control of the cost. Long-term contracts with larger power generators can help or hurt overall cost based on luck of when they were implemented. Not signing a long-term deal for power can make sense short-term but put you at risk if Natural Gas or Coal cost go up since spot market cost can be extremely volatile. I generally think small municipal power companies never make any sense. But...Power companies are a Monopoly and do not work well for consumers as a true free market entity.

I am pretty much a free market guy all the way but in the US politics seems to screw it up. A monopoly can not be a true free market but we seem to fail to recognize may defacto monopolies in the US.

Health care it the hardest to put into terms with a free market mentality. It is impossible to put a value on your health. As a society should we really spend $500,000 to keep Grandma alive for an extra 2 weeks in intensive care when the odds of her ever leaving is remote. Should this option only be available to rich people that can afford it. Managing heath care costs is so complex with marginal improvements for care that cost 2x as much but who sets the limit for what is acceptable. Sadly there is no political will to have an adult conversation about it. Republicans now own Heath care and are about to regret it cause there is no simple fix.

[thomaszoo]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

Here in Central North Carolina we pay 0.08756 per kwh. I have Duke Power which is a multi state regulated monopoly.

Thanks SWKerr for an excellent description of the electric utility industry. I did a little googling and found that, on average, for North Carolina that the municipal and coop utilities had higher rates than the investor owned utilities. (see http://www.efc.sog.unc.edu/sites/www...2014_FINAL.pdf for details). It is much different in California where municipals are almost always much less expensive (see http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...614-story.html for details). I'm not sure why there is such a difference between the states.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by thomaszoo

Thanks SWKerr for an excellent description of the electric utility industry. I did a little googling and found that, on average, for North Carolina that the municipal and coop utilities had higher rates than the investor owned utilities. (see http://www.efc.sog.unc.edu/sites/www...2014_FINAL.pdf for details). It is much different in California where municipals are almost always much less expensive (see http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...614-story.html for details). I'm not sure why there is such a difference between the states.

the difference between states mostly comes down to power sources, and the proportion of power that is generated close to the use. CA imports a LOT of power from elsewhere, which simply costs more. The lack of any significant nuclear in california also seriously drives up the costs - especially when the few nuclear plants that ARE here get shut down earlier than desired.

[Fuzzy]

Power generation and use is an amazing topic to dig into. Some things can be surprising if you are new to the industry. Thing liks the Intermountain Power Plant, which is a 1.9GW coal fired plant in Utah, is operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and the power is brought all the way to LA via a 500kV DC transmission line.

[wayner]

Here in Ontario we have rather expensive electricity for various reasons, but at least it is green. The provincial government decided to shut down coal generation a few years ago so the "bad" generation that we have comes from NatGas. But our baseload comes from nukes and hydro, with wind playing a larger role. As I type this 56% is from nuclear, 22% from hydro, 19% from wind and 2% from gas. The carbon intensity is very low at 11g/kWh. (Source http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html)

All that being said, from my home on a clear day I can see the smokestack from the Kintigh Coal Plant in NY state directly across Lake Ontario, pumping out CO2, NOX and SOX.

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by wayner

All that being said, from my home on a clear day I can see the smokestack from the Kintigh Coal Plant in NY state directly across Lake Ontario, pumping out CO2, NOX and SOX.

We're just trying to warm up Ontario a bit. I hear it gets chilly up there

[wayner]

But then none of us will want to come down to sunny and warm Florida.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by wayner

Here in Ontario we have rather expensive electricity for various reasons, but at least it is green. The provincial government decided to shut down coal generation a few years ago so the "bad" generation that we have comes from NatGas. But our baseload comes from nukes and hydro, with wind playing a larger role. As I type this 56% is from nuclear, 22% from hydro, 19% from wind and 2% from gas. The carbon intensity is very low at 11g/kWh. (Source http://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html)

All that being said, from my home on a clear day I can see the smokestack from the Kintigh Coal Plant in NY state directly across Lake Ontario, pumping out CO2, NOX and SOX.

you need to sell NY more hydro

[wayner]

Right now we are selling them 700MW - that is on the Gridwatch page as well. I don't know how much that plant is used.

edit - And it may be phased out Somerset Power Plant's Future Looks Dark