We’re down to probably our next to last electric bill from the Texas house. After hearing horror stories about some of the electric bills people are receiving, here’s the one that we got in our email today. You can see that it’s from January 29 to March 2 so it covered the entire cold snap. And, Vince was mostly without electricity for three days during the worst of it.
While it definitely isn’t comparing apples to apples because of the solar panels, it does show that we’re paying the exact same rate we’ve paid for the entirety of our contract – .135499/kWh. There was no price gauging. For those on wholesale pricing, they made some bad choices! I cannot speak for those on co-ops are who may be living in areas that haven’t been deregulated. But, for those of us who are in deregulated areas and have fixed rate contracts, the prices did not go up!
I will also say that the rate we’re paying (.135499) is quite a bit higher than most are paying. That’s the price we have to pay to have a green energy contract. In the end, as you can see, it doesn’t matter how much we’re paying because the solar panels offset our entire bill so we take what we can get and say “thank you”!
If our panels only produced half of the electricity we use and didn’t send enough back to the grid to keep us from owing, we would probably get off the green energy contract, pay less per kWh, send the power back for free and still use what we produce and buy what we need but, it works out great for us the way it is.
One last thing for anyone thinking about adding solar panels, most any reputable company can look at your previous bills for a year or so, look at the rate you’re paying and come real close to giving you an exact number of years for a payback. Also, they can size the system to be almost exactly the perfect size to produce just what you need and not have you become a net producer, which can cause problems.
Back to our bill . . The charges for what we used are $77.10 (569 kWh). We sent back 605 kWH for a credit of $81.98 resulting in a $4.88 credit, added to a credit balance and we now have a credit of $42.15.
Based on what Vince said is currently in the propane tank, my guess is that he used about $80 worth of propane this month. Had we not had solar panels, I’m guessing again that our bill would have been double – about $154 plus the $80 in propane costs for a total bill of about $234. Not anywhere near the thousands of dollars you’re hearing about on the news.
I’ll say it again . . don’t believe everything you hear or read!
Dottie Newkirk says
Thanks for sharing!! There are so many variables and sides to the “story”. Unfortunately “sensationalism” sells.
We all need to research stories for actual facts!!
Frieda says
We have a flat rate and our bill is the basically the same as the previous month. The outrageous bills were people who chose to buy wholesale. Yes, you will save normally but it will costs a lot more in crazy events like we had.
Judy Laquidara says
Way too risky for me and I hate that the news was making it sound like it was something happening to EVERYONE and they never mentioned everyone on the wholesale plans chose to be on those plans.
Donna in KS says
and that those who choose those type plans are always the ones to cry the loudest and cry “foul”. They are sure someone is going to bail them out. Their fellow citizens?!!
Mary M says
I just spoke to someone at a quilt shop today who was decrying that people were having to pay thousands of dollars for electricity. I spoke up and said I didn’t have any sympathy for people who had a variable rate contract because the TOS (terms of service) very specifically spell out that the customer pays according to wholesale market price and pricing may go up or down from the current price. She was amazed that there were contracts like that. People think they are getting an amazing deal but they forget about the extreme temps during summer or winter that may drive a price up. I will always have a fixed rate contract as long as they are available.
Judy Laquidara says
It just shows how often most of us, myself included, will hear something and run with it and we don’t know even half of the story.