My Electric Bill Was Not Biofriendly to Me!

Image by Joe Colburn 

I opened my So Cal Edison electric bill the other day and what I found floored me.  Let me start off by saying, a little over two weeks ago my family and I moved.  We only moved about 35 miles from where we were living (Pasadena, CA area to Valencia, CA area) and we had only been about a week in our new place when our closing/new electric bill arrived.  Think it was reasonable?  Think it was biofriendly?  It wasn’t even partially friendly.

The first part of the bill (from our old place) showed that in fourteen days we were in Tier 3 of their “tiered structure”.  That meant we were paying $0.12 per kWh for the first 164 kWh (Tier 1), $0.14 per kWh for the next 49 kWh (Tier 2) and $0.24 per kWh for the next 30 kWh.  The total for that portion of the bill was $36.22 (which included delivery charges, generation charges, overall energy charges, city UUT charges and state tax).

Okay, now I’ll be honest, I haven’t always paid a lot of attention to the amount per tier.  I’ve just tried to save energy eg use less A/C, turn off unused lights, wash after 7pm, etc.  And it’s not like your car, where you can add an effective fuel additive and start seeing results immediately….saving home energy costs can sometimes require a little more work than that.

Then I looked at our bill (for our new place) which showed 5 days and again we were in Tier 3.  Wait….what?…5 days vs 14 days and we’re in Tier 3?  How is that possible?  Well, let me tell you.  At our new place we are apparently paying $0.12 per kWh for the first 59 kWh (Tier 1), $0.14 per kWh for the next 18 kWh (Tier 2) and $0.24 per kWh for 27 kWh used in Tier 3.  Note that we are already halfway through Tier 3 at our new place.

Basically, if we were being charged on the same “tiered structure” as our old place, we would still be in Tier 1 (104 kwh).  But instead we are all the way in Tier 3.  Now I’ll re-iterate, we only moved about 35 miles and did NOT change Electric Companies.  Then I found this blog….could a Smart Meter be the answer?

Maybe….but that’s a whole other blog and as far as I’m concerned, my bill was not in the least bit biofriendly, eco-friendly or any friendly for that matter.  I mean do I now live in an area that traditionally uses more electricity thus I pay more per kWh?  Does it cost more to get the electricity to my new place than it did to get to my old place?  So many questions.  Any good answers out there?