Does everyone know what they pay for electricity per kilowatt hour?
I pay $13.93 per KWh on average not including various taxes. When you factor in the taxes, it is much higher. My consumption is always over 500 kilowatts and for 85% of the time it is under 1,000 kilowatts. I live in a small condo. I do know of plenty of people who do not turn on their air conditioning unless the temperature gets over 90^ because they simply can not afford to do so. I would suspect that the average residence uses over 1,000 KWh unless you do not use air conditioning.
The City's plans, and I am assuming they do NOT include conservation surcharge, public service tax, gross receipts tax and all/any other charges are as follows:
FY 2012 Residential Electric Rates
The proposed FY 2012 Residential Electric Rates have been restructured and tiered based on total energy consumption. For customers using less than 500 kWh hours per month, the rate of electrify will be reduced from 12.76 per kW hours to 11.30 per kWh hour.
Residents using electricity exceeding 500 kW hours, but less than
1,000 kW hours will only pay $13.30 per kW hour.
Customers exceeding 1,000 kW hours will pay 15.30 cents per kW hours reflective of the cost of service for this high consumption.
All resident customers, irrespective of consumption, will pay a minimum monthly cost of service charge of $34.50. As seen in Chart 3, residential customers using less than 500 kW hours per month because of good energy conservation will see a reduction in their electric rate of 5% while those residential customers using in access of 2,500 kW hours per month will see an increase in the power bill of 1% per month. The FY 2012 Residential rates are consistent with the City Commission‘s desire to reduce the cost of power as well as promote conservation.
Overall, this means--
1. All resident customers, whether they turn on their electricity or not, will pay a minimum monthly cost or service charge of $34.50. Note: They are conserving by not using any electricity but the City will "sock it to them" just for the privilege of providing it.
2. Those who want to live in unbearable conditions with no a/c, will get a "good" ($11.30 KWh) rate. The City calls this "conservation."
3. The City refers to "high" consumption as anyone using over 1,000 KWh.
The City projects nearly $72 mil in revenues from the Electric Fund. The City has proposed reducing revenues of $500,000 with no real noticeable difference reflected on our bill.This is not the time to lower our rates, which might amount to $15 a year for me including the reduction in the conservation charge and other taxes, in order to ease the pain of the proposed special assessments. All unnecessary spending must stop across the board.
This week we will find out how our sacrifice, with the proposal of new taxes, will turn this city around. I hope they "sell" me.
I have come to the conclusion that our electric utility which was created to help provide our citizens with affordable electric rates has become a monster whose sole purpose is to rape our citizens with rates that are unregulated and set for the purpose of taxing us for the cost of city services that have no relation to electric use. This utility allows our city to charge us whatever they want with no regulation. FPL has to ask before it can raise rates. Here in Lake Worth we have no such protection. As a result our rates are out of control for business customers and residential users have had it too. Cutting rates a few dollars is a political ploy that we need to expose. This utility monster needs to be shut down.
ReplyDeleteIf this does not FLY get ready to have the city "sock it to you" some other way
ReplyDeleteI have just re-read the CM's remarks regarding the $34.50 service charge. Be prepared to see your bill jump the 30%.
ReplyDeleteThe key words are "......irrespective of consumption......". This means that every bill will include a $34.50 cost of service charge.
Here's an FPL bill for June;
ReplyDeleteAmount of your last bill 289.74
Payment received - Thank you 289.74CR
Balance before new charges $0.00
New charges (Rate: RS-1 RESIDENTIAL SERVICE )
Electric service amount 219.46**
On call credit 6.00CR
Storm charge 2.57
Gross receipts tax 5.54
Franchise charge 13.07
Utility tax 14.12
Total new charges $248.76
Total amount you owe $248.76
-Payment received after July 29, 2011 is considered LATE; a late
payment charge of 1.50% will apply and your account may be
subject to an adjusted deposit billing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meter reading - meter ACD8030
Current reading 00462
**Meter change**
kWh used 2180
Energy usage
Last This
year year
kWh this month 2241 2180
Service days 30 31
kWh/day 75 70
**The electric service amount
includes the following charges:
Customer charge: $5.90 per month
Fuel: $94.64
(First 1000 kWh at $0.038000)
(Over 1000 kWh at $0.048000)
Non-fuel: $118.92
(First 1000 kWh at $0.049140)
(Over 1000 kWh at $0.059140)
If you divide the Electric Service Amount of $219.46 before all the taxes & fees, but including fuel fees FPL's rate is .100669 per kWh. Lynn, I hope your numbers are off or we're really in trouble.
Also, what percentage of that 72 Million dollars in revenue is net dollars? Someon please compare the cost with the new rate schedule and post it here. GR
Greg,
ReplyDeleteAlthough we have asked over and ovr again, no one ever answers the basic question of, What does one KWh cost us to produce? I never can make heads or tails on the Budgets. This particular styled budget is difficult.
If you read the budget word for word, then the only conclusion that you can come up with is that everyone will pay the $34.50. There is absolutely no reason to put that comment in there otherwise.
ReplyDeleteIf that is the case, then we will all get an increase, not a decrease.
ReplyDeleteLynn Lets face the facts the bcce and the bcme are going to screw us one way or another, so we all might as well get use to it.. Stanton has gone on and on in the report trying to confuse everyone so we just do not know how bad we are going to get screwed YET......
ReplyDeleteThe real problem here is that the 'cost of service' tax hits the poorest disproportionally hard. These people, who already have a difficult time paying their bills will see a 30% increase, whereas the you will see a 25% increase and the heavy users will hardly see a difference at all. If it holds as it is written, I would expect to see some turmoil in the new customer service section of the utility.
ReplyDeleteAnd on the electrical note , the city has been charging me just under $40.00 a month for a get ready charge of some bullshit kind because I have been off the electric grid now since January of 2007.
ReplyDeleteI canceled the electric and the dumpster service which were running about $500.00 a mouth minimum that I was not using because I had no tenant at my commercial site ( and still have no tenant because nobody wants to be in the city of Lake Worth) and my business was only generating about 2 jobs per month of which most where mobile jobs which mean that I was not using hardly any services what so ever at the shop but, they were still stroking me ever month.
I did not realize that I was paying for a minimum ( one can 2 times a week) garbage pick-up through my property taxes and so it wasn't until March of this year that I realized it and called them to bring me the can.
Since 2007 I have been going to the transfer station on Lantana Rd and I-95 myself, it takes me 3-6 months to fill all my cans ( a pickup truck load or about the size of a big dumpster) and it take me about 1/2 and hour to go and dump it off and it cost me under $8.00 dollars , yes $8.00 , I have the receipt to prove it.
Most of the buildings in my industrial park are empty or working only 2-3 days a week , and it's no different in any other industrial park in the city or any where else you go to in the country, we are bankrupt , and all these cities think that the residents are going to pull the wagon, LOLLLLLLLLLLLL.
Pick up the small book by James Howard Kuntsler called THE LONG EMERGENCY its a slow death to the bottom. You should see the slow death here in upstate NY , ghost towns and abandon factories , the Catskills are dead , the Adirondack dead and the state is bankrupt . The cities of Schenectady (G/E), Amsterdam , Albany are all in different stages of decline and not enough jobs everybody is in denial.
As long as a Civil Engineer not electric Engineer is in charge of Lake Worth Utility, voodoo charges will keep increasing!She knows nobody in charge knows anything about it or verifies the validity of those charges. How far has our $69,000,000, Debt upgraded our generators, to be ready for cheaper independant electric production, to really reduce our bills?Nobody watches the lack of upgrade progress, but millions disappear,are spent.
ReplyDeleteWho is in charge????Who protect our interests????
Dee McNamara!
Dear City of LakeWorth officials:
ReplyDeleteIn this economy how can you possibly justify doubling our base electric rate of $17 to $34.50 ? The small condo in Murry Hills in which I live is used only 3 months per year. I find it incredible that you can increase a rate that much and sleep at night!
Cynthia Eagar