Every month, Rebecca Michalski takes a deep breath before opening her electric bill. She lives on a fixed income, and heating her small house this winter has been staggering: Her February charge was $940.08 — more than her check.
the only electable D was manchin and that was with many Concessions, and hes going to be replaced by a magat , there isnt much hope for WV IN GENERAL.
Damn. I thought I had it bad when my annually average electric bill went up to CA$140/month from $108. I also pay CA $58 in natural gas. Yet so many people still think it’s cheaper to live in the US.
A friendly reminder that generating electricity is the cheapest it has ever been.
Another reminder that power companies are being incentivized by the current administration to NOT to make their energy grids better.
This is what the Republicans voted for and what the Democratic party allowed to happen by putting forth their worst candidates.
even before p47, they wernt incentivized either, pg&E california doesnt do that either, but they are ok raising rates to compensate for thier failures, and providing energy for AI data centers, while charging more for residentials units.
I mean you can blame Republicans or Democrats, I blame the American voters and non-voters. You did this to yourselves.
Goddamn $900 bill. Solar pays for itself in a year or two - if you can afford the cost up front.
Too bad you voted for the guy who said he’s cancelling energy improvement subsidies like solar and heat pumps!
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
And they keep electing the people who say they’re taking their boots away.
At $1000 per month, yep, rooftop solar with tax credits and incentives would probably take two to three years to pay for itself. Where I live, it took me about ten years. $900/mo for an average electric bill is just price gouging. The costs to generate electricity have actually gone down thanks to renewables.
It’s stupid that there aren’t more incentives for people to install solar and batteries. Decentralizing the grid should be thought of as a national security issue.
seems like most states have been hostile to solar for a while, even cali has some wierd rule around it.
appreciate what you’re saying but afaik the federal tax rebate program for residential solar installation was terminated/not renewed last year.
maybe there are ways to get other credits… link if anyone knows of any?
making it worse, the only form of residential solar that’s legally allowed (utility industy lobbying has made sure of it) requires complicated.connection agreements and expensive installs in tens of thousands.
this suggestion thou well intended, won’t help poor people in the hills of West Virginia. not without massive legislative re-prioritization and investment. which our corporatist govt absolute will not allow
Every solar company in my state gets taken the fuck out by Duke Energy in court. Then you’re stuck with a system that you have to pay Duke Energy for and makes them money.
Bow down before the one you serve. You’re gonna get what you fucking deserve
Cool cool. Being a millennial who graduated high school in aught-six I’ve been blessed with inflated electric costs that just kept inflating for my entire adult life. Sounds about right.
Anyone who voted for trump has it coming. There were no credible reasons to believe he would be a good president. Republican policies are all bad.
They believed he’d punish the brown people and the LGBTQ+ community. They’re satisfied with his performance there. Many of them who can afford the cost increases think the higher costs are worth it. They still believe they’re making America better.
Have the electricity bills you voted for West Virginia! Montani Semper Liberi, but the electricity isn’t.
Have the day you voted for, fuckface.
Ah, another sector enters the '“FO” phase of “FAFO”.
My electric bill for the last few months has been almost $200.
I live in an under 400 sqft apartment that I keep under 68 degrees all year (it’s also like 70% basement only a portion of one wall and the entrance is not beneath ground) It increased from maybe $100 last year to almost $200 during this time. Energy costs here are absolutely insane.
Noted, my costs in summer are markedly less. Around $70-90. But the winter costs went up dramatically.
Following the 2021 winter storms in Texas, power bills have been incredibly unpredictable. The variable rates being charged to the utilities jumped up hundreds of times because our laws fucking suck. So for the next 20 years, we’re having to pay off the power co-op’s debts, and we never know what the additional surcharge is gonna be on a bill. We’d get an electric bill for our usage and on top of that would be a fixed provider debt service surcharge of $300 that anyone connected to the grid had to pay regardless of use. Then the next month the surcharge would be $50. Then the next it would be $750. Then it would be $12. But it was usually far higher than the actual electric use portion of the bill.
It also has really hurt solar adoption rates, because the vast majority of the bill isn’t tied to use, so solar doesn’t offset that much of the bill while having its own payment plan. And code requires a connection to the electric grid, so you can’t just choose to completely disconnect to avoid the surcharges.
Jesus I thought my electric bill was high…
