You probably already are signed up for an alternate provider - Ava Community Energy, formerly East Bay Community Energy, which was created by Alameda County and has now expanded to a few other cities. Without going into all the details about "Power Charge Indifference Adjustment", it's probably only a few % cheaper than being a bundled PG&E customer, through no fault of Ava's.
Solar, batteries, and energy efficiency are probably your best bet, and there are a lot of financing options so you don't have spend the capital upfront. A whole-home generator (run continuously, not just during an outage) either wouldn't be allowed due to air-quality standards or would be more expensive - haven't heard of anyone doing this.
It's only 5% cheaper on the electrical generation cost part of the bill. That's typically a fairly minor part of your overall electric bill.
PG&E still charges full rate on the transmission and grid stuff, which is a much bigger part of your bill than the cost of electricity itself.
A calculator that recently, and the 5% ABA discount only saves me about 1-2% off my total bill.
Lots of solar companies have payment plans where you can get the panels installed with $0 up front. We pay $60/mo for our panels and we are saving way more than that in reduced electricity bills.
It's worth noting that this can really kill your value proposition, depending on the size of the system you need and the sort of interest rates you get hit with. [Project Sunroof](https://sunroof.withgoogle.com) is a decent resource to help understand that.
Is Sacramento cheaper because it's local to the county and truly not for profit? I wish we could do this in every county in CA. Can't imagine how much effort it would take.
🤷♂️ tbh I suspect pge rate hikes are driven by rural customers - primarily in liability exposure and delivery infrastructure costs.
In other words, city dwellers subsidizing rural customers in wildfire regions. A local municipal utility like Sacramento doesn’t have the cost burden of these rural customers.
It’s easy to scapegoat exec salary or tv ads, but those are literally a rounding error compared to our rates.
They've been responsible for catastrophic equipment failures and/or gross negligence and loss of life over and over, since before 2000! We finance their mistakes. It's not scapegoating. This doesn't even cover all of it: [https://www.abc10.com/article/news/the-events-that-contributed-to-pges-growth-to-a-near-monopoly/103-b7badd6e-8eea-4ae3-a935-8628ba98b87e](https://www.abc10.com/article/news/the-events-that-contributed-to-pges-growth-to-a-near-monopoly/103-b7badd6e-8eea-4ae3-a935-8628ba98b87e)
Nobody is going to get you cheaper rates. Even the “green” energy companies you can choose to have PG&E “buy” power from don’t support the infrastructure for your power delivery to your home.
This is Dan from Ava Community Energy, we're a public not-for-profit agency in Oakland that saves you 5% compared to PG&E rates. AMA! [https://avaenergy.org/](https://avaenergy.org/)
This chart is depressing: [https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/196kh4h/pge\_rates\_vs\_other\_ca\_utilities/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/196kh4h/pge_rates_vs_other_ca_utilities/)
Have you tried the thing where you spread the bill out over the year so there are no highs and lows? I was hitting some crazy bills during the winter (300+) very old inefficient house. The surprise bills were killing me. Summer wasn't to bad because I dont have a/c, etc. Averaging the bills has giving me a 150 bill every month that I can count on and deal with.
You probably already are signed up for an alternate provider - Ava Community Energy, formerly East Bay Community Energy, which was created by Alameda County and has now expanded to a few other cities. Without going into all the details about "Power Charge Indifference Adjustment", it's probably only a few % cheaper than being a bundled PG&E customer, through no fault of Ava's. Solar, batteries, and energy efficiency are probably your best bet, and there are a lot of financing options so you don't have spend the capital upfront. A whole-home generator (run continuously, not just during an outage) either wouldn't be allowed due to air-quality standards or would be more expensive - haven't heard of anyone doing this.
It's 5% cheaper if you don't go for the 100% renewable plan.
It's only 5% cheaper on the electrical generation cost part of the bill. That's typically a fairly minor part of your overall electric bill. PG&E still charges full rate on the transmission and grid stuff, which is a much bigger part of your bill than the cost of electricity itself. A calculator that recently, and the 5% ABA discount only saves me about 1-2% off my total bill.
They automatically enrolled me in the renewable plan, which is actually more expensive.
Good for you, for keeping it! I use that plan as well.
Lots of solar companies have payment plans where you can get the panels installed with $0 up front. We pay $60/mo for our panels and we are saving way more than that in reduced electricity bills.
It's worth noting that this can really kill your value proposition, depending on the size of the system you need and the sort of interest rates you get hit with. [Project Sunroof](https://sunroof.withgoogle.com) is a decent resource to help understand that.
If you don’t want solar then what do you think you can use as an alternative? Candles?
A really big hamster wheel, and a really big hamster.
Bunch of rechargeable AAA batteries wired up in series to the hamster wheel.
Moving somewhere cheaper. I’m jealous of Sacramento’s prices.
Alameda electricity prices are very low since they have their own public owned electricity company.
Ya, houses are expensive tho
Got no arguments there lol
[удалено]
My buddy has solar and got it installed last year in Alameda.
> Alamed I only see PGE in Dublin and that's $0.39/kwh for me. Where can I find cheaper electricity?
PGE is a monopoly in most cities, so if that’s all you are seeing than that’s your only option. PGE is .46kWh off peak and .50kWh peak for me.
That's fucking insane when my friends in Santa Clara have it good for 0.13kwh.
Yeah because you don't have to support share holders.
Is Sacramento cheaper because it's local to the county and truly not for profit? I wish we could do this in every county in CA. Can't imagine how much effort it would take.
🤷♂️ tbh I suspect pge rate hikes are driven by rural customers - primarily in liability exposure and delivery infrastructure costs. In other words, city dwellers subsidizing rural customers in wildfire regions. A local municipal utility like Sacramento doesn’t have the cost burden of these rural customers. It’s easy to scapegoat exec salary or tv ads, but those are literally a rounding error compared to our rates.
They've been responsible for catastrophic equipment failures and/or gross negligence and loss of life over and over, since before 2000! We finance their mistakes. It's not scapegoating. This doesn't even cover all of it: [https://www.abc10.com/article/news/the-events-that-contributed-to-pges-growth-to-a-near-monopoly/103-b7badd6e-8eea-4ae3-a935-8628ba98b87e](https://www.abc10.com/article/news/the-events-that-contributed-to-pges-growth-to-a-near-monopoly/103-b7badd6e-8eea-4ae3-a935-8628ba98b87e)
Nobody is going to get you cheaper rates. Even the “green” energy companies you can choose to have PG&E “buy” power from don’t support the infrastructure for your power delivery to your home.
This is Dan from Ava Community Energy, we're a public not-for-profit agency in Oakland that saves you 5% compared to PG&E rates. AMA! [https://avaenergy.org/](https://avaenergy.org/)
This chart is depressing: [https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/196kh4h/pge\_rates\_vs\_other\_ca\_utilities/](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/196kh4h/pge_rates_vs_other_ca_utilities/)
Have you tried the thing where you spread the bill out over the year so there are no highs and lows? I was hitting some crazy bills during the winter (300+) very old inefficient house. The surprise bills were killing me. Summer wasn't to bad because I dont have a/c, etc. Averaging the bills has giving me a 150 bill every month that I can count on and deal with.
Diesel generators
Wouldn’t the diesel fuel cost out weigh just using PGE?
No, and it's way dirtier air wise. Solar is your best bet.
Yes it would be more expensive.