New True-up bill- another year on the books

Our yearly PGE bill for our electricity used that we did not produce-  The actually charges would have been $64.20 for the year, which would have been pretty good by itself.  But due to credits we get for being a grid-tied producer of electricity for PGE, that was knocked down to $15.38 for the year which is pretty close to free at that price. . .

Whats this? The next bill from PGE has a $31.00 climate credit which the bill says will be given to residential customers twice a year. That makes our electricity cost free for the year, and next year, and as long as we can keep our cost at or around $15 a year, free for the foreseeable future. . .

Some updates on odd items. . .

My Prius is now approaching its tenth year anniversary.  And I am happy to say that my mileage is still steady in the 50 mpg or more range.  In the last few days I have made multiple trips up into the foothills near home requiring freeway use, around town driving and trips to an elevation of just under 2,000 feet elevation. Overall mpg for the past few days is 52.2 mpg. Not bad for an ten old hybrid.

The tank-less water heater is going strong.  Our PG and E gas usage in summer is around $5.00 a month.  It makes all the difference in the world to not have to reheat a 50 gallon tank to leave sitting and cooling after use- and all day for that matter.

Solar panels are still going strong.  We are nearing the end to the higher use charge (and our higher rate of repay for that extra production.)  I doubt our true-up bill will be as low this year as the less than $20 it was last year.  This year it was a bit warmer- particularly last month when we had to use the air conditioner for the first time and last time this summer.  I still wish we had put in more panels originally.  Not worth going into debt to get a possible 4 cent a kilowatt hour payback for the extra production.

2012-2013 True-up period- PG and E and low rate of PG and E refund for excess production

We have just finished the most recent true-up period this month.  For the year, our electricity cost from the true-up bill was just under $20.00.  Not too shabby.

And, we wondered about adding a bit to the system to get to the point we would over produce for a change.  We were told that it would not work that way.  We could shoot for the $20 mark, which may only take an additional panel.  It would not be economical to just add a panel or two just to get that cost down.  And in the event we went over, PG and E would only reimburse us at the rate of four cents a Kilowatt hour.  What a deal for them. Not too different than it used to be actually when they would just lob off the excess production at year end and not let us use it or reimburse us for it.  Four cents?   Yikes. I guess we are at their mercy if we are on the grid.  Oh, and there is also this. . . No amount of any over production can be used in an off-set of other fees charged over the year. So the $5.00-$6.00 charged in taxes and other fees that everyone pays, would still have to be paid.

On-site power generation at Sierra Nevada Brewery

This is an interesting site whatever beer you drink, or even if you do not drink anything. These guys take reduction of their carbon footprint seriously. And, by the way the beer and food available at the pub is good too if you are ever in the Chico, Ca area.

http://www.sierranevada.com/environment/solar.html

And here is the web page Chico Electric which installed the solar array at Sierra Nevada Brewery.

http://www.chicoelectric.com/

They talk about this install, and one at Butte College.

Are we in the long emergency?

I have been reading "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler. The basic premise is that the one constant in the world’s industrial expansion and all life as we currently know it (at least in the industrialized power countries) was possible only because it happened during the times of cheap oil. We are currently near or just past the maximum world production for oil, and there is only down-hill to go from here. Because production of cheap oil is past its maximum now, and demand is still there, we are rapidly going to be in dire straits. Look elsewhere for reviews. His prediction seems pretty cut and dried. We are doomed to be in the decline and he holds little hope for us to get out of the emergency in any form that is close to life as we currently know it.

He does make a few good points. It is true that there is a limited supply of finite resources. Maybe this means we should be going much more towards some other energy source than we have been in recent years. He does not think we should rely on letting technology come up with a solution, because any alternative that technology brings to light will require cheap oil to build to a point that it becomes a feasible alternative. And we no longer have the cheap oil.

Maybe it is a good thing that oil has jumped a bit in price recently, whatever the reasons except for oil company price fixing or speculators trying to manipulate the markets. Maybe we need the wakeup call that life as we know it needs to change. We need to start conserving a bit, and we need to institute some way to get away from oil, whoever is producing it. And we need to stick to that plan.

When Jimmy Carter was elected President he installed solar panels on the White House roof. At the time this was very experimental and expensive and few regular people could afford to even consider a move like this. He did it as an example of the spirit we need to adopt in order to get out of a potential energy shortfall. When the next president took over, the first energy related step he took was to remove the solar panels. If we had proceeded back in President Carter’s days and maintained that energy awareness, maybe Mr. Kunstler could have written a bit less scary book. If we start working in a concerted effort now, maybe we can get out of the emergency more or less intact.

True-up Electric billing for 2011

Our true-up electricity bill for the year was $46.14 for electricity used that we did not create ourselves. Add in the monthly charges that are administrative in nature, and it goes up to $110. This is still pretty good. In 2008, our total cost was $125.00 with administrative cost added in. We could easily be using $100.00 per month in electricity at least in the summer months.

updates

Gas has gone up nearly fifty cents in a month here. Most recent price for regular was 3.869 with a three cent a gallon Safeway member discount. My current mileage in the Prius is in the mid 40’s which is OK for winter, and the fact that my trip length is very low now that I no longer have to drive to work. Last tank or so, I did a few longer trips and the mileage was back into the high 40 to low 50 range, still good for a car that is nearing seven years old- and a hybrid at that. I still would rather drive this Prius than most any other car out there. Well, maybe the new 2010 Prius or the new Chevy Volt.

Our solar panels are still putting out OK. This last year we had major higher daily use of electricity than in other years, but we are still under $100.00 for the year. Not too bad considering we have not been able to conserve as much as in previous years.