Going off-grid sounds better and better. This is to hit those solar folks who don’t shell out the dough. Among other greeds…
I think that the argument for having a fixed fee is pretty legitimate.
Having a grid connection provides reliability. Like, it’s useful for anyone to have a grid connection.
But someone’s gotta pay for all the infrastructure. Linemen don’t work for free.
Historically, the way this worked is that one just increased the variable costs – charge more per kilowatt-hour.
That historically worked fine, but when people started doing their own generation, solar and such, that cut into how much energy they used from the grid…but they still retained the grid connection, which wasn’t cheaper to provide. What it does is transfer the cost of maintaining the infrastructure onto others.
The only way to make the pricing reflect the underlying costs that the utility companies see – some of which are fixed, and some of which are variable – is to have separate fees for usage (variable) and for grid connectivity (fixed).
All that being said, I think that there may be plenty of room to raise issues with California’s energy policy, including why California’s prices are as high as they are in the first place. But I don’t think that the issue is the existence of a connectivity fee.
Honestly, my winter bill is about $600 per month, I’m not all that concerned with a $20 fixed fee.
That being said, PG&E has been openly hostile toward Californian’s since they were sued in 2017 for the wildfires. Cutting power for two weeks the next year during wildfire season was absolutely them “taking their ball and going home.” Jacking up prices is the same. They have too much power and authority for a private business.
