Electricity Price Increases

[Jstpssng]

Getting back to the original topic, I looked at my bill this morning. We are paying 23.44 cents/kilowatt total cost.

 

[Jstpssng]

I have seen people talking about it but not policy making people, simply critical thinkers and they all say it's impossible unless there's a massive overhaul in electricity infrastructure both in delivery capacity and production which sound like a colosale task.

This doesn't surprise me. It also will drastically increase demand for copper.

 

[ponytug]

I have always wondered if anybody has estimated future use vs planned generation and transmission needs based on the new vision.

Oh my gosh, yes. Lots. I think you can almost see the eyes glaze over as people try to figure the impact of EVs that might be able to be bi-directional, absorbing energy when the price is low (or demand is low), and returning to the grid when the opposite is true. That's without getting into microgrids, home batteries, etc.
We lived through a saga here where the fact that a small number of houses had solar, and exported energy, the local grid was designed only to have power flow from the substation outward, and assumed that the voltage would get lower and lower as the customer got farther away. Solar upended that, giving us all sorts of issues.

My takeaway was that experience is that the old way of centralized power out to customers to distributed power is simple. The new reality of additional small (customer sized) generation is not simple, andthings like bidirectional EVs will make it more the system management and design more complicated if they start to return lots of power to the grid, which they can. I would say that not being simple is not the same as impossible, but the power engineers and planning folks have to switch mental gears in their planning, and that is hard at both the individual and the organizational level, at least in my experience.

Then add in monster customers like data centers that can be built in a fraction of the time of transmission lines, and things start to get crazy in load prediction terms. Utilities, I think, have gotten used to slow, cookie cutter design processes that can take a decade to design and build things. Fine; I understand that they have to do ROI that can stretch fifty or more years, so they have to get things right in terms of future costs to stay in business, but that lethargy makes them sitting ducks in a fast moving power demand environment. If every data center becomes self sufficient with (fill in the blank) power source and batteries, the power utilities will miss out on enormous amounts of revenue, and not just from data centers, but from other companies and individuals who drop off of the grid, which is the nightmare scenario for power utilities.

This doesn't surprise me. It also will drastically increase demand for copper.

As the voltage goes up, aluminum becomes the preferred conductor, so probably not much in reality. Copper is 58% more conductive by density, but weighs 3.3 times as much. For home use, where there are lots of little connections to make, copper is more resistant to installer errors, and less prone to thermal expansion damage that leads to loose connections and fires.

All the best,

Peter

 

[Larry Caldwell]

That be nice... I wrote that because of the EV argument treads over the years and apparently according to the research of some individual the electricity is supposed to get cheaper (I don't doubt they actually found that information) as the years comes despite a aging infrastructure, growth in population and increase in demand. So because of that I don't believe it one bit, electricity will become more expensive it simply has too and they will tax the fossil fuel to keep electricity cheaper then fuel to sell their EV mandate.

The tax breaks are what stuck us with the dependence on fossil fuels. Other than road taxes, the only tax on fossil fuels I am aware of is Texas, which taxes every teaspoon of crude. Are there taxes on coal and natural gas?

 

[Rockbadchild]

The tax breaks are what stuck us with the dependence on fossil fuels. Other than road taxes, the only tax on fossil fuels I am aware of is Texas, which taxes every teaspoon of crude. Are there taxes on coal and natural gas?

I was talking about the future, it will come, that's what they are doing in Canada and other part of the world.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

As the voltage goes up, aluminum becomes the preferred conductor, so probably not much in reality. Copper is 58% more conductive by density, but weighs 3.3 times as much. For home use, where there are lots of little connections to make, copper is more resistant to installer errors, and less prone to thermal expansion damage that leads to loose connections and fires.

Around here, transmission lines are copper clad steel above ground, aluminum underground. I ran across an article years ago that one of my college buddies, John Stovall, was Engineer In Charge of the "first commercial superconducting power line." If anybody could do it, John was the guy. He was scary smart. That was years ago and nothing ever came of it, so that technology is still waiting in the wings. Superconducting DC transmission lines would make wind power practical.

Redesigning the grid for distributed generation will certainly be expensive. I just saw an article that Switzerland (?) is experimenting with lining the space between rails with solar panels. Uploading the power to the rail lines would be convenient, but trains don't use that much power. I doubt rail lines could handle megawatts, particularly at their low voltages.

 

[Shenandoah MF1760]

As the voltage goes up, aluminum becomes the preferred conductor, so probably not much in reality. Copper is 58% more conductive by density, but weighs 3.3 times as much.

All the best,

Peter

Copper may weigh more, but that difference becomes less when you need twice or more aluminum to provide the same amount of power.

 

[Jstpssng]

What tax breaks?

The tax breaks are what stuck us with the dependence on fossil fuels. Other than road taxes, the only tax on fossil fuels I am aware of is Texas, which taxes every teaspoon of crude. Are there taxes on coal and natural gas?

I've been asking my question for years yet most answers are actually the same expense writeoffs which every other business gets.

 

[ultrarunner]

The only person who said this was Lewis Strauss, head of the Atomic Energy Commission, who wasn't an engineer. His analogy was to water which he said was too cheap to meter. I'm not sure where that came from since I've always had a water meter.

Entire California water districts with abundant water were without residential meters… friends both in Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe were on such flat rate systems…

That all changed with a State Law mandating meters.

Districts were not successful in challenging as some said they only provide seasonal cabin water or water is abundant.

At Tahoe it became a huge infrastructure project as new lines were put in at depth…

 

[ultrarunner]

Interesting cost data on production but I believe distribution is not included…

Shows Hawaii as most expensive…

Electricity Rates by State (October 2025)

Average electricity rates vary from 11.69¢ to 42.49¢ per kWh according to our monthly rate data. Compare electricity rates and monthly bills by state.

poweroutage.us

 

[Larry Caldwell]

What tax breaks?

I've been asking my question for years yet most answers are actually the same expense writeoffs which every other business gets.

You have never heard of an oil depletion allowance? It allows the oil companies to deduct the value of the oil they pump from their bottom line.

 

[ponytug]

Around here, transmission lines are copper clad steel above ground, aluminum underground. I ran across an article years ago that one of my college buddies, John Stovall, was Engineer In Charge of the "first commercial superconducting power line." If anybody could do it, John was the guy. He was scary smart. That was years ago and nothing ever came of it, so that technology is still waiting in the wings. Superconducting DC transmission lines would make wind power practical.

Redesigning the grid for distributed generation will certainly be expensive. I just saw an article that Switzerland (?) is experimenting with lining the space between rails with solar panels. Uploading the power to the rail lines would be convenient, but trains don't use that much power. I doubt rail lines could handle megawatts, particularly at their low voltages.

There's been a superconducting feeder in operation at Fermi labs for forty five years or so, but I think that the trick isn't the lines, it is finding a superconducting material that doesn't need to be at -452F.

View attachment 4007319
Copper may weigh more, but that difference becomes less when you need twice or more aluminum to provide the same amount of power.

The math in the prior post was for equal amperage, so apples to apples. I think that the larger diameter of the aluminum is a little misleading due to the lower density, which means a larger diameter to get enough material to conduct the same current with the same resistance.

All the best,

Peter

 

[rontaki]

As for using your EV or house batteries to feed the grid in times of high demand/low supply, the additional charge/discharge cycles will wear them out faster. Maybe the compensation from the utility company will offset the cost of replacing the batteries, in the case of an older EV they might not be worth replacing. Win for the EV makers...

 

[California]

As for using your EV or house batteries to feed the grid in times of high demand/low supply, the additional charge/discharge cycles will wear them out faster. Maybe the compensation from the utility company will offset the cost of replacing the batteries, in the case of an older EV they might not be worth replacing. Win for the EV makers...

Aren't a lot of EV's leased? So the guy who leased it would be thinking about his net electricity cost, rather than the car's battery life.

Maybe EV's will be required to log this discharge along with odometer readings, for a subsequent owner to understand what he is buying.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I expect grid batteries to be a different chemistry than EV batteries. There are cheaper and more durable batteries not used for EVs because of weight and energy density considerations. A substation could just add an acre.

 

[Jstpssng]

You have never heard of an oil depletion allowance? It allows the oil companies to deduct the value of the oil they pump from their bottom line.

I had to think about this for a while. (I also deleted a previous reply.)
If you bought a fully stocked grocery store you wouldn't declare all revenue from sales as profit. Rather, you would deduct the estimated cost of the goods you sold. Depletions work the same way. They are extracting oil, gas or other minerals which they paid for, and can't be expected to pay taxes on the money twice. It would be like buying a car, fixing it up, then selling it and paying taxes on the full sale price.

 

[ponytug]

I expect grid batteries to be a different chemistry than EV batteries. There are cheaper and more durable batteries not used for EVs because of weight and energy density considerations. A substation could just add an acre.

It depends a lot. Older grid batteries were, and are, using lithium ion batteries (e.g. Tesla), just like phones and laptops. Newer grid scale batteries are more commonly lithium iron phosphate batteries, also used now in many EVs, e.g. BYD, Tesla, and a few others.

There are other battery chemistries around, but not in common use, at least not yet. E.g. Flow batteries, sulfur, solid state, sodium batteries. At the moment, it feels like battery chemistries are a bit of Baskin-Robbins, with lots of flavors, but not many rolled out, as not many types have broken through to the proven reliability (MTBF) levels needed, nor the decay rate, nor the safety (e.g. not bursting into flames), nor the cost/MWh. There are lots of companies, and lots of people, trying to move the needle at the moment. In my opinion, it is one thing to get a battery chemistry to work on a bench, and something very different to get MTBF over 40,000 hours over MWh of discharge. I worked for a bit for a company that had a battery recall of their batteries that ran to north of nine million batteries, all caused by a glitch in the manufacturing line. I have no idea what the final cost was to the company.

Stay tuned: these are interesting times.

All the best,

Peter

 

[MossRoad]

Yes, it was that foundry. I always enjoyed seeing their products around the area, rather like seeing the Neenah foundry products.

All the best,

Peter

We have the Neenah stuff all over this area.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

There's been a superconducting feeder in operation at Fermi labs for forty five years or so, but I think that the trick isn't the lines, it is finding a superconducting material that doesn't need to be at -452F.

The math in the prior post was for equal amperage, so apples to apples. I think that the larger diameter of the aluminum is a little misleading due to the lower density, which means a larger diameter to get enough material to conduct the same current with the same resistance.

All the best,

Peter

Agreed, as aluminum conductors weigh approximately 3 times less for the same conductor size vs copper.
For aluminum needing to be sized larger to have the same ampacity as a copper conductor the weight of the Al conductor is still around half the weight of Cu.
Half the weight factors into installation being easier to install and lower transportation cost.

 

[ultrarunner]

Almost as if prepping the public to expect it…

MIT professor makes startling prediction about the future of US energy prices — here's what you need to know
MIT professor makes startling prediction about the future of US energy prices — here's what you need to know