This is my point. When the proponents for the 16th amendment said a new income tax would only be a few percent and would only effect a small number of the uber rich (and no one else), not enough people asked "but what about tomorrow.... and next month.... and next year?" Now look at the mess we're in. As for net metering.... a power company shouldn't be forced to pay retail to buy someone's excess electricity. It's the power company that has the billions of dollars in infrastructure to get power to (and from) a customer's property.
Good observation! Of course, the utilities are caught in a bold face lie with "equity" as if they were Robin Hood defenders of the poor. We can see their record profits and look how much money the corporate executives are making. Hint: the utility CEO's make *millions* in total compensation a year. Somebody's got to pay for that right?
THIS. They could've labeled it better like a generic "franchise fee" like cable companies do or a surcharge and put it on all bills for maintenance and expansion. Just wait till your DMV learns of the nontransferable no credit/refund/exchange gas tax recovery surcharge for hybrids, CNG, electric cars our is $100-$200 a year plus registration, etc.
@@Pentti_Hilkuri Not sure what you mean by "always". Because that's opposite of typical supply/demand economics. In macroeconomics, the Law of Demand says that when demand goes down then the price goes down and vice versa. The only time when price an go up with decreasing demand is when the supply goes down more than the demand. Such as if the infrastructure to make the product is being dismantled. But nope! The electricity supply is *not* going down either! In fact, the price of electricity should go *waaay* down! Because the demand is decreasing (solar homes not buying as much grid power) *and* the supply is increasing or staying the same (solar homes exporting surplus power to the grid). This is what happens when the demand curve is shifting left while the supply curve is shifting right. Its a double-whammy to knock down the price of the commodity. No wonder the utilities are terrified!
Duke says "only a small number of customers are affected," people are missing the point. Duke and other power companies are conditioning the public for such "minimum charges." Once customers are use to this charge it will start to be raised. Next thing you'll know the $25 charge will become $50 and so forth.
They’ve been the raising I’m here in Toledo for a while they used to be $35 just to have electric on now it’s $75 just have electric on that’s with absolutely zero energy use
@@northernstar2064 Same here in Houston. I live in a subdivision with a “MUD” and even when I use no water, I have a $66.00 minimum bill. Ridiculous. No incentive to “save” water.
What they don’t tell you is that it is illegal to be completely off grid in many states. They actually force you to use the local electric companies which forces you to have to pay the electric companies even if you don’t need them. I think that is called a monopoly.
It's soft communalism. If every rich guy took his home and Factory off the grid, it would not be a viable or affordable thing. If they all ran their operations off generators only they can afford the "Poor" would be living in Victorian days at home. Like the roads, even full time pedestrians pay for them, Motorists pay for Transit, the only MEGA infrastructure I can think of that is pay to play are toll bridges and they are probably subsidized. These people in the Thumb should get a exemption, and there should be one based on how many Sq/ft you have per square foot of home. Or what percentage of you energy is home made. A heavy slap in the face to invest that much "for the greater good" and be told you were a fool.
We are in Hawaii and are on full solar, but when you cannot charge the PV bc of weather, you gotta pull from the grid! HELCO has been charging these fees for years now! Welcome to reality , folks!
Just like that "Fair gas act tax" where gas stations can use other gas stations for having low gas prices than competitors. They make new laws to break old laws.
"....customers called our news room trying to find out what is wrong." I can tell you what's wrong. They are losing revenue so they decided that since you found a way around a huge electric bill, they've decided to steal the money from you instead. It's wrong, unethical and should be illegal.
@clot shots You are aware the reason people are staying on the grid is that they sell power back to the grid, right? The electrical company benefits from distributed production but they're ripping people off
@@priestesslucy3299 tsk tsk tsk. Nobody is getting ripped off. This story is 3 months old. Ron DeSantis vetoed the bill. Net metering lives on on Florida and they can't charge a mandatory minimum for solar customers. It's really funny to see all of these people who think this is law. They obviously aren't solar customers and have no clue about anything they are raging against.
@clot shots Yes. Someone has to. Let it be those who aren't changing to "renewable" energy. I want to be charged for what I use. Not what other people use. Charging for services not used is stealing. Period. If there is a way to get off the grid without investing $10,000 to 100,000 in material and installation costs while still leading a normal life, I and more than half of America are waiting for your solution.
unlikely, as was mentioned, each homes electric bill pays to upkeep the power grid. when you have no bill you aren't paying to upkeep the grid. in short, these people still need the service on cloudy days when their solar isn't keeping up, if they don't like the extra charge, they can buy a battery bank to power their home and go fully off grid. however that costs more than paying $30 a month, batteries have finite lifespans, so do converters and charge controllers as well as wiring and even the solar panels. the only real issue is there is no one explaining this very well to people.
"It really doesn't generate much revenue at all" - Then, obviously, the reason for charging the fee is to discourage people from installing solar panels, not to make a profit.
The fee is their to cover the costs of utility infrastructure to the home, even these solar powered homes need the utility for night time and cloudy day events. If they dont want to pay for maintaining the utility service, then they should remove the utility wires from their home and go full solar, even at night.
@@dave8599 Thank you Captain Obvious. Let me explain. I have a small house with 11 solar panels on my roof and net-metering. Those 11 panels do not cover all my electrical needs. They produce power all day, but at night they do not power my lights. During the day, net-metering sells my surplus electricity back to the grid and I pay for the electricity my lights use at night. This Summer, when my air conditioner is running almost constantly, I will not be sending anything back to the grid and I will pay for those kWh from the grid. However, during sunny temperate months my panels generate *almost* as many kWh as I use, so my bill last month was $2.08. The month before it was about $20 and the month before that about $30. In my case the result is that my solar installation only *lowers* my electric bill. But consider the person who has a large solar installation that consistently sells back to the grid. Let's say he generates a surplus that obligates the power utility to send a check to him every month. Should not that "access fee" be subtracted from his check? Perhaps they are and the Florida utility is 'only' charging a $25-$30 minimum charge fee on the months where his solar negates them from selling him grid electricity. But that was not how this was presented: it sounded as though they charge him at least $25/mo. no matter how much solar electricity he sends their way. Think of it this way. Suppose poor Mother Hubbard lives in a one room tar-paper shack with one lightbulb dangling from the middle of the ceiling. Should the electric utility charge her $25 per month for the "privilege" of powering her one light bulb each evening when normally she would be billed maybe a dollar?
@@etoineschrdlu9382 You are using millions of dollars of electricity infrastructure and making the grid unstable with your retarded solar energy that does not produce any net energy and would never be installed without government subsidies. the energy companies are forced to pay you retail energy prices for your tiny amount of grid destabilizing energy. energy is produced and sold distributed by producers in hundreds of megawatts at wholesale. ill be glad when this whole system finally breaks. you retards are not gonna survive it
@DeathNikki Actually, i never dial out on my landline. So essentially I am paying for a phone line I rarely use. Everyone seems to forget that the grid goes both ways. The power line to my house transports electricity both to and from my house. And I certainly have seen the fees on my electric bill that have no relation to the kWh's either of us generate or use. The utility pays me for power my solar panels generate during peak hours and in return I pay them for the power I use above and beyond that which my panels produce. My bill still has those fees included every month, no matter how much power I sell back to the power utility. I am paying them a monthly "minimum fee" - but I am paying them in electricity instead of dollars.
People trying to lower their environmental impact by going solar are being punished for it, in some areas its illegal to collect rainwater to water your garden, to have large food gardens, to keep a couple of chickens. They don't want people to be at all self sufficient.
And now roll out forcing people to have to buy electric vehicles… You see the scam yet?? It’s never about “saving the planet”, it about CREATING MONOPOLY!!
The electric companies put papers in the bill telling you how to cut back on your usage, then turn around and raise your bill if you don't use enough. Ridiculous
@@aidenralston5477 Cuba, where the standard of living was like twice as good as the US before we stepped in Also funny how he never even said anything about communism in the first place. Trigger happy much?
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This is exactly why those with solar panels and or other alternative electric generation for their homes are forced to "tie into the grid". If you do not tie into "the grid" they will penalize you for not doing so.. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Personally I would rip the lines from the poles to my house out and leave the meter sitting on the curb. The government should not be allowed to force you into being a customer of some corporation or sell your services to them. It is your choice to make not theirs.
You are commenting on a 3 month old story. Even more funnier than that is Ron DeSantis vetoed the bill and none of this is happening now. Do a little research if you want to comment on old stories like this. I'm sure you've heard the new saying, tell me that you're not a _______ without saying that you are not ________. In this case fill in the blank with "solar customer" I am, and as a result I stayed on top of this law because it would have affected me.
@@fauxque5057 have you ever thought that maybe, this is still an on-going issue somewhere else in the country and not just Florida, and his opinion is valid either way. Idk maybe you should do some research on it
Not the Fueling Station but that's already been in the works by multiple States to force Hybrid/Electric vehicle owners to pay additionally each year because they aren't getting that sweet tax Revenue when you don't have a 10 MPG MAGA Truck.
@@kimballspeakthreetheater3318 everything will be electric someday and if they build the roads off gas tax theyre just gonna get worse and worse. If you dont want the charge couldnt you just have them not connect you to the grid?
@@chickenpuncher1674 god i hope not. There isn't enough lithium to support this and graphene isn't the miracle is was marketed as a decade ago. We can't afford to support it nor can the environment handle the strip mining. We need a healthy mix. Also it costs as much or more money in most cases to replace electric or hybrid batteries than an engine rebuild costs. An engine goes hundreds of thousands of miles and 20+ years. Some cars outlive their owners. Batteries begin rapidly failing at 5 years almost without fail. This forced electric craze will be the doom of the working class.
@@oceanbytez847 The Battery replacement cost vs Engine repair cost argument has been disproved time after time. You almost NEVER need to replace the entire Battery, only the malfunctioning Cell. This is an issue Prius drivers (like myself) have great knowledge in and 20+ years of real world provable data. It is accurate that we need a healthy mix, but that mix needs to lean heavier into ultra efficient Hybrids and outright outlawing Coal gasified Trucks and other vehicles that can't even manage 10 MPG. The problem lies with Politicians and their being owned by the Energy sector.
It always start small. Only $30, & only affects a very small number of customers. But this is about conditioning the public to accept the idea of minimum bills. Once this becomes normalized they'll continue to raise the minimum till it affects nearly everyone. Also this idea would spread to all other utilities.
Exactly, ATM cards were free, I'll take the 2 bucks everytime someone uses it! Seat belt law in Ohio started at 5.00, now its 100.00. And so it goes, start off slow ,,, then get it all!
They did this in my area when they deregulated the energy providers. My last mile connection supplier charges a $20 a month connection fee for gas and $15 a month meter fee for electricity. I can buy my gas and electric from any supplier on the market or not use it at all. But if I want it there to be available, those are the minimum fees I have to pay. And if something goes out, every number I call goes back to the last mile providers outage line. They handle all the pipes and electrical lines in the area regardless of who I buy the actual energy from. It's been this way in my area since the mid 2000s. My bills average about the same since then too.
Whats insidious is u may actually be paying for infrastructure in entirely different areas in all your bills. For example, the county in my area put in a new law years ago that required anyone who pierced the roadway, so the water company, cable companies, etc had to replace all lanes of the roadway 150' in each direction where they pierced it to current code standards, even if it was just a one inch hole. It just so happened that they also changed the code and required a reinforced roadbed for most roads. So when u got your water bill, cable bill etc these costs were passed on to the customer who already pays taxes to keep the roadways maintained. So they are double, triple, quadruple dipping all over the place.
For decades we were told to cut our electricity usage: turn the lights off when you exit a room, buy energy efficient appliances, forced to buy LED lightbulbs, turn your thermostat up in the summer, on an on. Electric companies pushed the business model of "stop using so much of our product". Now that people have found a way to stop using so much of their product they have a minimum charge.
Good ol’ moRon Doucheantis! He can write a bill literally overnight to disparage the LGBTQ community and Disney but he can stop the power company from price gouging. 😂😂😂😂😂
Here's The ULTIMATE Question.... Will Florida Residents do something about it? or will they surrender to the politicians who allowed such laws to exist!?
"The Fee is to ensure that everyone is still paying for the upkeep of the grid that they're still using" Yeah...the Grid....that the government says you HAVE to tie into, otherwise you can't install solar. They won't LET YOU live off grid. Funny how that works... Let's face it. It's not for electrical grid upkeep. It's for shareholders.
I love how the female anchor had the guts to put the truth out there and proudly taking ownership of what everyone was thinking. The power companies doing everything they can just to keep those checks coming
As long as the power companies keep doling out money to politicians through PACs the checks will keep coming. We are not governed by those we elect to govern us. We are governed from corporate boardrooms. Both parties are useless. They both accuse each other of being unfit to govern. They are both right.
@@wanaraz But they are not. That is why the system is outdated and crumbling. You honestly equate as fair, someone that spends thousands to install solar to the average customer that doesn't do anything but consume?
In the United States, the federal government has paid US$145 billion for energy subsidies to support R&D for nuclear power ($85 billion) and fossil fuels ($60 billion) from 1950 to 2016. We are paying for the infrastructure and utilities. The utility companies are merely profiting from both ends.
This should be illegal considering they have a monopoly on the electricity in the area. They can jack up the prices, and customers can't simply switch to a different provider.
@@dannymartial7997 no but I know the solar is only like half of what you would need to do so I'm sorry you thought you could use the grid to make your relatively small investment of just solar panels and grid tie inverters run your house all the time and it's $30 to keep the grid up and running
The fees always starts small and only affect a few... That is how the income tax started. What you really have to worry about is local governments taxing solar at a higher rate like they have started doing with electric cars.
Exactly. We had free parking in the small town I live in the city streets. Then it went to $3 an hour and now they have raised it to $5. It never stops hurting financially the little guy.
Here's The ULTIMATE Question.... Will Florida Residents do something about it? or will they surrender to the politicians who allowed such laws to exist!?
When I lived in Rural Pa our Electric company made a big thing out of saving energy. We followed their recommendations and lowered our bills. Well suddenly the Co requested a rate hike and soon our bill was up higher, The Company said they lost so much money on conservation they had to charge more. You can’t win!
Same where I am too. My usage has gone down greatly what with conservation, room darkening shades, power efficient appliances and lights.... and my usage has dropped... but the rates keep going higher because of those fixed costs of running the power plants, they need to make up for it. Absolute madness.
Here's The ULTIMATE Question.... Will Florida Residents do something about it? or will they surrender to the politicians who allowed such laws to exist!?
I am one of the "seasonal customers" and when I saw this charge I was infuriated. I called and had them shut my service off. They screwed me over for 3 months but at least I caught on to the game before too long. That's the problem with auto pay.
What? Why? If you rent an apt for a year and are gone for some months, do you expect the owner to let it go while you’re away? Owner still has to maintain the grounds, fix the roof if a tree falls, pay the property taxes, pay the mortgage, keep the heat working in winter so pipes don’t freeze. Power utility has to do comparable things to keep the grid up. If the tenant claims to be “infuriated” while away and skips the rent, we all know what that’s called: deadbeat.
@@Nill757 False equivalence. If those things cost money, you charge for those services. You know, the ones that are actually provided. You don't charge a 'you're not using enough of our service' fee. Grid maintenance should be paid by people using the grid. Not people who are, at the request of the utility companies, reducing the load on the grid. If you are going to try and make a pro-capitalist argument, learn how capitalism works. If you walk into a Macy's and you buy a shirt, and when you get the total, its way more that what the price tag said, and you find there is a 'we didn't use the full capacity of our warehouse' fee tacked on the end, you have a right to be pissed. Those warehouse costs should be included in the shirt price, unless management is incompetent at pricing.
@@edeasley144 So if a storm causes a line to go down that impacts your house/building/etc. during one of those months you aren't paying are you okay with them not fixing it? I'm not saying minimum charges like this are the way to do it but if you are connected to the grid and have an expectation that you will use it at least part of the time you should also help pay for the maintenance and repair of the grid. If what you pay during the period of time you use it is not enough to cover the average cost of maintaining a line to your type of building then you should pay for the shortfall. This is similar to the gas tax vs. electric vehicle problem.
@@kamX-rz4uy Then they should have a line charge everyone pays regardless of useage. A company shouldn't be charging because they can't bill you enough for their product you're consuming. As stated above line repairs, emergencies, etc, should already be built into the cost.
Exactly…I loved that too! The other two could have grown a ‘pair’ and agreed with her, but I guess nowadays men don’t have anything between their legs. 🤬😡
"only a smally number of customers are impacted..." Somehow, I have a hard time trusting that statement. A lot has been left unsaid and should invite more scrutiny.
Isn’t it amazing that no matter what you do, or what cost cutting measures you take, UTILITY COMPANIES STILL GET THEIR POUND OF FLESH. WE had a terrible ice storm this year, went without power for days( we were lucky) and now the utility raised their rates so we pay for the cost of their repairs. Since when is business without risks? They just make us pay for them.
Well as long as we keep rolling over and accepting it, they'll be no limits for them to keep doing it. We are so separated and individualistic as a society that it's easy for them to do as they will...I mean who will stand up and stop them when no one will band together and speak out.
don't those businesses have insurance? Or are they just doubling down, having their insurance give them a wad of cash and then charging the customers too?
@Jonny Croxville exactly, Jan. 6th people stood together. Fought and died together, and Now prison time. No labeling Necessary, domestic terrorism And treason are plainly evident. Now to organize and protest Utilities companies is totally a American right.
Minimum charging is a slippery slope. In the UK they introduced a daily standing charge for both gas and electricity. The charges started off fairly low, but have more than doubled in the last year.
Yep, same in Australia., its called a "service charge", Its a charge just to be connected to the network. In Australia it can be almost half the bill. We are charged around $1 per day just to be connected to the network. Over 3 months its around $90. This is coming to everyone in western countries.
“Said Borenstein: “When a household installs solar in the service areas of the three California investor-owned utilities (PG&E, SCE and SDG&E), the customer saves 20-30 cents for every kilowatt-hour their system produces, but the utility costs only go down by 7-9 cents. (Studies that reach similar conclusions here, here, and here - none paid for by entities with a financial stake in the answer). The extra 10-20 cents are avoided by that household, but those fixed costs still have to be paid…. “It has been well documented - and surprises no one - that households with solar are disproportionately wealthy (as well as disproportionately white). So, when a customer installs solar, their share of the fixed costs are shifted to other ratepayers who are poorer on average,” he added.”
Simply report this extra fee(s) to the IRS on your taxes. If the IRS see this as a way the utilities are making extra money from you and they don’t report it, they will get audited. (You can do this with every bill you have to make sure companies don’t take advantage of you. Up to you to show how much money you send to each biller per year on your taxes. They do it to us.)
“People,we’re thinking about solar, now they are pulling back” That’s the point. ….. they don’t want you to be self sufficient. Here’s an hint, stop electing sociopaths that hate you
Learn the truth about solar and wind and you will never buy solar or wind unless there isn't an alternative. If it was a true solution to cleaner power it wouldn't have to be subsidized by the government.
@@lordrayden3045 Beats me. Not sure what your point is unless you think I am anti solar because I am pro oil. I just know solar and wind are not the solution. The "Climate Change" group is pushing it to create another bureaucracy that can be exploited for generations to come. If you don't believe me they never mention current technologies that could put them right where they claim they want to be by simply implementing them today. Research thorium for power or methanol to fuel our automobiles. Also research how much energy it takes to make a solar panel then look at how much that panel generates during its lifetime. Don't be surprised if you find out the average panel fails before it gets to recover the cost it took to make it. It's what they are not telling you and that is a lot.
They need to make it fully legal in Florida for solar customers to disconnect from the grid and install battery backup systems. Otherwise, these utilities will continue to screw over their trapped customers.
Nobody goes off grid with just batteries. That’s a carnival pitch. Everybody off grid in a full time residence or business uses fossil generators. “trapped customers” Do you also gripe about professional farmers and clothing manufacturers, or do you imagine you can escape that “trap” by growing all your own food? Pay your damn utility bill, or go off grid.
@@Nill757 You missed the point entirely. State code requires a homeowner to be hooked up to a utility company, even if the homeowner can generate their own electricity. Maybe you shouldn't comment on topics about which you're utterly clueless.
What do you think it would cost to to buy enough batteries to store enough power for an entire household? I can assure you it's more than $30 a month. When you're hooked up to the grid, the grid acts as your battery, and you don't have to maintain and replace it over time.
@@cjones7588 Yes the grid acts as backup for rooftop solar. The problem is that rooftop owners don’t pay for that very valuable connection. Net metering lets them skate. The cost of the grid is still there of course, so the utility raises its rates to cover the fall in revenue, which falls mainly on the poorer population.
This is outrageous. Those people spent thousands of dollars to have solar panels put on their homes. And now they're being hit with a minimum charge every month. OUTRAGEOUS.
I'm 90% efficient here in NYC. I buy energy from PSEG for about .45cents per kilowatt and when I have excess production they buy it for about .05 cents from me. The monthly charge for the grid is about $15 per month regardless you consume energy or not. The entire thing is a scam.
@@tedmarakas2626 That's high way robbery. They are taking your surplus electricity for $0.05 pennies on the dollar , but selling you there's $0.45. It would be nice if you could charge them, your accounting fee, grid maintenance fee. Your home is like a mini substation. They need to pay for that also. At least the Europeans got it right. American greed. Sheesh
This is what happens when people try to do the right thing. Either the government or a large corporation steps in and wants to take advantage of those people. I am certain we will see the same happen when electric vehicles are the norm. The government will have to make up for the gas tax that supposedly pays for roads and infrastructure and pass it on somehow to electric vehicles. In the end it is the people who can least afford it that will end up paying for it.
the two problems actually go hand in hand. if everyone on the road switched to electric, the power grid would be so insanely overtaxed trying to charge that many cars at once. best idea is to get solar in your home and then buy electric car so you're not paying for the electricity to charge it, as well as ease the strain on decades old electric infrastructure that was never meant for millions of electric cars charging. unfortunately once the govt/media says "electric is bad" the majority of sheeple will just agree instead of doing their own research and due diligence. i can't tell you how many times i've heard people say "well i heard solar was worse for the environment than fossil fuels" ...... i'm like where tf do you get this information????
The gouvernment only steps in because the corporation donate millions of dollars for fossile energie laws to stay in the past and want climate change with more tornados and wood fires in summer. There can be more workers in green energy as in fossil energie if they would change the strategie.
Australian utilities have a "connection charge" for infrastructure regardless of consumption. Also, the feed-in rate for your excess solar energy to the grid pays a pathetically low rate which equates to a further fee. I would suspect a future fee for off-grid battery installations to recover lost connection fees :( The state of Victoria has a 2.5 cents PER KM for EVs. Supposedly to recoup some of the petrol tax lost. The issue here is that petrol tax is a federal tax, not a state revenue. During a long drought a few years ago, the State of Victoria introduced a requirement to register the installation of each rainwater storage tank to qualify for a water rebate ... we knew what registration meant in the long term though !!!
Imagine being on a planet that when you're trying to help out the planet and make things easier in life others will fight and do what they can do to make it worse because of greed and jealousy
I agree divergent thg, the 'games' we play with each other are really messed up. People want to live a good life and be amazing creators not to be handicapped slaves being thrown in cells for not paying taxes, permits, following millions of made up rules etc. On God's green earth.
That's exactly what SRP (Salt River Project) electric utility in Arizona does, for Solar customers they charge them a minimum fee of at least $30/mo. You could sell more electric back to your utility company than you generate and they will still charge you at least $30/mo, this is a thing happening across the country. I live in Arizona, and came across this video and was just curious. It's maddening, the people need to stand together against these companies and vote out the politicians who support these policies.
I live in Arizona and I've been off grid for 30 yrs. And I haven't used a generator for months sense up grading my system. Yes I have AC also. 40 - 240 watt pannels used from San tan solar two 48 volt forklift batteries with a two 5000 watt diy all in one inverters from midnight solar.
Do you have aps here in az from casa grande here and we got solar 3 months ago. 54k for 12kw dc system and ac production of 9.5kw peak out put. I was planning g on just using a limited grid tie inverter to keep the cost low and use a battery bank to store any excess production with out selling back to the grid. Was going to use the back yard for laying out 30 to 60 pannels witch is about 24kw of maximum power production. Just pannels along on 60 pannels or 2 pallet would be 14k. And this is not including the grid tie limiters or cables or even 15kwhrs of storage. Could of done ot for 40k all together a d still have a cheap bill. Man parents don't listen when their son has a better solution.
Im in south texas and i had to sign documents saying that if i produced 100% of my energy there will still be a $25 account service charge each month… which compared to paying $225 a month, that seems like a steal… however, my wife and i got solar in case there are any more outages and the essential rooms would be covered so we didnt freeze to death or so our produce didnt go to waste
I'd like to see what happens when people just start calling to terminate their service. It sounds like what little they're paying now isn't even for energy. It's for infrastructure that they aren't even using anymore.
@@KosstAmojan 90% of solar are still using the grid if you don’t have storage capabilities then you are always using the grid. There are grid forming solar solutions out now but at night without storage you are using the grid. If it rains all day you want the grid, also people think that these solar systems run flawlessly 100% of the time. This is not true they break down and need to be maintained. You need the grid as a back up only. Paying a fee for something completely reliable is not a bad trade off. I am a solar electrician, the industry is becoming more efficient every day. In about 10-15 years we may not need the grid as much as we do now but it will always be useful to have.
The people with solar are already in a good position to do that. All they have to do is buy a bit of extra production and batteries and then cut the cord. As should we all, but it's a huge investment for people starting out
Four more clueless people. This is a 3 month old story Ron DeSantis vetoed the bill Stop ranting and raving about something that is not happening. LOL.
Honestly, I can understand having a small monthly bill-where I live, Southern California Edison charges $10.50 a month. Even if you only use the grid at night (when your solar panels don't work) they still have to maintain the lines and transformers (a new pole-mounted transformer runs about $12k) plus all the other stuff. I doubt SCE is making a windfall profit off it.
Folks this is how it happens. The energy companies are guaranteed a profit. They also donate huge sums of monies to those running for office. If a legislator doesn't vote the way they want them to, well you guessed it! They don't donate to their campaign fund and give those monies to their opponent! Yep the consumer is screwed!
I work for an electric company in the midwest. We are governed by a regulatory committee in each state we operate in. In order to raise rates the company has to show all of it's books for the previous years to show where a rate hike is justified. Yes, the utility company makes a profit. But it is limited by law to around 2 and a half to 3% in the states we operate in. In the mean time the local burger drive in makes 50% profit and the lawyer's office makes 75%. It's easy to bad mouth the utility companies but when there's a storm at 2 a.m. and your power goes out just think about how much money they have to pay a whole crew of guys to climb power poles in a lightning storm to restore your service. Believe me, the salary these guys get isn't enough.
@@igory8698 They do lie to the workers but they can't lie to the regulatory commission. Sorry but utility companies make a lot less profit than the average business, they just make so much on the top line that the bottom line looks pretty large too.
The intent is to get their foot in the door. The next act is to increase the "minimum" and go get rid of the requirement to purchase excess power from individuals completely returning their monopoly.
In my area the gas company has a minimum charge of $68 a month. Out electric/water/sewer company has what they call tiers. Depending on which tier they have you on is what you pay even though you are not using that much, the minimum monthly charge is $80 something. It's ridiculous that we are forced to pay for something we don't get/use.
Where I live have a well I'm surprised that the water company here has not required that a water meter we put in line so they can find a way to get money
Well, realistically they have to make enough to cover the cost of upkeep for the network. Oh WOW, they just mentioned it in the video. That was weird, as I was typing it. But yeah, it costs money to keep a network going. I'm surprised the minimum isn't higher honestly.
Its not just FL, its companies all over doing this, where I live solar is almost useless now since our power company was able to stop paying the full rate for power we produce. They only pay us about a penny per kilowatt hour now. So all you can do is net zero your bill and they also have the minimum bill, but its 50$. You can't go under 50, no matter if you sold them 10,000 kw/h or 1. Oh I wanted to add since its not really mentioned yet anywhere...Our power company also was going to start chaging an "Electric Car" drop in fee, you know, if you have the large 100 or 200amp service drop.. So they know you have an electric car, so now thats an extra 40$ fee per month. Now before I even crank on a light per month, my bill is 90$.
Minimum bills discourage saving for most people, why save energy if your going to have to pay for it anyway. This minimum billing encourages energy waste.
@@neilkurzman4907 I've lived many years on the West coast(silicon valley)so have experienced California's creative ways transferring money from my pocket to the state's way back in the 70's(compared to the mid-west) Anyway the world knows California is out of control. It's population is declining for the first time. Ever
@@MrBigShotFancyPants California’s not like every other state. The citizens are allowed to create initiatives demanding that the state spend money, while also having initiatives making them give them tax cuts. They are in great conflict. And the politicians are forced to do with the people demanded. Silicon Valley exist because it had a lot of cheap land and a cheap workforce. Which doesn’t exist anymore. It also has an aging population, that would do better living in cheaper areas. So don’t act like it’s the politics. There are many very poorly run Republican states. I point out to the poster child of Louisiana. And what do you think Florida is going to do when its insurance industry completely collapses and the only entity offering insurance there is the state? What should we call that Socialism by ineptitude?
Thanks for nickel and diming the people of Florida,even when a individual spends thousands to set up a solar system for their house,when will the tyranny end?
It costs money to maintain infrastructure which anybody with solar who doesn't have an adequately sized battery is still utilizing the utility grid as a virtual battery. That seems like a reasonable fee they are charging but if you don't like it, then spend the money on a battery and cut the cord with the power company.
Berkeley's Borenstein: "All the data shows the customers who put in solar are disproportionately wealthy, and so when customers install solar they are generally shifting cost on the people who are poorer." That’s not debatable. Only discussion now is what to do about it. Sooner Fl kills net metering , sooner the poor benefit.
@@majesticgee7610 If you are hooked to the grid selling power to the utilities then you most certainly are on the grid. Buy the batteries and BMS controls to store your own power. Get a natural gas powered inverter to charge them when there's no sun. I have another surprise for all the solar snowflakes. If there's a storm that takes out the grid they'll shut off your system because of the backfeed your system puts into the grid while they try to repair it. So the reality is you'll be sitting in the dark with the rest of us.
This is disgusting how companies enforce their grip on customers and also solar users to frighten them in some way. From 127 dollars down to 24 dollars with solarpower is insanely good and the companies dont want that to happen. As usual, behind that sceme: Greed
Might as well add more Solar panel to my Florida houses and shed. cut off from the grid if they keep try to more money from us. Solar panel help reduce energy need from the Power grid. Guess have have to buy Solar battery to keep power on a night if I have too.
I appears to solely be an oversight from the new fee being added based on the bill at billing, vs the bill by usage before the sold back energy was added. This is a minor oversight, affected under a dozen people and the only people left affected by the fee after the oversight's potential correction would be peoppe who left their utilities on the grid despite being out of state for an extended period of time or just permanently on a prpperty no one resides at. It costs them money and consideration to be on the grid even just the metering, going out to check and maintain it, and they arent breaking even if you use $5 worth a month.
I somewhat agree. But now imagine is everyone went solar and there was no min fee. Who would be paying for the grid upkeep if everyones usage was only say $17 a month? I mean come on there is no way that would pay for the employees to be out in a storm fixing the grind in the middle of the night. You would very quickly end up with the power companies just shutting shop and then all you would have is your solar except when you run out of battery and its night and you have no way to cool or heat your house. I think they would have done better as just putting it on as a Maintenace type set fee of a fixed amount then trying to push it as a power adjustment.
This is not okay. They are charging you for products that you have not received. It's like going to McDonald's and getting a kid's meal, but being charged for an adult meal because you have to pay enough to upkeep the grill. That's not okay. The government needs to step in and make sure this doesn't happen. Just because you have an excuse, doesn't make it okay to do something.
This reminds me of when wind turbines came out in Texas in the 90's. All the cities passed ordinances restricting the hight that a blade could be. It was ALWAYS well below the optimum operating height. Never forget your city gets a kick back from all, I repeat ALL, utilities based on profit.
And so too those legislators pushing to penalizing green energy! Don’t forget all those lobbyists who they cater to. Sunshine right up the Back ends of Floridians….Republican branded “freedom” yes sir!
The wind mill thing has been a complete failure. It takes a dump truck of power to get them moving ,they ignite into catastrophic fires.. yeah a failure...
A long time ago someone said they were charged minimum amounts on everything-utilities, phone, garbage, etc.-despite not being home the entire month; he called it “the cost of doing nothing”. Time to check your bills and see how much “the cost of doing nothing” really costs.
Here's The ULTIMATE Question.... Will Florida Residents do something about it? or will they surrender to the politicians who allowed such laws to exist!?
People in charge “We need to switch to renewable energy!!!” Normal people *switch to renewable energy* People in charge “not like that!!!” *charges them extra*
It depends on the state in the US.If you have an elected official that receives money from these companies then they can do this, if you have an elected official that is either pro solar or receives money from a company that produces solar panels then you will have an easier time.$$$ talks unfortunately.
@@TheBandit7613 These companies are receiving millions ( if not billions) in subsidies from the Government, they already add an additional fee on the bill for "maintainance" and the solar Panel users are selling off energy for Pennies on the dollar so they can charge 10 times more for it.If you think that energy companies are struggling you are mistaken: these people are fattening up their wallets
Americans have been slaves since 1913 when income tax became a thing but before that we still had roads schools and a military the elites will always find a way to leech off of us and keep us working the liberals in congress got to give themselves a raise and launder that money into their pockets.
In my city in Florida, the water company charges 40$ for a base charge. You have to pay even if you don't use any. This is what happens when monopolies run utilities. You pay up or you don't have any service. I guess taxes aren't fattening their pockets quickly enough.
$10 month water collection fee for the water that comes off the house gutters. I tried to charge them $20 a month for using my roof to collect their water. They laughed at me.
It's suburbs. The cost of running water mains to a cul-de-sac pre-planned neighborhood is not small. But there's only 100 houses or so in a huge land footprint. I'm not saying utilities aren't evil, and don't push their monopolies. They most definitely do. But it ain't helped when most of the country wants to live in suburbs with a staggering land use per person. They can push this stuff through legislation simply by pointing to the millions invested in buildout and upkeep of their sprawling networks. Which btw, councils are all too aware of because they have to build and upkeep road networks to them that are underused for the cost of building them. City councils hate suburban road networks, hate. Huge sink the taxes cannot cover. Always running in the red. So they're predisposed to understanding the utilities plight.
This has already happened in California. For the first few years of owning solar I never received a bill other then a connection fee of $10 monthly and I received about $100 check annually for my surplus energy. I would tell everyone that would listen to get solar because it was so worth it. Now I receive about $200 in electric bills every months for four months in a row after summer and the power company told me it was because I was going over what my solar has been producing and that I get charged a higher rate if I go over. My panels are producing the same as they were from the first day and our habit are generally the same. I paid off my solar in about three years but after that is when the energy bills started to come in. I though I was winning for a minute but you end up just writhing your checks out to a different name.
@@Littlekitten_ That’s a tough question to answer because there is so many variables that are unique to you and your local utility company. Personally, I’m gonna live in my home for another 10 to 15 years therefore I will come out ahead as long as nothing else changes.
so california gov't hates the environment. I thought solar was a good thing to save the planet, and now the land of fruits and nuts pulls this crap!? We live in crazy times.
I live in Alberta, Canada. A number of years back our government deregulated our utilities and now we pay a flat rate charge to be connected to whatever system plus a per unit usage charge for each utility. Our rates have significantly increased across the board for this. Of course the justification was that deregulation would make the markets more competitive and our costs would go down, but that was far from the result.
Deregulation does not only allow a competitive market but you all bought the line, hook and sinker. Deregulation means to not regulate something anymore. That's where electric companies come in. If you deregulated them, the costs skyrocket! Now, there's no enforcement or regulation board to keep the costs affordable. They used dirty psychological tricks to obscure their real motive.
Sorry for you but anyone with more than 2 brain cells know the deregulation is to increase costs so the government/state/county can get more taxes as the companies the provide the serves work together to help push up prices. Have you ever seen one power company provide power significantly cheaper than its competitors?
That’s the key- more competition. In most cases in most cities, there’s only one or two utility companies. So they monopolize the market in each city. Deregulation is the green light for them to come up with the rate and bogus charges they see fit. Consumers have little to say and choice.
@@Lulu-vi4wb Now Canadians must live with it. Let every Western country acknowledge that when governments talk about deregulation, it's never to keep the costs lower. It's about skyrocketing the charges, rates and justification for the increase, no matter how much bull it is. Citizens suffer, companies grow. Don't be like Canada.
Somehow I got skynews in australia on my feed and thats what I tell them as skynews tries to blame the miniscule renewable market in Australia. I was amazed that a country like Australia DOESN"T have a significant wind or solar industry, MOST of it is coal But they just deregulated their energy market and much like HALF of ontarios energy market, california's, and great britain, deregulation ALWAYS means higher prices and worse service. To the point where australia is getting the same brownouts that california did when coal generators simply close down to prop up prices. Ontario's hydro went through the roof when all the nuclear owners who bought the stations for a song jacked up prices, and yet media there also helped blame wind power for the price increases. Its just crazy out there.
In the UK we have standing charges, which got hiked due to the energy Secretary of the time Ed Davey. Saw my gas bill increase to the stage that every £1 on gas I use, I'm paying £3-4 in standing charges. Electricity standing charge also increased. Sadly the changes penalise single/responsible fuel usage people and just enable high abUsage users as we subsidise them with the energy cap that's so unrealistic for single/responsible people as it's 10x as much fuel that they use. But hey, politicians spin it, we pay for it.
"And it's all to make sure the power companies can keep getting those check." "I didn't say that..." "I did." That could have been the entire segment right there.
Here's The ULTIMATE Question.... Will Florida Residents do something about it? or will they surrender to the politicians who allowed such laws to exist!?
GREED. We already cannot afford to live. Duke Energy, Florida Power & LIght, and all other "electric" companies should not be allowed to price gouge like this.This makes a good argument for refusing to allow private companies to run what are essentially public utilities.
One step forward, 10 steps back. And mark my words, those so-called small charges now will go up and up and up and up. It's just like the cleaning products that they call Green cost three or four times more. We need to make a commitment to what needs to be done and restrict people making it more expensive to do it. But, in this country, greed rules.
"I'm so glad I bought solar panels to reduce my energy cost, surely the government or other organizations won't find a way to take money out of my pocket because I'm complying to their eco friendly agenda" "I'm also sure that all those nice free charging stations for my EV won't start charging me for recharging my car once they realize their electric bill is getting too high and there is profit to be made"
Very soon, the government will impose taxes to use charging stations to recoup the gasoline tax revenue. They say it is to maintain the roads.. but they just dump the money in the general fund..
Enron taught utilities around the country how to charge customers by putting another layer between the producer and the customer. Utility companies created new companies to charge a "delivery fee" for the product delivered to the homes. Cost to produce, add cost to deliver (which they already do) made it much more profitable. BG&E created Constellation Energy to charge customers for what they already delivered. Keep in mind, many states have public service commissions that rate increases are approved through. A few years ago, I believe the guy's name is Mayo Shadduck, Constellation Energy CEO, had BG&E stopped maintaining, cutting trees and hazards back along utility rights-of-way a few years ago. He and other Constellation executives collected very large bonuses with the savings. Because of their failure to maintain the right-of-way and protect lines a large storm came through and knocked lines down and power loss to communities served by BG&E. BG&E then went to the commission to ask for a rate hike to cover the costs of fixing and replacing lines they failed to maintain along with lost revenue because power wasn't being delivered to customers. Quite a scam, but elected officials helped them use the commission to scam customers across the state. I'm sure it happens across the country. Enron might not be here any longer, but their business model still is used.
Ah yes, good ol' Enron. They were ahead of their time. The only credit I'll ever give Bush is that when their shananigans were discovered he gave the greenlight to go after Enron with the full force of the government. That's a lot more than can be said about current politicians, sadly.
@@Teutathis ...and they all got away with it. Bushes are satanists don't underestimate them and don't believe for a second that they are going to punish their buddies. Unless, of course, they sacrifice them to the evil one.
So Cal Edison and PG&E in California do the exact same thing. Including allowing customers to sue them, but the companies are allowed to raise rates to pay the lawsuits. Such a scam.
@@tsloan2100 It's a tried and true model. Privatizing profits and socializing losses is the name of the game. We should've never allowed private companies take over and run utilities. There's simply no upside to it other than shareholders making bank.
If they are "self reliant" then why do they need access to the power grid at all? Oh right, because they aren't and that power grid needs to be maintained. Everyone needs to pay their fair share in doing so.
@@KumakOwO unfortunately no, there is a minimum amount nessecary in order to support the power grid regardless of energy consumption. As more and more people move to solar or other means of their own energy production, the income from power will become less and less to a point where maintaining the grid is no longer possible. The companies are simply future proofing themselves from this inevitability.
This is because the government is the property of corporations. The corporations yell "JUMP" and the government says "how high would you like me to jump master?"
The local power company for my entire province was trying to put something like this into place and they got such horrible feedback by not only solar panel users and home owners but some of the government officials were against it and said it was nonsense and no need. They ended up throwing the whole idea into the garbage all together
@@voodoolou3793 actually we don't have to. Those in power expect us to bend-over [and let them stick-it-up-our-a**] whenever they tell us to "bend over". But what did our Founding-Fathers do? They said "F*ck you" and fought back. That's exactly what we have to do. Say "F*ck you" and fight back. There's more of us than-there-are of them. And when we realize that, we can overhoard them. And they're counting-on-us not to realize that. [Which is one-of-the-reasons[--]why they don't invest in QUALITY-Education. A Stupid People is easier to manipulate [and/or deceive] than a Smart People.]
Make no mistake - they are STARTING at $30/month. A power company here in AZ just slapped a $120/month charge on any customers even using solar. And our government signed off on it so fast you couldn't see the pen move.
Imagine going to the grocery story and getting a fee of $20 for only coming in to by a $2 drink. "Its the store maintainence fee, you used the front door, ya gotta pay a minimum fee"
It's not even the same comparison. Most states require utility companies to have access to everyone's home. You can't force them to run a line for free which is why everyone has to chip in.
This is a side effect of regulations that let power companies make most of their money on percentages over 'new construction' but not on the cost of maintaining what they already have. Thank you for the knowledge, John Oliver.
The fact that our legislature is permitting this proves they have all accepted bribes from the electric companies. As for me, I don't need no damned electric company. My solar provides me with more than 100% of what I need and I let my neighbors have the excess for free. I would like to point out that federal law requires electric companies to pay their customers for electricity sent back to the grid by solar customers and this "minimum charge" may be in violation of that law. I would look into it if I were paying that charge.
The world is facing an energy crisis and “we all need to do our part to conserve energy” yet people with solar can no longer sell back their clean energy to help lessen emissions? Also, you can’t charge people for being on a grid they were forced to be on.
In most states you can disconnect from the power system and generate your own, thus avoiding the charges. I was in the generation business for over 30 years and all our plants had to pay the transmission company an interconnect charge which covered the cost of their equipment over 30 years allowing us to sell our power to the market. Now scale this down to a micro level and you have John Doe's solar panel at his house. The equipment to connect his house (transformer, conductor, metering, grounding equipment) has to be paid by him or his neighbors end up paying for it. Its not free. The public is confused by the myriad of politically passed rules and credits. One thing that never changes, is change it self in the business world. Oh by the way all of our plants always and only got wholesale rates when we sold our power, not retail. The retail was added on by the transmission and distribution utilities to recoup their costs.
Then anyone with solar should be able to bill the electric company a bill for the maintenance and upkeap of their solar system because the grid is helping that electric company and the electric company still has to pay for any excess energy they take from that system on top of that at the same rate they charge you
Yeah it would hurt the power companies because then they wouldn't be able to sell power and make money and the fact that the government wants to pass bills and laws that force you to pay and to force you to connect to the power grid just proves that there is nothing but crooked politicians the power company has them in their pocket just like big oil just like every other company in the US it doesn't matter how you vote in this country if you have money you have power and you have control because you can influence anything in anybody you want the system is flawed the system is corrupt and this system is not one I support
i WANT to hurt the power companies. They most definitely want to hurt me and you and everyone else. Tit for tat, and all that. And in the electric companies' case, they most definitely are asking for it.
In the UK and I imagine other countries, we have two charges on the bill, a usage charge, which is based upon usage, and a daily standing charge, which pays for metering support and network charges. And we have competition in the energy supply market. It's not perfect, but it's better than a badly regulated monopoly.
I highly doubt it's a new charge but the first time they went under the minimum fee so it's "new to them" and the news did zero research. Also grid tie doesn't really lower the power plants use bc they have to be ready for peak demand when clouds and stuff go over and they are huge so they have to be already revved up and ready to dump the clutch when needed. Lower power bands are often less efficient so when demand gets really low the power you do use from them is less efficiently made. It's the fatal flaw of grid tie.
I live in Alberta, Canada. My natural gas bill has increased from $97 per month to $155 per month starting in August. A 60% increase. This province is the largest producer of natural gas in Canada!
That's because they can sell that gas elsewhere for now money, so your have to pay that price to get any. The solution? Stop burning the gas if you can. Climate change has been a thing for almost 40 years. Tough if you're in an apartment or renting because you're powerless to change anything. But if you own your own home it might be worth looking at solar + wind.....or at least a home battery to fill up at a cheap time to use the power at an expensive time.
Several decades from now these minimum bills will be around $100-200 when more people go solar. Rates are always raised with claims that it’s to maintain the equipment. Even though we all know it’s to maintain the executives bank accounts
There is a dark side to solar that many are unaware. Here in Sydney Australia, the utilities have dropped the price of power purchased from solar rooftop solar to around 23% of peak price. And it’s actually quite reasonable when you consider the reason. Just about every 2nd roof is feeding the grid between 10am to 2pm when the panels are peaking production. No one is home using this power (only industry / commercial) so the supply is greater than demand, dropping the wholesale price. When everyone comes home late afternoon, the panels aren’t making much but demand is at its peak. There is such a glut that the big hydroelectric power company in the Snowy Mountains is expanding its pump hydro set up to buy this mid day glut (at next to nothing) to pump the water up the hill and then sell it back to the customers at peak price in the evening when they run the water back down the hill. I have had rooftop solar for 12 years now and have take a great interest in the subject.
Buy yourself a battery back up. Look into lifepo4 cells. You can buy raw cells and build your own battery bank for about $130 a kwh. Or you can buy pre-built packs for about $280 a kwh. Anywhere from 10kwh to 30kwh system would be more than enough for a house hold. That would cost anywhere from $2000-$9000. Then you would never pay electricity prices again. Those lifepo4 cells are butter than regular lithium for two reasons. 1: they are incredibly safe when it comes to fire hazards compared to regular lithium. 2: you get about 3000 full charge cycles until your battery capacity is reduced to 80%(ex: a 30kwh pack would reduce to a 24kwh pack after 3000 FULL charges... so draining the pack 20% one day and 80% another would be considered a 1 charge cycle.) That would last about 15-20 years before replacing them. Compare that to regular lithium which is only 300-500 charge cycles. It's actually very affordable now.
We use peak energy in the afternoon and the Morning, heating and cooling. It's cool at night in the warm season. We run the AC a lot and drop the temp down, then after 7pm, it's cooling down by then. We do not need much heat at night in the winter, just the day. Summer days are long so the sun is up at 8pm. Later if you are farther north or south in your case. Public utilities also charge 2-3x LESS than these crooked politician owning private corporations.
So selling excess power back to the utility companies still ends up being given back to them as they will charge you for not using their power. Well, the next logical step would be to just drop off the grid entirely - at least until some new tax/fee gets added on for not being connected. Then again, I believe there are many areas where 'off grid' isn't allowed.
@@e.turduckeny630 Florida also still allows net metering, and no minimum electric bills. This story is 3 months old. Ron DeSantis vetoed the bill. It's a none issue now. Enjoy
In my county it isn't allowed. But my cousin who is a lawyer read the fine print to me. It's illegal but there is almost no teeth in the law. I am completely off grid. I produce more than I need in the summer so I have lines run to my neighbors so they can run their AC units from my private grid for free. My neighbors really like me. Technically I can be arrested. But worst case scenario is a $500 fine. So far after several years nobody is arresting me. I spoke to a cop about it and he said no cop is going to waste their time arresting someone for refusing to be someone's customer. Technically they could take away my home but again, my cousin told me no judge will order my home confiscated for refusing to be an electric company customer. Especially since our county has a five year plan to go off grid itself starting with installing solar for all traffic lights and putting an "illegal" solar electric system on the roof of city hall.
I knew this was coming when they started pushing compact fluorescent bulbs back in the day. They will NOT see a reduction in profits over the environment.
Solar producers can just make enough energy to get off the grid. Nobody is forcing them to be in the grid. Only issue is that currently there aint any affordable power storage for regular people. As long as solar is just part of the energy consumption they need to be part of the grid. And that grid is owned and taken care by power companies so they have pretty much monopoly on this that happen in the grid.
@@samuelsilver8077 Actually yes, most towns are forcing people to be on the grid or you are in code violation. Officially its to prevent bad building practices by constructors. Unofficially, who do you think lobbys town officials to implement such laws requiring all legal housing to have electricity, plumbing, utilities, etc or suffer fines or foreclosures.
And FP&L got a law passed that indicated if you wanted to go "off grid", they could have your Certificate of Occupancy pulled for YOUR house. Reason: They want every house in the state giving them $$$ per year.
Cut Duke out of YOUR grid. Stop selling the excess and instead store it or burn it off. Have them remove THEIR property from YOUR property (charge them a minimum fee to keep THEIR meter and equipment on YOUR property) and then they can't bill you at all and you still should be able to supply your home. Utility companies are boarderline an illegal monopoly. No matter who your "supplier" is you always get your bill from 1 company because they own the infrastructure. In which case, utilities should be covered by taxes and not charged as private companies. If they are private companies, we as consumers have the right to do business without them and if we are not allowed, then they are not a private business they are a monopoly.
These corporations will probably still find a way to charge you. Maybe an "off the grid" bill or lobby$$ legislatures to make boondocking outright illegal. Pushing for a public utility option is far better, because it does what its intended purpose is..being a utility, is not profit motivated and funded by taxes...which ends up cheaper for everyone's out of pocket costs.. Private corporations however do not want to compete with public options for obvious reasons and to many voters they think "Socialized" anything is tantamount to Communist Stalin.
Consider checking with whatever locality taxes and and claims power over you. There might be a hidden building code that forces a grid tie connection to keep the bribes flowing into the power company's hands. Adherence to these codes is optional as long as you don't want an occupancy permit... Lets say you get lucky and your chosen property has no stipulation. A simple change in the greedy bastards laws can reverse it and force you to retrofit. So with a simple stroke of a pen, your plans can be forever altered. Accepting this up front makes life a little easier. Plan for a grid tie-in. Isolate it with a separate power breaker but run a single 20 watt LED light from the grid just so you show consumption (because zero consumption sends up a red flag, forcing armed commandos to descend....sorry, I read to much fiction). Power your home from your local source and pay their minimum fee. Now just hope their drone surveys don't see your "unregulated and untaxed" power source forcing an unwelcome interaction with a building inspector. Either way good luck in your adventures and pray.
Dang! Every electric company I've had in Kansas charges me around $40 a month to just have the darn account. Often all the charges are more than the energy use.
Geez here in australia or in my area you can pay like $1.40 a day service to property charge as well as like 35 cents per KWH. I pay about $120 per 3 months for water well that is the charges like sewerage and having the water there. The water is around 2.50 per thousand litres. My elec at the moment is around 77cents supply charge and 25 cents a kwh but is going up and mine was one of the cheaper ones.
This is just the first step, in a couple years it will go up to 40$, a couple years after that to 50$, so on so forth. Like oil companies not wanting electrical cars for the last 100 yrs, power companies don't want solar power homes/businesses. Conservation is out the window, greed is the name of the game.
Think of your cable bills. How much does it cost to string a cable on a public utility pole? Then a monopoly too? The same for power. Unimaginative leadership has no real insight as to how they can make a transition to alternative energy and money too. Very sad for our country.
I live in SD out electric company has been charging us extra fees due to the winter storm in TX two years ago that shut their grid system down. Energy companies are all about their stake holders not customers.
Another point that everyone seems to be missing is: This “minimum charge” is only the opener for higher “minimum” charges down the road.
Thats what my comment was gonna be about....what charges does this open us up to down the road?....🤷🏾♂️ 👍🏾 great comment...
Oh my! What a cynical point of view. It's as if you have experience dealing with corporations, utilities and the government. LOL
This is my point. When the proponents for the 16th amendment said a new income tax would only be a few percent and would only effect a small number of the uber rich (and no one else), not enough people asked "but what about tomorrow.... and next month.... and next year?" Now look at the mess we're in.
As for net metering.... a power company shouldn't be forced to pay retail to buy someone's excess electricity. It's the power company that has the billions of dollars in infrastructure to get power to (and from) a customer's property.
The will charge more lol the electric company needs to make money .
@@j5892000 they already have more money then they will ever need
Told for DECADES that we're using too much water and electricity, now we're charged for using too less. The audacity of these people
Good observation! Of course, the utilities are caught in a bold face lie with "equity" as if they were Robin Hood defenders of the poor. We can see their record profits and look how much money the corporate executives are making. Hint: the utility CEO's make *millions* in total compensation a year. Somebody's got to pay for that right?
THIS. They could've labeled it better like a generic "franchise fee" like cable companies do or a surcharge and put it on all bills for maintenance and expansion. Just wait till your DMV learns of the nontransferable no credit/refund/exchange gas tax recovery surcharge for hybrids, CNG, electric cars our is $100-$200 a year plus registration, etc.
Always when we use less of something the price goes up and the net result is the same or bigger bill.
@@Pentti_Hilkuri Not sure what you mean by "always". Because that's opposite of typical supply/demand economics.
In macroeconomics, the Law of Demand says that when demand goes down then the price goes down and vice versa. The only time when price an go up with decreasing demand is when the supply goes down more than the demand. Such as if the infrastructure to make the product is being dismantled. But nope! The electricity supply is *not* going down either!
In fact, the price of electricity should go *waaay* down! Because the demand is decreasing (solar homes not buying as much grid power) *and* the supply is increasing or staying the same (solar homes exporting surplus power to the grid).
This is what happens when the demand curve is shifting left while the supply curve is shifting right. Its a double-whammy to knock down the price of the commodity. No wonder the utilities are terrified!
They really said “your carbon footprint is too low, we gotta fix that”
Duke says "only a small number of customers are affected," people are missing the point. Duke and other power companies are conditioning the public for such "minimum charges." Once customers are use to this charge it will start to be raised. Next thing you'll know the $25 charge will become $50 and so forth.
They’ve been the raising I’m here in Toledo for a while they used to be $35 just to have electric on now it’s $75 just have electric on that’s with absolutely zero energy use
@@northernstar2064 Same here in Houston. I live in a subdivision with a “MUD” and even when I use no water, I have a $66.00 minimum bill. Ridiculous. No incentive to “save” water.
@@MB-uy5kh and all the repairs from the meter to your house or still your responsibility!
Same thing as the vaccination ...oh wait you need this booster then this one then this one
@@tylersowa3858 no. No Tyler.
What they don’t tell you is that it is illegal to be completely off grid in many states. They actually force you to use the local electric companies which forces you to have to pay the electric companies even if you don’t need them. I think that is called a monopoly.
Living off the grid is technically not illegal in any of the 50 U.S. states
It's soft communalism. If every rich guy took his home and Factory off the grid, it would not be a viable or affordable thing. If they all ran their operations off generators only they can afford the "Poor" would be living in Victorian days at home.
Like the roads, even full time pedestrians pay for them, Motorists pay for Transit, the only MEGA infrastructure I can think of that is pay to play are toll bridges and they are probably subsidized.
These people in the Thumb should get a exemption, and there should be one based on how many Sq/ft you have per square foot of home. Or what percentage of you energy is home made. A heavy slap in the face to invest that much "for the greater good" and be told you were a fool.
Bingo
Yeah see how that works out when it's dark your solar batteries run dead and you're off the power grid.
@@Wanderlust1972 as well as it should be
“This is called a minimum bill.” I’d call it ripping people off.
Right. If I didn't use it, I shouldn't pay for it.
We are in Hawaii and are on full solar, but when you cannot charge the PV bc of weather, you gotta pull from the grid! HELCO has been charging these fees for years now! Welcome to reality
, folks!
Or theft
Just like that "Fair gas act tax" where gas stations can use other gas stations for having low gas prices than competitors. They make new laws to break old laws.
If you dont pay for it, then have the utility wires to your house removed. Also give back your solar panel tax rebate to the taxpayers.
It's retaliation for people disconnecting from big electricity, plain and simple. At least the female reporter has the balls to say it.
They always out to hurt the people
But they're not disconnected. They still want that main power as back up for pennies a month.
It’s the Republicans in charge of all of Florida that did this for the power companies.
@@justinborysenko3885 And it's only fair right?
Retaliation with the help of your representatives.
"....customers called our news room trying to find out what is wrong."
I can tell you what's wrong. They are losing revenue so they decided that since you found a way around a huge electric bill, they've decided to steal the money from you instead. It's wrong, unethical and should be illegal.
Absolutely!
@clot shots You are aware the reason people are staying on the grid is that they sell power back to the grid, right?
The electrical company benefits from distributed production but they're ripping people off
@@priestesslucy3299 tsk tsk tsk. Nobody is getting ripped off. This story is 3 months old. Ron DeSantis vetoed the bill. Net metering lives on on Florida and they can't charge a mandatory minimum for solar customers.
It's really funny to see all of these people who think this is law. They obviously aren't solar customers and have no clue about anything they are raging against.
@clot shots Yes. Someone has to. Let it be those who aren't changing to "renewable" energy. I want to be charged for what I use. Not what other people use. Charging for services not used is stealing. Period.
If there is a way to get off the grid without investing $10,000 to 100,000 in material and installation costs while still leading a normal life, I and more than half of America are waiting for your solution.
@@fauxque5057 your comment needs to be up front. This is just trying to shove blame on R Desantis.
I'm sure the lawmakers that push this bill are making a profit or kickback from the power companies.
unlikely, as was mentioned, each homes electric bill pays to upkeep the power grid. when you have no bill you aren't paying to upkeep the grid. in short, these people still need the service on cloudy days when their solar isn't keeping up, if they don't like the extra charge, they can buy a battery bank to power their home and go fully off grid. however that costs more than paying $30 a month, batteries have finite lifespans, so do converters and charge controllers as well as wiring and even the solar panels.
the only real issue is there is no one explaining this very well to people.
"It really doesn't generate much revenue at all" - Then, obviously, the reason for charging the fee is to discourage people from installing solar panels, not to make a profit.
The fee is their to cover the costs of utility infrastructure to the home, even these solar powered homes need the utility for night time and cloudy day events.
If they dont want to pay for maintaining the utility service, then they should remove the utility wires from their home and go full solar, even at night.
@@dave8599 Thank you Captain Obvious. Let me explain. I have a small house with 11 solar panels on my roof and net-metering. Those 11 panels do not cover all my electrical needs. They produce power all day, but at night they do not power my lights. During the day, net-metering sells my surplus electricity back to the grid and I pay for the electricity my lights use at night. This Summer, when my air conditioner is running almost constantly, I will not be sending anything back to the grid and I will pay for those kWh from the grid. However, during sunny temperate months my panels generate *almost* as many kWh as I use, so my bill last month was $2.08. The month before it was about $20 and the month before that about $30. In my case the result is that my solar installation only *lowers* my electric bill.
But consider the person who has a large solar installation that consistently sells back to the grid. Let's say he generates a surplus that obligates the power utility to send a check to him every month. Should not that "access fee" be subtracted from his check? Perhaps they are and the Florida utility is 'only' charging a $25-$30 minimum charge fee on the months where his solar negates them from selling him grid electricity. But that was not how this was presented: it sounded as though they charge him at least $25/mo. no matter how much solar electricity he sends their way.
Think of it this way. Suppose poor Mother Hubbard lives in a one room tar-paper shack with one lightbulb dangling from the middle of the ceiling. Should the electric utility charge her $25 per month for the "privilege" of powering her one light bulb each evening when normally she would be billed maybe a dollar?
@@dave8599 But they ARE paying the electric utility - with electricity that the utility *can sell* to other customers instead of dollars.
@@etoineschrdlu9382 You are using millions of dollars of electricity infrastructure and making the grid unstable with your retarded solar energy that does not produce any net energy and would never be installed without government subsidies. the energy companies are forced to pay you retail energy prices for your tiny amount of grid destabilizing energy. energy is produced and sold distributed by producers in hundreds of megawatts at wholesale. ill be glad when this whole system finally breaks. you retards are not gonna survive it
@DeathNikki Actually, i never dial out on my landline. So essentially I am paying for a phone line I rarely use.
Everyone seems to forget that the grid goes both ways. The power line to my house transports electricity both to and from my house. And I certainly have seen the fees on my electric bill that have no relation to the kWh's either of us generate or use. The utility pays me for power my solar panels generate during peak hours and in return I pay them for the power I use above and beyond that which my panels produce. My bill still has those fees included every month, no matter how much power I sell back to the power utility. I am paying them a monthly "minimum fee" - but I am paying them in electricity instead of dollars.
People trying to lower their environmental impact by going solar are being punished for it, in some areas its illegal to collect rainwater to water your garden, to have large food gardens, to keep a couple of chickens. They don't want people to be at all self sufficient.
And now roll out forcing people to have to buy electric vehicles…
You see the scam yet??
It’s never about “saving the planet”, it about CREATING MONOPOLY!!
Ding Ding Ding
Collecting rainwater is illegal? Wow. They do realize laws are meant to fight crime, right? Not ways of survival.
Rainwater law is kinda useful tho... It prevents the reproduction of mosquitoes.
@@slazerlombardi that being illegal is just nonsense, should be regulated instead. Like plumbing, wiring, building standards, etc...
The electric companies put papers in the bill telling you how to cut back on your usage, then turn around and raise your bill if you don't use enough. Ridiculous
It's sad. But what is sadder is that there is no electricity or food in the first place, ahem, communism.
@Jaeger19Ultima Why do people say capitalism? Are you implying communism is better? Go to Cuba and see how that works out.
What companies don't have a minimum payment? I've never hired a plumber or electrician who didnt have a minimum fee
@Jaeger19Ultima You mean corporate socialism
@@aidenralston5477 Cuba, where the standard of living was like twice as good as the US before we stepped in
Also funny how he never even said anything about communism in the first place. Trigger happy much?
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This is exactly why those with solar panels and or other alternative electric generation for their homes are forced to "tie into the grid". If you do not tie into "the grid" they will penalize you for not doing so.. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Personally I would rip the lines from the poles to my house out and leave the meter sitting on the curb. The government should not be allowed to force you into being a customer of some corporation or sell your services to them. It is your choice to make not theirs.
You are commenting on a 3 month old story. Even more funnier than that is Ron DeSantis vetoed the bill and none of this is happening now. Do a little research if you want to comment on old stories like this.
I'm sure you've heard the new saying, tell me that you're not a _______ without saying that you are not ________. In this case fill in the blank with "solar customer" I am, and as a result I stayed on top of this law because it would have affected me.
Very unamerican
@@fauxque5057 have you ever thought that maybe, this is still an on-going issue somewhere else in the country and not just Florida, and his opinion is valid either way. Idk maybe you should do some research on it
just had solar put in wish I can flip a switch and cut off TECO utility company
@@altha-rf1et ... Technically there is a way to do that but if caught they will fine you and other nasty crap as well.
Imagine driving a hybrid car and the gas station says you have to buy a minimum amount of gas each month or they'll charge you the difference.
Not the Fueling Station but that's already been in the works by multiple States to force Hybrid/Electric vehicle owners to pay additionally each year because they aren't getting that sweet tax Revenue when you don't have a 10 MPG MAGA Truck.
@@kimballspeakthreetheater3318 everything will be electric someday and if they build the roads off gas tax theyre just gonna get worse and worse. If you dont want the charge couldnt you just have them not connect you to the grid?
@@chickenpuncher1674 god i hope not. There isn't enough lithium to support this and graphene isn't the miracle is was marketed as a decade ago.
We can't afford to support it nor can the environment handle the strip mining.
We need a healthy mix.
Also it costs as much or more money in most cases to replace electric or hybrid batteries than an engine rebuild costs. An engine goes hundreds of thousands of miles and 20+ years. Some cars outlive their owners. Batteries begin rapidly failing at 5 years almost without fail. This forced electric craze will be the doom of the working class.
You don't have to imagine, many states already have an additional charge for electric cars.
@@oceanbytez847 The Battery replacement cost vs Engine repair cost argument has been disproved time after time. You almost NEVER need to replace the entire Battery, only the malfunctioning Cell. This is an issue Prius drivers (like myself) have great knowledge in and 20+ years of real world provable data.
It is accurate that we need a healthy mix, but that mix needs to lean heavier into ultra efficient Hybrids and outright outlawing Coal gasified Trucks and other vehicles that can't even manage 10 MPG.
The problem lies with Politicians and their being owned by the Energy sector.
It always start small. Only $30, & only affects a very small number of customers. But this is about conditioning the public to accept the idea of minimum bills. Once this becomes normalized they'll continue to raise the minimum till it affects nearly everyone. Also this idea would spread to all other utilities.
Exactly, ATM cards were free, I'll take the 2 bucks everytime someone uses it! Seat belt law in Ohio started at 5.00, now its 100.00. And so it goes, start off slow ,,, then get it all!
The green energy
Frogs in boiling water
They did this in my area when they deregulated the energy providers. My last mile connection supplier charges a $20 a month connection fee for gas and $15 a month meter fee for electricity. I can buy my gas and electric from any supplier on the market or not use it at all. But if I want it there to be available, those are the minimum fees I have to pay. And if something goes out, every number I call goes back to the last mile providers outage line. They handle all the pipes and electrical lines in the area regardless of who I buy the actual energy from.
It's been this way in my area since the mid 2000s. My bills average about the same since then too.
Whats insidious is u may actually be paying for infrastructure in entirely different areas in all your bills.
For example, the county in my area put in a new law years ago that required anyone who pierced the roadway, so the water company, cable companies, etc had to replace all lanes of the roadway 150' in each direction where they pierced it to current code standards, even if it was just a one inch hole. It just so happened that they also changed the code and required a reinforced roadbed for most roads.
So when u got your water bill, cable bill etc these costs were passed on to the customer who already pays taxes to keep the roadways maintained. So they are double, triple, quadruple dipping all over the place.
For decades we were told to cut our electricity usage: turn the lights off when you exit a room, buy energy efficient appliances, forced to buy LED lightbulbs, turn your thermostat up in the summer, on an on. Electric companies pushed the business model of "stop using so much of our product". Now that people have found a way to stop using so much of their product they have a minimum charge.
They want to burn more coal. These people are climate terrorists.
Good ol’ moRon Doucheantis! He can write a bill literally overnight to disparage the LGBTQ community and Disney but he can stop the power company from price gouging. 😂😂😂😂😂
Here's The ULTIMATE Question....
Will Florida Residents do something about it? or will they surrender to the politicians who allowed such laws to exist!?
"The Fee is to ensure that everyone is still paying for the upkeep of the grid that they're still using"
Yeah...the Grid....that the government says you HAVE to tie into, otherwise you can't install solar. They won't LET YOU live off grid. Funny how that works...
Let's face it. It's not for electrical grid upkeep. It's for shareholders.
No its to kill an industry there afraid of.
💯
And how many of those shareholders are members of Congress?
@@patrickkenyon2326 Yes
I live 100% off grid. Maybe you should move to another state. I did so I could have the freedom I want.
I love how the female anchor had the guts to put the truth out there and proudly taking ownership of what everyone was thinking.
The power companies doing everything they can just to keep those checks coming
As they should. They have a huge infrastructure to maintain.
You could literally see the power companies d$ck hanging out of that older reporters mouth!
As long as the power companies keep doling out money to politicians through PACs the checks will keep coming. We are not governed by those we elect to govern us. We are governed from corporate boardrooms. Both parties are useless. They both accuse each other of being unfit to govern. They are both right.
@@wanaraz But they are not. That is why the system is outdated and crumbling. You honestly equate as fair, someone that spends thousands to install solar to the average customer that doesn't do anything but consume?
In the United States, the federal government has paid US$145 billion for energy subsidies to support R&D for nuclear power ($85 billion) and fossil fuels ($60 billion) from 1950 to 2016. We are paying for the infrastructure and utilities. The utility companies are merely profiting from both ends.
This should be illegal considering they have a monopoly on the electricity in the area. They can jack up the prices, and customers can't simply switch to a different provider.
Then go off grid
@@james10739 tHeN gO oFf gRiD.
Ok, hippy
@@dannymartial7997 no but I know the solar is only like half of what you would need to do so I'm sorry you thought you could use the grid to make your relatively small investment of just solar panels and grid tie inverters run your house all the time and it's $30 to keep the grid up and running
@@james10739 don't need a grid if you have your own power
Fun fact monopolies use to be illegal as they should be illegal.
The fees always starts small and only affect a few...
That is how the income tax started.
What you really have to worry about is local governments taxing solar at a higher rate like they have started doing with electric cars.
Exactly. We had free parking in the small town I live in the city streets. Then it went to $3 an hour and now they have raised it to $5. It never stops hurting financially the little guy.
I always knew that it was too good to be true. Like criminals in jail, the power companies will find a way to get you
Here's The ULTIMATE Question....
Will Florida Residents do something about it? or will they surrender to the politicians who allowed such laws to exist!?
When I lived in Rural Pa our Electric company made a big thing out of saving energy. We followed their recommendations and lowered our bills. Well suddenly the Co requested a rate hike and soon our bill was up higher, The Company said they lost so much money on conservation they had to charge more. You can’t win!
Same where I am too. My usage has gone down greatly what with conservation, room darkening shades, power efficient appliances and lights.... and my usage has dropped... but the rates keep going higher because of those fixed costs of running the power plants, they need to make up for it. Absolute madness.
It's thievery. Vindictive and wrong.
You can't win, but they sure can
We are seeing a rate hike here in NC.
~have the money
Honestly, who really believes that local and/or federal congress work for the people and not for big companies?
100%
Here's The ULTIMATE Question....
Will Florida Residents do something about it? or will they surrender to the politicians who allowed such laws to exist!?
I am one of the "seasonal customers" and when I saw this charge I was infuriated. I called and had them shut my service off. They screwed me over for 3 months but at least I caught on to the game before too long. That's the problem with auto pay.
What? Why? If you rent an apt for a year and are gone for some months, do you expect the owner to let it go while you’re away? Owner still has to maintain the grounds, fix the roof if a tree falls, pay the property taxes, pay the mortgage, keep the heat working in winter so pipes don’t freeze. Power utility has to do comparable things to keep the grid up. If the tenant claims to be “infuriated” while away and skips the rent, we all know what that’s called: deadbeat.
@@Nill757 False equivalence. If those things cost money, you charge for those services. You know, the ones that are actually provided. You don't charge a 'you're not using enough of our service' fee. Grid maintenance should be paid by people using the grid. Not people who are, at the request of the utility companies, reducing the load on the grid. If you are going to try and make a pro-capitalist argument, learn how capitalism works. If you walk into a Macy's and you buy a shirt, and when you get the total, its way more that what the price tag said, and you find there is a 'we didn't use the full capacity of our warehouse' fee tacked on the end, you have a right to be pissed. Those warehouse costs should be included in the shirt price, unless management is incompetent at pricing.
@@edeasley144 What happens when they dont cost money... Energy is free.
@@edeasley144 So if a storm causes a line to go down that impacts your house/building/etc. during one of those months you aren't paying are you okay with them not fixing it? I'm not saying minimum charges like this are the way to do it but if you are connected to the grid and have an expectation that you will use it at least part of the time you should also help pay for the maintenance and repair of the grid. If what you pay during the period of time you use it is not enough to cover the average cost of maintaining a line to your type of building then you should pay for the shortfall. This is similar to the gas tax vs. electric vehicle problem.
@@kamX-rz4uy Then they should have a line charge everyone pays regardless of useage. A company shouldn't be charging because they can't bill you enough for their product you're consuming. As stated above line repairs, emergencies, etc, should already be built into the cost.
Love how the lady had more balls to speak the truth than the, so called, men. She said,”I said it!”
Exactly…I loved that too! The other two could have grown a ‘pair’ and agreed with her, but I guess nowadays men don’t have anything between their legs. 🤬😡
"only a smally number of customers are impacted..." Somehow, I have a hard time trusting that statement. A lot has been left unsaid and should invite more scrutiny.
Right, like how that # is expected to grow rapidly with all the current plans they have instituted.
Don't expect the politicians to do the scrutiny before passing legislation green lighting this.
When Apple says it no one bats an eye.
Look at Twitter. They can't/won't tell Musk how many of their accounts are fake.
Even if it's only 1 cust. and that cust. is YOU, it's 1 too many.
Isn’t it amazing that no matter what you do, or what cost cutting measures you take, UTILITY COMPANIES STILL GET THEIR POUND OF FLESH. WE had a terrible ice storm this year, went without power for days( we were lucky) and now the utility raised their rates so we pay for the cost of their repairs. Since when is business without risks? They just make us pay for them.
Well as long as we keep rolling over and accepting it, they'll be no limits for them to keep doing it. We are so separated and individualistic as a society that it's easy for them to do as they will...I mean who will stand up and stop them when no one will band together and speak out.
don't those businesses have insurance? Or are they just doubling down, having their insurance give them a wad of cash and then charging the customers too?
@Jonny Croxville this has nothing to do with Jan. 6th.
@Jonny Croxville exactly, Jan. 6th people stood together.
Fought and died together, and
Now prison time. No labeling
Necessary, domestic terrorism
And treason are plainly evident.
Now to organize and protest
Utilities companies is totally
a American right.
@Jonny Croxville You're must be handicapped, or brain
Dead. So sorry...
Minimum charging is a slippery slope. In the UK they introduced a daily standing charge for both gas and electricity. The charges started off fairly low, but have more than doubled in the last year.
Ignorant people will be saying the “slippery slope” argument is a fallacy. It’s blatantly real.
it's not even slippery slope, it's correctly called "foot in the door"
YEAR? Really? Ouch...
Yep, same in Australia., its called a "service charge", Its a charge just to be connected to the network. In Australia it can be almost half the bill. We are charged around $1 per day just to be connected to the network. Over 3 months its around $90.
This is coming to everyone in western countries.
“Said Borenstein: “When a household installs solar in the service areas of the three California investor-owned utilities (PG&E, SCE and SDG&E), the customer saves 20-30 cents for every kilowatt-hour their system produces, but the utility costs only go down by 7-9 cents. (Studies that reach similar conclusions here, here, and here - none paid for by entities with a financial stake in the answer). The extra 10-20 cents are avoided by that household, but those fixed costs still have to be paid….
“It has been well documented - and surprises no one - that households with solar are disproportionately wealthy (as well as disproportionately white). So, when a customer installs solar, their share of the fixed costs are shifted to other ratepayers who are poorer on average,” he added.”
Simply report this extra fee(s) to the IRS on your taxes. If the IRS see this as a way the utilities are making extra money from you and they don’t report it, they will get audited. (You can do this with every bill you have to make sure companies don’t take advantage of you. Up to you to show how much money you send to each biller per year on your taxes. They do it to us.)
“People,we’re thinking about solar, now they are pulling back”
That’s the point. ….. they don’t want you to be self sufficient.
Here’s an hint, stop electing sociopaths that hate you
Yes , go vote the crap out of them 😂
Learn the truth about solar and wind and you will never buy solar or wind unless there isn't an alternative. If it was a true solution to cleaner power it wouldn't have to be subsidized by the government.
@@mperdue12
You realize none of that is true right?
@@mperdue12
Why does the government subsidize oil companies then?
@@lordrayden3045 Beats me. Not sure what your point is unless you think I am anti solar because I am pro oil. I just know solar and wind are not the solution. The "Climate Change" group is pushing it to create another bureaucracy that can be exploited for generations to come. If you don't believe me they never mention current technologies that could put them right where they claim they want to be by simply implementing them today. Research thorium for power or methanol to fuel our automobiles. Also research how much energy it takes to make a solar panel then look at how much that panel generates during its lifetime. Don't be surprised if you find out the average panel fails before it gets to recover the cost it took to make it. It's what they are not telling you and that is a lot.
They need to make it fully legal in Florida for solar customers to disconnect from the grid and install battery backup systems. Otherwise, these utilities will continue to screw over their trapped customers.
Nobody goes off grid with just batteries. That’s a carnival pitch. Everybody off grid in a full time residence or business uses fossil generators.
“trapped customers”
Do you also gripe about professional farmers and clothing manufacturers, or do you imagine you can escape that “trap” by growing all your own food? Pay your damn utility bill, or go off grid.
@@Nill757 You missed the point entirely. State code requires a homeowner to be hooked up to a utility company, even if the homeowner can generate their own electricity.
Maybe you shouldn't comment on topics about which you're utterly clueless.
What do you think it would cost to to buy enough batteries to store enough power for an entire household? I can assure you it's more than $30 a month. When you're hooked up to the grid, the grid acts as your battery, and you don't have to maintain and replace it over time.
@@cjones7588 Yes the grid acts as backup for rooftop solar. The problem is that rooftop owners don’t pay for that very valuable connection. Net metering lets them skate. The cost of the grid is still there of course, so the utility raises its rates to cover the fall in revenue, which falls mainly on the poorer population.
@@PronatorTendon What a surprise in the Home of the free-Land of the brave.
Where is the FREEDOM most of You people brag about it?
This is outrageous. Those people spent thousands of dollars to have solar panels put on their homes. And now they're being hit with a minimum charge every month. OUTRAGEOUS.
I'm 90% efficient here in NYC. I buy energy from PSEG for about .45cents per kilowatt and when I have excess production they buy it for about .05 cents from me. The monthly charge for the grid is about $15 per month regardless you consume energy or not. The entire thing is a scam.
All they have to do is cancel their electrical power.
You pay 45 cents a kilowatt????? Why, how?
@@tedmarakas2626 That's high way robbery. They are taking your surplus electricity for $0.05 pennies on the dollar , but selling you there's $0.45. It would be nice if you could charge them, your accounting fee, grid maintenance fee. Your home is like a mini substation. They need to pay for that also. At least the Europeans got it right. American greed. Sheesh
@@dawill8366 It is an insult to people's intelligence. Ruthless
Government: Go green, use renewable energy, go off grid.
Also Government: You can't go off grid.
@crunthat I bet so or they would starve
This is what happens when people try to do the right thing. Either the government or a large corporation steps in and wants to take advantage of those people. I am certain we will see the same happen when electric vehicles are the norm. The government will have to make up for the gas tax that supposedly pays for roads and infrastructure and pass it on somehow to electric vehicles. In the end it is the people who can least afford it that will end up paying for it.
the two problems actually go hand in hand. if everyone on the road switched to electric, the power grid would be so insanely overtaxed trying to charge that many cars at once. best idea is to get solar in your home and then buy electric car so you're not paying for the electricity to charge it, as well as ease the strain on decades old electric infrastructure that was never meant for millions of electric cars charging. unfortunately once the govt/media says "electric is bad" the majority of sheeple will just agree instead of doing their own research and due diligence. i can't tell you how many times i've heard people say "well i heard solar was worse for the environment than fossil fuels" ...... i'm like where tf do you get this information????
The gouvernment only steps in because the corporation donate millions of dollars for fossile energie laws to stay in the past and want climate change with more tornados and wood fires in summer.
There can be more workers in green energy as in fossil energie if they would change the strategie.
amen brother i couldn't say it better
Australian utilities have a "connection charge" for infrastructure regardless of consumption. Also, the feed-in rate for your excess solar energy to the grid pays a pathetically low rate which equates to a further fee. I would suspect a future fee for off-grid battery installations to recover lost connection fees :(
The state of Victoria has a 2.5 cents PER KM for EVs. Supposedly to recoup some of the petrol tax lost. The issue here is that petrol tax is a federal tax, not a state revenue.
During a long drought a few years ago, the State of Victoria introduced a requirement to register the installation of each rainwater storage tank to qualify for a water rebate ... we knew what registration meant in the long term though !!!
This is why you don’t allow corporations, to lobby the deregulating of consumer protections…
Imagine being on a planet that when you're trying to help out the planet and make things easier in life others will fight and do what they can do to make it worse because of greed and jealousy
America has collapsed.
A comet will cleanse this cesspool soon enough.
I agree divergent thg, the 'games' we play with each other are really messed up. People want to live a good life and be amazing creators not to be handicapped slaves being thrown in cells for not paying taxes, permits, following millions of made up rules etc. On God's green earth.
There is no need to help the planet because it isn’t in danger of anything.
@@HairyBottom well yes, earth isnt going anywhere, its what is on the planet that is going somewhere
That's exactly what SRP (Salt River Project) electric utility in Arizona does, for Solar customers they charge them a minimum fee of at least $30/mo. You could sell more electric back to your utility company than you generate and they will still charge you at least $30/mo, this is a thing happening across the country. I live in Arizona, and came across this video and was just curious. It's maddening, the people need to stand together against these companies and vote out the politicians who support these policies.
These THIEVING UTILITY COMPANIES' PROFITS are greater than ever
Republicans
I live in Arizona and I've been off grid for 30 yrs. And I haven't used a generator for months sense up grading my system. Yes I have AC also. 40 - 240 watt pannels used from San tan solar two 48 volt forklift batteries with a two 5000 watt diy all in one inverters from midnight solar.
Do you have aps here in az from casa grande here and we got solar 3 months ago. 54k for 12kw dc system and ac production of 9.5kw peak out put. I was planning g on just using a limited grid tie inverter to keep the cost low and use a battery bank to store any excess production with out selling back to the grid. Was going to use the back yard for laying out 30 to 60 pannels witch is about 24kw of maximum power production. Just pannels along on 60 pannels or 2 pallet would be 14k. And this is not including the grid tie limiters or cables or even 15kwhrs of storage. Could of done ot for 40k all together a d still have a cheap bill. Man parents don't listen when their son has a better solution.
where i live there has been a line and equipment fee for years, which makes sense. i can buy the actual energy from anyone selling.
Im in south texas and i had to sign documents saying that if i produced 100% of my energy there will still be a $25 account service charge each month… which compared to paying $225 a month, that seems like a steal… however, my wife and i got solar in case there are any more outages and the essential rooms would be covered so we didnt freeze to death or so our produce didnt go to waste
That should be criminal to have a “minimum bill” I think the people should stand together against this and stop letting corporations walk on them
I'd like to see what happens when people just start calling to terminate their service. It sounds like what little they're paying now isn't even for energy. It's for infrastructure that they aren't even using anymore.
@@KosstAmojan 90% of solar are still using the grid if you don’t have storage capabilities then you are always using the grid. There are grid forming solar solutions out now but at night without storage you are using the grid.
If it rains all day you want the grid, also people think that these solar systems run flawlessly 100% of the time. This is not true they break down and need to be maintained. You need the grid as a back up only. Paying a fee for something completely reliable is not a bad trade off.
I am a solar electrician, the industry is becoming more efficient every day. In about 10-15 years we may not need the grid as much as we do now but it will always be useful to have.
The people with solar are already in a good position to do that.
All they have to do is buy a bit of extra production and batteries and then cut the cord.
As should we all, but it's a huge investment for people starting out
Four more clueless people.
This is a 3 month old story
Ron DeSantis vetoed the bill
Stop ranting and raving about something that is not happening.
LOL.
Honestly, I can understand having a small monthly bill-where I live, Southern California Edison charges $10.50 a month. Even if you only use the grid at night (when your solar panels don't work) they still have to maintain the lines and transformers (a new pole-mounted transformer runs about $12k) plus all the other stuff. I doubt SCE is making a windfall profit off it.
Folks this is how it happens. The energy companies are guaranteed a profit. They also donate huge sums of monies to those running for office. If a legislator doesn't vote the way they want them to, well you guessed it! They don't donate to their campaign fund and give those monies to their opponent! Yep the consumer is screwed!
America is broken
@@confederatetearsaredelicious Sold out back into slavery to the only slaver left: uncle scam.. for the fun and profit of his corporate butt-buddies.
I work for an electric company in the midwest. We are governed by a regulatory committee in each state we operate in. In order to raise rates the company has to show all of it's books for the previous years to show where a rate hike is justified. Yes, the utility company makes a profit. But it is limited by law to around 2 and a half to 3% in the states we operate in. In the mean time the local burger drive in makes 50% profit and the lawyer's office makes 75%. It's easy to bad mouth the utility companies but when there's a storm at 2 a.m. and your power goes out just think about how much money they have to pay a whole crew of guys to climb power poles in a lightning storm to restore your service. Believe me, the salary these guys get isn't enough.
@@1967davethewave They probably lie to you. If a service company makes less than 60% profit, it goes belly up.
@@igory8698 They do lie to the workers but they can't lie to the regulatory commission. Sorry but utility companies make a lot less profit than the average business, they just make so much on the top line that the bottom line looks pretty large too.
Customers need to go 100% with Powerwalls. Cut the greedy psychopaths out of the picture completely.
The intent is to get their foot in the door. The next act is to increase the "minimum" and go get rid of the requirement to purchase excess power from individuals completely returning their monopoly.
I'd cut my power off completely from that company.
In my area the gas company has a minimum charge of $68 a month. Out electric/water/sewer company has what they call tiers. Depending on which tier they have you on is what you pay even though you are not using that much, the minimum monthly charge is $80 something. It's ridiculous that we are forced to pay for something we don't get/use.
And if you ever fall on hard times and late paying that bill, they will treat you accordingly and disconnect ya service.. it’s all a grift
@@somethingserious4090 Oh the irony in that. If you are not behind on your bill and you tell them to disconnect you they won't.
But relying on the system's existence and use.
Where I live have a well I'm surprised that the water company here has not required that a water meter we put in line so they can find a way to get money
@@carbogger Do they base sewer from it?
Leave it to the Florida legislature to legalize something like this.
I wonder how much the energy companies paid them to do this.
They should call it the “corrupting politicians fee”
This is what you get when you have Republicans in charge.
Well, realistically they have to make enough to cover the cost of upkeep for the network. Oh WOW, they just mentioned it in the video. That was weird, as I was typing it. But yeah, it costs money to keep a network going. I'm surprised the minimum isn't higher honestly.
Its not just FL, its companies all over doing this, where I live solar is almost useless now since our power company was able to stop paying the full rate for power we produce. They only pay us about a penny per kilowatt hour now. So all you can do is net zero your bill and they also have the minimum bill, but its 50$. You can't go under 50, no matter if you sold them 10,000 kw/h or 1. Oh I wanted to add since its not really mentioned yet anywhere...Our power company also was going to start chaging an "Electric Car" drop in fee, you know, if you have the large 100 or 200amp service drop.. So they know you have an electric car, so now thats an extra 40$ fee per month. Now before I even crank on a light per month, my bill is 90$.
@@alexanderfrancis7446 You need to actually go out and learn about logistics and such. You just have this singular childlike view of things.
The Florida utility companies are strong arming its customers, and have a monopoly in the state
Minimum bills discourage saving for most people, why save energy if your going to have to pay for it anyway. This minimum billing encourages energy waste.
You sound suprised about this. On the west coast every utility comes with a minimum bill.
@@jimmyscoggins2209 we already know the West coast is screwed that's why the exodus. Dah
@@MrBigShotFancyPants
This is about Florida? Why is it fine when Florida does it but wrong one California does it?
@@neilkurzman4907 I've lived many years on the West coast(silicon valley)so have experienced California's creative ways transferring money from my pocket to the state's way back in the 70's(compared to the mid-west)
Anyway the world knows California is out of control. It's population is declining for the first time. Ever
@@MrBigShotFancyPants
California’s not like every other state.
The citizens are allowed to create initiatives demanding that the state spend money, while also having initiatives making them give them tax cuts. They are in great conflict. And the politicians are forced to do with the people demanded.
Silicon Valley exist because it had a lot of cheap land and a cheap workforce. Which doesn’t exist anymore. It also has an aging population, that would do better living in cheaper areas. So don’t act like it’s the politics. There are many very poorly run Republican states. I point out to the poster child of Louisiana. And what do you think Florida is going to do when its insurance industry completely collapses and the only entity offering insurance there is the state? What should we call that Socialism by ineptitude?
Thanks for nickel and diming the people of Florida,even when a individual spends thousands to set up a solar system for their house,when will the tyranny end?
It costs money to maintain infrastructure which anybody with solar who doesn't have an adequately sized battery is still utilizing the utility grid as a virtual battery. That seems like a reasonable fee they are charging but if you don't like it, then spend the money on a battery and cut the cord with the power company.
Berkeley's Borenstein:
"All the data shows the customers who put in solar are disproportionately wealthy, and so when customers install solar they are generally shifting cost on the people who are poorer."
That’s not debatable. Only discussion now is what to do about it. Sooner Fl kills net metering , sooner the poor benefit.
@@scottshingleton7659 they don't let you you have to be on the grid. They force you to pay for something that you don't want.
@@majesticgee7610 If you are hooked to the grid selling power to the utilities then you most certainly are on the grid.
Buy the batteries and BMS controls to store your own power. Get a natural gas powered inverter to charge them when there's no sun.
I have another surprise for all the solar snowflakes. If there's a storm that takes out the grid they'll shut off your system because of the backfeed your system puts into the grid while they try to repair it. So the reality is you'll be sitting in the dark with the rest of us.
if you think that is bad SCE(Socal Edison ) charges 1,000 Dollars a year balloon payment
This is disgusting how companies enforce their grip on customers and also solar users to frighten them in some way. From 127 dollars down to 24 dollars with solarpower is insanely good and the companies dont want that to happen. As usual, behind that sceme: Greed
Might as well add more Solar panel to my Florida houses and shed. cut off from the grid if they keep try to more money from us. Solar panel help reduce energy need from the Power grid. Guess have have to buy Solar battery to keep power on a night if I have too.
I appears to solely be an oversight from the new fee being added based on the bill at billing, vs the bill by usage before the sold back energy was added. This is a minor oversight, affected under a dozen people and the only people left affected by the fee after the oversight's potential correction would be peoppe who left their utilities on the grid despite being out of state for an extended period of time or just permanently on a prpperty no one resides at. It costs them money and consideration to be on the grid even just the metering, going out to check and maintain it, and they arent breaking even if you use $5 worth a month.
I somewhat agree. But now imagine is everyone went solar and there was no min fee. Who would be paying for the grid upkeep if everyones usage was only say $17 a month? I mean come on there is no way that would pay for the employees to be out in a storm fixing the grind in the middle of the night. You would very quickly end up with the power companies just shutting shop and then all you would have is your solar except when you run out of battery and its night and you have no way to cool or heat your house.
I think they would have done better as just putting it on as a Maintenace type set fee of a fixed amount then trying to push it as a power adjustment.
@@Toom316 if everyone went solar why would we need a grid or snobby rich people taking our money? I say we shoot people that think like you.
of course it's greed...they need to pay the millions in big wig payouts and the share holders.
This is not okay. They are charging you for products that you have not received. It's like going to McDonald's and getting a kid's meal, but being charged for an adult meal because you have to pay enough to upkeep the grill. That's not okay. The government needs to step in and make sure this doesn't happen. Just because you have an excuse, doesn't make it okay to do something.
This reminds me of when wind turbines came out in Texas in the 90's. All the cities passed ordinances restricting the hight that a blade could be. It was ALWAYS well below the optimum operating height. Never forget your city gets a kick back from all, I repeat ALL, utilities based on profit.
And so too those legislators pushing to penalizing green energy! Don’t forget all those lobbyists who they cater to. Sunshine right up the Back ends of Floridians….Republican branded “freedom” yes sir!
The wind mill thing has been a complete failure. It takes a dump truck of power to get them moving ,they ignite into catastrophic fires.. yeah a failure...
They're also massive noise polluters and tend to swat birds out of the sky.
@@supremecaffeine2633 that bird death thing is deeply concerning… there’s a reason it’s an omen 💀
@@mega-lomart7154 it's nothing compared to salor farms. They can cook a flock of birds midair.
A long time ago someone said they were charged minimum amounts on everything-utilities, phone, garbage, etc.-despite not being home the entire month; he called it “the cost of doing nothing”.
Time to check your bills and see how much “the cost of doing nothing” really costs.
I remember in the mid-seventies getting summertime utility bills on the order of $3 - $7 a mo. for years and years.
Here's The ULTIMATE Question....
Will Florida Residents do something about it? or will they surrender to the politicians who allowed such laws to exist!?
People in charge “We need to switch to renewable energy!!!”
Normal people *switch to renewable energy*
People in charge “not like that!!!” *charges them extra*
Sadly this entire thing is summed up in a friggin meme
Happened where I live with water. You need to conserve water. So we did. Now we need to charge you more because you conserved too much.
It depends on the state in the US.If you have an elected official that receives money from these companies then they can do this, if you have an elected official that is either pro solar or receives money from a company that produces solar panels then you will have an easier time.$$$ talks unfortunately.
Who pays to maintain the grid? Wires, poles and transformers aren't free.
@@TheBandit7613 These companies are receiving millions ( if not billions) in subsidies from the Government, they already add an additional fee on the bill for "maintainance" and the solar Panel users are selling off energy for Pennies on the dollar so they can charge 10 times more for it.If you think that energy companies are struggling you are mistaken: these people are fattening up their wallets
It’s never just about this one bill. It’s about when they start charging us a minimum Cost of living in general.
Americans have been slaves since 1913 when income tax became a thing but before that we still had roads schools and a military the elites will always find a way to leech off of us and keep us working the liberals in congress got to give themselves a raise and launder that money into their pockets.
Same as owning property it's never really yours because you're still paying yearly property taxes. Rat in the wheel
Soon we will be paying an oxygen fee for the air we breathe
Capitalism 🤷♂️
It already exists. Sales Tax
Way to go young lady, you should consider running for office! We need people with a backbone and a sense of morality
This is a 3 month old story. Ron DeSantis vetoed the bill.
There will be no cancelation of net metering, or mandatory minimum bills
Florida is short of common sense!
@@fauxque5057 so the guy that the people spent millions to recall and re-elect does this? I don't know what party to vote for anymore
@@fauxque5057 But somehow our electric bill just doubled with no additional usage and no solar. This year from $200 to $430 a month. Yay FP&L
We don't need more women in power
FPL and other utilities are avoiding having to increase generators and power stations.
In my city in Florida, the water company charges 40$ for a base charge. You have to pay even if you don't use any. This is what happens when monopolies run utilities. You pay up or you don't have any service. I guess taxes aren't fattening their pockets quickly enough.
$10 month water collection fee for the water that comes off the house gutters. I tried to charge them $20 a month for using my roof to collect their water. They laughed at me.
It's suburbs. The cost of running water mains to a cul-de-sac pre-planned neighborhood is not small. But there's only 100 houses or so in a huge land footprint. I'm not saying utilities aren't evil, and don't push their monopolies. They most definitely do. But it ain't helped when most of the country wants to live in suburbs with a staggering land use per person. They can push this stuff through legislation simply by pointing to the millions invested in buildout and upkeep of their sprawling networks. Which btw, councils are all too aware of because they have to build and upkeep road networks to them that are underused for the cost of building them. City councils hate suburban road networks, hate. Huge sink the taxes cannot cover. Always running in the red. So they're predisposed to understanding the utilities plight.
It's called living in a greedy Republican state!
How do you not use any water? That’s not possible
@@Browdeh you buy a house and hold it for renovation. That's how.
This has already happened in California. For the first few years of owning solar I never received a bill other then a connection fee of $10 monthly and I received about $100 check annually for my surplus energy. I would tell everyone that would listen to get solar because it was so worth it. Now I receive about $200 in electric bills every months for four months in a row after summer and the power company told me it was because I was going over what my solar has been producing and that I get charged a higher rate if I go over. My panels are producing the same as they were from the first day and our habit are generally the same. I paid off my solar in about three years but after that is when the energy bills started to come in. I though I was winning for a minute but you end up just writhing your checks out to a different name.
So you don’t recommend solar anymore. ? Im in Chicago and i was interested but now im scared
@@Littlekitten_
That’s a tough question to answer because there is so many variables that are unique to you and your local utility company. Personally, I’m gonna live in my home for another 10 to 15 years therefore I will come out ahead as long as nothing else changes.
Make sure you wash your panels because they can get dirty but yeah, that’s why power walls are kinda useful in the long run to store energy
so california gov't hates the environment. I thought solar was a good thing to save the planet, and now the land of fruits and nuts pulls this crap!? We live in crazy times.
@@DubsBrown all they care about is money and power and keeping their donors happy.
I live in Alberta, Canada. A number of years back our government deregulated our utilities and now we pay a flat rate charge to be connected to whatever system plus a per unit usage charge for each utility. Our rates have significantly increased across the board for this. Of course the justification was that deregulation would make the markets more competitive and our costs would go down, but that was far from the result.
Deregulation does not only allow a competitive market but you all bought the line, hook and sinker.
Deregulation means to not regulate something anymore. That's where electric companies come in. If you deregulated them, the costs skyrocket! Now, there's no enforcement or regulation board to keep the costs affordable.
They used dirty psychological tricks to obscure their real motive.
Sorry for you but anyone with more than 2 brain cells know the deregulation is to increase costs so the government/state/county can get more taxes as the companies the provide the serves work together to help push up prices. Have you ever seen one power company provide power significantly cheaper than its competitors?
That’s the key- more competition. In most cases in most cities, there’s only one or two utility companies. So they monopolize the market in each city. Deregulation is the green light for them to come up with the rate and bogus charges they see fit. Consumers have little to say and choice.
@@Lulu-vi4wb Now Canadians must live with it. Let every Western country acknowledge that when governments talk about deregulation, it's never to keep the costs lower. It's about skyrocketing the charges, rates and justification for the increase, no matter how much bull it is. Citizens suffer, companies grow.
Don't be like Canada.
Somehow I got skynews in australia on my feed and thats what I tell them as skynews tries to blame the miniscule renewable market in Australia. I was amazed that a country like Australia DOESN"T have a significant wind or solar industry, MOST of it is coal But they just deregulated their energy market and much like HALF of ontarios energy market, california's, and great britain, deregulation ALWAYS means higher prices and worse service. To the point where australia is getting the same brownouts that california did when coal generators simply close down to prop up prices. Ontario's hydro went through the roof when all the nuclear owners who bought the stations for a song jacked up prices, and yet media there also helped blame wind power for the price increases. Its just crazy out there.
In the UK we have standing charges, which got hiked due to the energy Secretary of the time Ed Davey. Saw my gas bill increase to the stage that every £1 on gas I use, I'm paying £3-4 in standing charges. Electricity standing charge also increased. Sadly the changes penalise single/responsible fuel usage people and just enable high abUsage users as we subsidise them with the energy cap that's so unrealistic for single/responsible people as it's 10x as much fuel that they use.
But hey, politicians spin it, we pay for it.
"And it's all to make sure the power companies can keep getting those check."
"I didn't say that..."
"I did."
That could have been the entire segment right there.
I love the fact that she had the guts to sit there and say that when the other guy back pedaled and acted like a little coward
News anchor is expandable.
Here's The ULTIMATE Question....
Will Florida Residents do something about it? or will they surrender to the politicians who allowed such laws to exist!?
GREED. We already cannot afford to live. Duke Energy, Florida Power & LIght, and all other "electric" companies should not be allowed to price gouge like this.This makes a good argument for refusing to allow private companies to run what are essentially public utilities.
One step forward, 10 steps back. And mark my words, those so-called small charges now will go up and up and up and up. It's just like the cleaning products that they call Green cost three or four times more. We need to make a commitment to what needs to be done and restrict people making it more expensive to do it. But, in this country, greed rules.
Greed is capitalism.
Killing your customers and giving them diabetes is A-Ok in the books of business right now.
Coca-cola is a perfect example.
Exactly. Let them get a way with this small fee, and in a few years they'll hike it up when there are still too many people using solar.
Government: We need clean energy or we are all going to die!
Citizens: gets solar panels for sustainable energy.
Government: No, not like that!
Is misleading. Is not always the same sides of the Government.
Change out Government for Electric Lobbying groups.
It is Florida.
Maybe they can start using some of that 'clean' coal they been raving about for years LOL.
Not governments broskie. This is a corporation.
"I'm so glad I bought solar panels to reduce my energy cost, surely the government or other organizations won't find a way to take money out of my pocket because I'm complying to their eco friendly agenda"
"I'm also sure that all those nice free charging stations for my EV won't start charging me for recharging my car once they realize their electric bill is getting too high and there is profit to be made"
Free charging is a cmon to lure more customers.. haven't we seen this a bazillion times?.. they'll charge once people don't have a choice
google who is the biggest builder of those station it isn't power companies it's oil companies go figure that out.
Very soon, the government will impose taxes to use charging stations to recoup the gasoline tax revenue. They say it is to maintain the roads.. but they just dump the money in the general fund..
Enron taught utilities around the country how to charge customers by putting another layer between the producer and the customer. Utility companies created new companies to charge a "delivery fee" for the product delivered to the homes. Cost to produce, add cost to deliver (which they already do) made it much more profitable. BG&E created Constellation Energy to charge customers for what they already delivered. Keep in mind, many states have public service commissions that rate increases are approved through. A few years ago, I believe the guy's name is Mayo Shadduck, Constellation Energy CEO, had BG&E stopped maintaining, cutting trees and hazards back along utility rights-of-way a few years ago. He and other Constellation executives collected very large bonuses with the savings. Because of their failure to maintain the right-of-way and protect lines a large storm came through and knocked lines down and power loss to communities served by BG&E. BG&E then went to the commission to ask for a rate hike to cover the costs of fixing and replacing lines they failed to maintain along with lost revenue because power wasn't being delivered to customers. Quite a scam, but elected officials helped them use the commission to scam customers across the state. I'm sure it happens across the country. Enron might not be here any longer, but their business model still is used.
Ah yes, good ol' Enron. They were ahead of their time. The only credit I'll ever give Bush is that when their shananigans were discovered he gave the greenlight to go after Enron with the full force of the government. That's a lot more than can be said about current politicians, sadly.
@@Teutathis ...and they all got away with it. Bushes are satanists don't underestimate them and don't believe for a second that they are going to punish their buddies. Unless, of course, they sacrifice them to the evil one.
So Cal Edison and PG&E in California do the exact same thing. Including allowing customers to sue them, but the companies are allowed to raise rates to pay the lawsuits. Such a scam.
@@tsloan2100 It's a tried and true model. Privatizing profits and socializing losses is the name of the game. We should've never allowed private companies take over and run utilities. There's simply no upside to it other than shareholders making bank.
Seems like whenever someone inches closer to being self reliant, THEY create more obstacles for us..
If they are "self reliant" then why do they need access to the power grid at all? Oh right, because they aren't and that power grid needs to be maintained. Everyone needs to pay their fair share in doing so.
@@SerangelROM yeah, and that guy’s fair share was $12, not $30. That’s the whole point.
@@KumakOwO unfortunately no, there is a minimum amount nessecary in order to support the power grid regardless of energy consumption. As more and more people move to solar or other means of their own energy production, the income from power will become less and less to a point where maintaining the grid is no longer possible. The companies are simply future proofing themselves from this inevitability.
This is because the government is the property of corporations. The corporations yell "JUMP" and the government says "how high would you like me to jump master?"
@@SerangelROM if that was true then everyone's connection fee should rise to $30/month not just net zero usage customers getting a $17/month increase
The local power company for my entire province was trying to put something like this into place and they got such horrible feedback by not only solar panel users and home owners but some of the government officials were against it and said it was nonsense and no need. They ended up throwing the whole idea into the garbage all together
Lucky you don’t live in the US.
But you're in Canada! Everybody KNOWS that Canadians are much smarter than our bunch of stupid politicians down here in Tallahassee.
Alberta?
@@voodoolou3793 actually we don't have to. Those in power expect us to bend-over [and let them stick-it-up-our-a**] whenever they tell us to "bend over". But what did our Founding-Fathers do? They said "F*ck you" and fought back. That's exactly what we have to do. Say "F*ck you" and fight back. There's more of us than-there-are of them. And when we realize that, we can overhoard them. And they're counting-on-us not to realize that. [Which is one-of-the-reasons[--]why they don't invest in QUALITY-Education. A Stupid People is easier to manipulate [and/or deceive] than a Smart People.]
They’ll try again in a few years…
Charging the people who are being responsible; totally conservative.
It starts at $30 and will go higher.
Make no mistake - they are STARTING at $30/month. A power company here in AZ just slapped a $120/month charge on any customers even using solar. And our government signed off on it so fast you couldn't see the pen move.
Imagine going to the grocery story and getting a fee of $20 for only coming in to by a $2 drink.
"Its the store maintainence fee, you used the front door, ya gotta pay a minimum fee"
It's not even the same comparison. Most states require utility companies to have access to everyone's home. You can't force them to run a line for free which is why everyone has to chip in.
Terrible example. The grocery store doesn't run lines to your house that have to be serviced.
@@mickeytollison No, they Both simply supply a Good and Service that one is required to use.. Same same....
@@redneckhippiefreak "Same same...."
Ahhhhhh...NO!!!
the store should charge a fee for the people that dont buy anything, but still use the bathroom and enjoy the ac.
This is a side effect of regulations that let power companies make most of their money on percentages over 'new construction' but not on the cost of maintaining what they already have.
Thank you for the knowledge, John Oliver.
I love his show!
Damn good point!
The fact that our legislature is permitting this proves they have all accepted bribes from the electric companies. As for me, I don't need no damned electric company. My solar provides me with more than 100% of what I need and I let my neighbors have the excess for free. I would like to point out that federal law requires electric companies to pay their customers for electricity sent back to the grid by solar customers and this "minimum charge" may be in violation of that law. I would look into it if I were paying that charge.
Some cities will condemn your property if you're not connected to their electrical grid. The problem is systemic.
@@ironbowtie that sounds like totalitarian. What if you just not pay their bill left them turn you "off". And you use solar to create your own energy.
I agree. I like Desantis but he needs to come in and over ride this minimum charge.
I love how the windmills in the background... are NOT SPINNING !!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
WAAAAIT... so you're telling me power companies are putting fees in place that deter homeowners from generating their own power??? SHOCKING lol.
The world is facing an energy crisis and “we all need to do our part to conserve energy” yet people with solar can no longer sell back their clean energy to help lessen emissions? Also, you can’t charge people for being on a grid they were forced to be on.
Bingo! That’s how you know it’s all a lie.
@@cwheremonster8870 How do you boycott/pushback?
In most states you can disconnect from the power system and generate your own, thus avoiding the charges. I was in the generation business for over 30 years and all our plants had to pay the transmission company an interconnect charge which covered the cost of their equipment over 30 years allowing us to sell our power to the market. Now scale this down to a micro level and you have John Doe's solar panel at his house. The equipment to connect his house (transformer, conductor, metering, grounding equipment) has to be paid by him or his neighbors end up paying for it. Its not free. The public is confused by the myriad of politically passed rules and credits. One thing that never changes, is change it self in the business world. Oh by the way all of our plants always and only got wholesale rates when we sold our power, not retail. The retail was added on by the transmission and distribution utilities to recoup their costs.
Then anyone with solar should be able to bill the electric company a bill for the maintenance and upkeap of their solar system because the grid is helping that electric company and the electric company still has to pay for any excess energy they take from that system on top of that at the same rate they charge you
That's a beautiful way to put it. I have maintenance costs well over that 30 a month. I wipe these bad boys down every day for maximum performance.
It's all about discouraging home owners to install solar pannels. If everyone went solar it would really hurt the power companies.
Yeah it would hurt the power companies because then they wouldn't be able to sell power and make money and the fact that the government wants to pass bills and laws that force you to pay and to force you to connect to the power grid just proves that there is nothing but crooked politicians the power company has them in their pocket just like big oil just like every other company in the US it doesn't matter how you vote in this country if you have money you have power and you have control because you can influence anything in anybody you want the system is flawed the system is corrupt and this system is not one I support
i WANT to hurt the power companies.
They most definitely want to hurt me and you and everyone else.
Tit for tat, and all that. And in the electric companies' case, they most definitely are asking for it.
That's the idea 💡.
It's pure criminal by law
In the UK and I imagine other countries, we have two charges on the bill, a usage charge, which is based upon usage, and a daily standing charge, which pays for metering support and network charges. And we have competition in the energy supply market. It's not perfect, but it's better than a badly regulated monopoly.
true also here in Germany.
But what would be my reaction I posted already.
I highly doubt it's a new charge but the first time they went under the minimum fee so it's "new to them" and the news did zero research. Also grid tie doesn't really lower the power plants use bc they have to be ready for peak demand when clouds and stuff go over and they are huge so they have to be already revved up and ready to dump the clutch when needed. Lower power bands are often less efficient so when demand gets really low the power you do use from them is less efficiently made. It's the fatal flaw of grid tie.
Its the same in the US, these people just didnt do any research.
I live in Alberta, Canada. My natural gas bill has increased from $97 per month to $155 per month starting in August.
A 60% increase. This province is the largest producer of natural gas in Canada!
That's because they can sell that gas elsewhere for now money, so your have to pay that price to get any. The solution? Stop burning the gas if you can. Climate change has been a thing for almost 40 years. Tough if you're in an apartment or renting because you're powerless to change anything. But if you own your own home it might be worth looking at solar + wind.....or at least a home battery to fill up at a cheap time to use the power at an expensive time.
Several decades from now these minimum bills will be around $100-200 when more people go solar. Rates are always raised with claims that it’s to maintain the equipment. Even though we all know it’s to maintain the executives bank accounts
Decades? Try a couple of years.
Its 'only' 25 dollars this year, next year it will be 30... It's all about making more money and never about helping the customer.
There is a dark side to solar that many are unaware. Here in Sydney Australia, the utilities have dropped the price of power purchased from solar rooftop solar to around 23% of peak price. And it’s actually quite reasonable when you consider the reason. Just about every 2nd roof is feeding the grid between 10am to 2pm when the panels are peaking production. No one is home using this power (only industry / commercial) so the supply is greater than demand, dropping the wholesale price. When everyone comes home late afternoon, the panels aren’t making much but demand is at its peak. There is such a glut that the big hydroelectric power company in the Snowy Mountains is expanding its pump hydro set up to buy this mid day glut (at next to nothing) to pump the water up the hill and then sell it back to the customers at peak price in the evening when they run the water back down the hill. I have had rooftop solar for 12 years now and have take a great interest in the subject.
Buy yourself a battery back up. Look into lifepo4 cells. You can buy raw cells and build your own battery bank for about $130 a kwh. Or you can buy pre-built packs for about $280 a kwh. Anywhere from 10kwh to 30kwh system would be more than enough for a house hold. That would cost anywhere from $2000-$9000. Then you would never pay electricity prices again. Those lifepo4 cells are butter than regular lithium for two reasons. 1: they are incredibly safe when it comes to fire hazards compared to regular lithium. 2: you get about 3000 full charge cycles until your battery capacity is reduced to 80%(ex: a 30kwh pack would reduce to a 24kwh pack after 3000 FULL charges... so draining the pack 20% one day and 80% another would be considered a 1 charge cycle.) That would last about 15-20 years before replacing them. Compare that to regular lithium which is only 300-500 charge cycles. It's actually very affordable now.
We use peak energy in the afternoon and the Morning, heating and cooling. It's cool at night in the warm season. We run the AC a lot and drop the temp down, then after 7pm, it's cooling down by then. We do not need much heat at night in the winter, just the day. Summer days are long so the sun is up at 8pm. Later if you are farther north or south in your case. Public utilities also charge 2-3x LESS than these crooked politician owning private corporations.
@@randybobandy9828 Thank you for the valuable information sir
Finally somebody who gets it!
@@randybobandy9828 do you have a good recommendation for where to get these cells?
So selling excess power back to the utility companies still ends up being given back to them as they will charge you for not using their power. Well, the next logical step would be to just drop off the grid entirely - at least until some new tax/fee gets added on for not being connected. Then again, I believe there are many areas where 'off grid' isn't allowed.
Yes. In NC, they have been catching people living off grid and booting them off their land.
Florida doesn't allow going off grid.
@@e.turduckeny630 So what happens if you just don't pay your bill? They disconnect you, right?
@@e.turduckeny630 Florida also still allows net metering, and no minimum electric bills.
This story is 3 months old. Ron DeSantis vetoed the bill. It's a none issue now. Enjoy
In my county it isn't allowed. But my cousin who is a lawyer read the fine print to me. It's illegal but there is almost no teeth in the law. I am completely off grid. I produce more than I need in the summer so I have lines run to my neighbors so they can run their AC units from my private grid for free. My neighbors really like me. Technically I can be arrested. But worst case scenario is a $500 fine. So far after several years nobody is arresting me. I spoke to a cop about it and he said no cop is going to waste their time arresting someone for refusing to be someone's customer. Technically they could take away my home but again, my cousin told me no judge will order my home confiscated for refusing to be an electric company customer. Especially since our county has a five year plan to go off grid itself starting with installing solar for all traffic lights and putting an "illegal" solar electric system on the roof of city hall.
THIS IS WHY WE'RE SCREWED AS FAR AS FIXING THE CLIMET ,,,,, GREED, EVERYONE HAS TO MAKE MORE THAN THEY DID LAST QUARTER.
I knew this was coming when they started pushing compact fluorescent bulbs back in the day. They will NOT see a reduction in profits over the environment.
Imagine solar producers uniting, toggling their production to the grid on/off together, every five minutes. Fight tyranny by destroying its machine!
Solar producers can just make enough energy to get off the grid.
Nobody is forcing them to be in the grid.
Only issue is that currently there aint any affordable power storage for regular people.
As long as solar is just part of the energy consumption they need to be part of the grid. And that grid is owned and taken care by power companies so they have pretty much monopoly on this that happen in the grid.
There is no tyranny from the power company you buffoon... you don't have a right to demand service from the power company but not pay for maintenance.
@@samuelsilver8077 Actually yes, most towns are forcing people to be on the grid or you are in code violation. Officially its to prevent bad building practices by constructors. Unofficially, who do you think lobbys town officials to implement such laws requiring all legal housing to have electricity, plumbing, utilities, etc or suffer fines or foreclosures.
@@samuelsilver8077 Many places are forcing you to be on grid, and batteries cost a lot.
And FP&L got a law passed that indicated if you wanted to go "off grid", they could have your Certificate of Occupancy pulled for YOUR house. Reason: They want every house in the state giving them $$$ per year.
Cut Duke out of YOUR grid. Stop selling the excess and instead store it or burn it off. Have them remove THEIR property from YOUR property (charge them a minimum fee to keep THEIR meter and equipment on YOUR property) and then they can't bill you at all and you still should be able to supply your home.
Utility companies are boarderline an illegal monopoly. No matter who your "supplier" is you always get your bill from 1 company because they own the infrastructure. In which case, utilities should be covered by taxes and not charged as private companies.
If they are private companies, we as consumers have the right to do business without them and if we are not allowed, then they are not a private business they are a monopoly.
Then the solar home owners should send the utility company a bill for the equipment upkeep for the energy they contribute to the grid
This is why I am building an offgrid home.
These corporations will probably still find a way to charge you.
Maybe an "off the grid" bill or lobby$$ legislatures to make boondocking outright illegal.
Pushing for a public utility option is far better, because it does what its intended purpose is..being a utility, is not profit motivated and funded by taxes...which ends up cheaper for everyone's out of pocket costs..
Private corporations however do not want to compete with public options for obvious reasons and to many voters they think "Socialized" anything is tantamount to Communist Stalin.
Consider checking with whatever locality taxes and and claims power over you. There might be a hidden building code that forces a grid tie connection to keep the bribes flowing into the power company's hands. Adherence to these codes is optional as long as you don't want an occupancy permit...
Lets say you get lucky and your chosen property has no stipulation. A simple change in the greedy bastards laws can reverse it and force you to retrofit. So with a simple stroke of a pen, your plans can be forever altered.
Accepting this up front makes life a little easier. Plan for a grid tie-in. Isolate it with a separate power breaker but run a single 20 watt LED light from the grid just so you show consumption (because zero consumption sends up a red flag, forcing armed commandos to descend....sorry, I read to much fiction). Power your home from your local source and pay their minimum fee. Now just hope their drone surveys don't see your "unregulated and untaxed" power source forcing an unwelcome interaction with a building inspector.
Either way good luck in your adventures and pray.
Dang! Every electric company I've had in Kansas charges me around $40 a month to just have the darn account. Often all the charges are more than the energy use.
Geez here in australia or in my area you can pay like $1.40 a day service to property charge as well as like 35 cents per KWH. I pay about $120 per 3 months for water well that is the charges like sewerage and having the water there. The water is around 2.50 per thousand litres. My elec at the moment is around 77cents supply charge and 25 cents a kwh but is going up and mine was one of the cheaper ones.
Why would anyone believe Duke or the government about anything?
They're ya go. Big business taking action to keep lining their pockets.
This is just the first step, in a couple years it will go up to 40$, a couple years after that to 50$, so on so forth. Like oil companies not wanting electrical cars for the last 100 yrs, power companies don't want solar power homes/businesses. Conservation is out the window, greed is the name of the game.
Think of your cable bills. How much does it cost to string a cable on a public utility pole? Then a monopoly too? The same for power. Unimaginative leadership has no real insight as to how they can make a transition to alternative energy and money too. Very sad for our country.
What was the first step again? This story is 3 months old. Ron DeSantis vetoed the bill. It's a none issue now.
The only way to win is to have your own energy storage and disconnect from the power grid all together.
I live in SD out electric company has been charging us extra fees due to the winter storm in TX two years ago that shut their grid system down. Energy companies are all about their stake holders not customers.
The Government should Make all Utilities a Public Trust that Isn't about Profit but Service & Ban all Private Ownership of the Grid.
made it through Hurricane Micheal 20 days without power
Today it's a $30 charge for having solar
Tomorrow it's your first-born child if you wanna vote for your favorite meth dealing alligator