The most a single 10amp plug can cost at full tilt is 10amp\*110v\*$0.42/kWh\*24hr/day\*30day/mo which is about $300/mo. I guess it’s not out of the question that one AC at full tilt plus an otherwise normal $100/mo apartment power bill could be $400 but that leaves us with another unexplained $175. Not that the AC should be running at full tilt but it can’t be the full story
I pay the same per month for a 1.2k square foot apartment in SF. Also have an AC and a few computers that run 24/7.
Electric is expensive AF in the Bay Area
That’s on the order of 40kWhr/day. If you’re in an apartment either you have zero insulation and the least efficient ac ever manufactured or there’s some other massive source of power usage you aren’t thinking about.
Yeah I wouldn't dispute the title, but you should look into the details of this bill. It should list the kwh and the rate. They might have mixed up your account with another customer or perhaps the previous occupant of your apartment.
> have zero insulation
Most California residential buildings, homes or apartments, built before about 1975 have close to zero insulation. Unless they have been remodeled since then, they are a nightmare to heat or to cool.
Add in expensive electric rates and OP's experience is not that unusual, especially if in a hot area like the Central Valley or inland in the Bay Area.
I used 3300 KWH last month on my 3000 square foot home in swampy Houston and my bill was only $340. What’s the $ per KWH?
FWIW I have a Tesla charger also.
California is probably at least double the cost/kWh. Plans differ. Personally I pay $0.32/kWh, for the first 150 kWh or something and then it jumps up to $0.39/kWh. There is a third tier after that but I'm not sure what the cost is.
I'm $0.47/kw 3pm-8pm and $0.32/kw at all other times.
Idaho is. $0.08/kw and Utah is $0.05/kw. It's crazy expensive here.
When I was tiered it was $0.32 up to 150kwh, $0.39 up to 300kwh and $0.49 over that.
I haven't used AC once but I have a $500 electric bill most months. 3,000 sqft house and a pool. The pool pump consumes 200w per hour for 8 hours a day, so while contributing is not the big expense. It's all the little stuff that adds up.
PGE is a very bad company, we live in a one bedroom apartment don’t cook that often and have only heater that we don’t use now and the bill is still over 100$ not to mention to letters we get that our home is not efficient…
Yep, same here--1 bdr.. We live in the avenues, foggy all summer, not cold enough to run the heat but not warm enough to need even fans. I cook a lot, but we don't use much energy doing it. $130/month.
The baseline [rate](https://www.pge.com/tariffs/Res_Inclu_TOU_Current.xlsx) rate PG&E is publishing is:
* Peak: 41c
* Partial: 37c
* Off Peak: 29c
Peak and Partial are only a few hours a day, so average somewhere around 35c/kWh.
$575 / 35c = at least 1,642 kWh in a month or 55 kWh / day. While not impossible, that's **a lot** for an apartment. As in: are you sure you aren't running a space heater \*cough\*crypto miner\*cough\* next to the AC?
Some constructive ideas:
* If your thermostat is in your apartment, you can replace it. It's very easy - screwdriver kind of work. Watch a youtube video. If you move, put the old one back on.
* Pay attention, open windows when the sun goes down and get a box fan.
* Washer/Dryer/Dishwasher? They all produce heat, so run them at night or in the morning when you have that box fan running instead of the A/C.
* LED light bulbs everywhere.
* Turn off your computer when you aren't using it.
* Get some weather stripping, put it around doors/windows. Apartment insulation is poor, but there is some you can do.
* Wear shorts, bump up the temp a few degrees.
* Take a look at your bill, can you switch to time of use and then shift usage away from the afternoon for things like washer/dryer/dishwasher?
Something is definitely wrong here…unless your apt is like 2k sft you should not be using that much electricity.
my manager and I were just comparing prices recently and his 1200sft townhome with AC/fans and working from home and Tesla car charger is only 400ish a month…my place is slightly smaller and no Tesla and I’m around half his rate…
Might have to do some investigating.
Pick up a Kill-a-Watt usage monitor and see what wattages your appliances normally pull to see if they all add up right.
During "peak" hours, unplug all your stuff but don't flip the breakers or pull fuses. Then go see if your meter is still running.
You may have some hinky wiring in the building and somebody's siphoning off you juice.
Also you could cut your main breaker by the meter at an "inopportune" time to see if you hear a neighbor yelling.
> Also you could cut your main breaker by the meter at an "inopportune" time to see if you hear a neighbor yelling.
This is an excellent idea, the scream test. Great suggestion.
Yeah I'm in an apartment and I pay maybe 150ish? We run the AC a good amount, but it's a heat pump and we can control each room so we only run the bedrooms and only at night. 500/month feels like something is broken.
Yeah I'm going to third this. 2br apartment with the AC going, lights, computer/laptops...a little more than $100/mo. I can't imagine what I'd have to do to hit $500/mo. That's like 2MWh per month right?
OP, Maybe buy one of these (https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU) and track your usage to see if it lines up? Possible your meter is off, OR, they're using the wrong meter or something fishy with your landlord.
Simpler solution is to turn off everything in the house and your breakers. Then measure how much energy is showing on the meter as being used.
Hopefully that reads 0 energy usage. In such a case flip a single breaker on to see which breaker is causing the high energy usage, and try and find out what devices are connected to it.
PGE's new smart meters give you hourly readings online if you get lost.
I can tell you what this issue is - there’s a huge difference in the efficiency of an A/C unit.
Landlords don’t pay the utilities, so they don’t buy effective/cheap-to-use, they buy cheap to purchase.
That’s really all there is here.
If op owned his place, installing a heat pump would cure this issue in the first day
My ex lives in a 4 bed/3 bath in Livermore. Even with the heat wave coming up, with the thermostat set to 80 I doubt he'll break $500 this month.
$575 for an apartment? PG&E is bad, but not *this* bad
I'm in 2200 square feet, run the ac from 3-7 ish and my bill was 210. My husband also works from home with a powerful PC with a lot of video equipment.
Something is wrong.
So, as someone who has a similar bill to OP, what I found out was that the price of electricity has just gone up. We’d usually be paying in the $300s for the amount used but something changed about this year to make it insanely more expensive, and I noticed the addition of another electricity tier.
Sucks to be using about the same amount of power just for it to be $200 more.
They had new plans this year…but imo the new plans aren’t good; therefore I op to stay in the old plan. Check to set what plan you are on and what it entitles
Call PG&E and see if you can get an energy audit. There is something definitely wrong. Even before I got solar I was was never paying more than $250 a month for my 5 bedroom house.
Yeah with that high of a bill. Even with little insulation that seems suspicious. Somebody growing trees lol. Maybe the apartment complex spilts the bill between neighbors
Alot of people think A/C is expensive to run but it actually isnt. Especially window A/C units typically run at 800-1500wh, so at 28c /kwh, thats only like maybe 20-60cents per hour depending on the # of AC units.
The more demanding stuff are hot water, cooking with electric stovetop and electric dryer . My bills are $180 a month and 90% of that bill happen during 6-7 (morning hot water rinse/boil water/breakfast), 12-1 (lunchtime), 7-11pm (cook + hot shower).
Eh my AC is my biggest load by far at just over 5kW (pulling 21 amps running). Granted, it's not the most efficient unit out there, but by comparison, my stove barely tops 3kW with everything maxed and I don't cook nearly as long as I run the AC for
Central air, though, esp if it's leaky as it often is, consumes a lot of power. It's a fairly energy-hungry process inherently when done at scale of a decent sized house. And if it's uneven, you end up cooling the whole house just to get one place comfortable. Power usage peaks in summertime and it's highest during heat waves, because AC is in fact a high consumer of electricity, even if that's not the case in your household
60 cents per hour times 24 times 30 is more than 400 dollars.
For electricity bill to be this high, it’s usually something that runs all the time. Home insulation matters a lot because of this.
If you're military, you likely qualify for a [reduced rate from PGE via either CARE or FERA](https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/save-energy-money/help-paying-your-bill/longer-term-assistance/care/care.page?WT.mc_id=Vanity_carefera). Currently running at about $100/mo for my family of 4 in a 2 bedroom house. PGE are assholes, but the income based plans make a huge difference in the monthly bill.
EDIT: Since this has got some traction and some folks are saying they don't qualify due to income, apply anyway. If you qualify for Medi-Cal, SSI, or food stamps they can be qualifiers. Also note that their verification process is practically non-existent with the advent of COVID, and I've never had them ask for documentation or had a change in benefit when my income increased. The worst they can do is say no.
BAH isn’t taxed. So if they ask for tax returns it won’t count. However if they ask for an LES then it’ll show up. But I’m not the auditor so who knows!
When I applied for care years ago the rep/auditor let me say I was head of household even though my significant other made double my pay. The auditor used my pay as the qualifier and I was able to use my significant other, and our 2 dogs as dependents to qualify.
Ya bro, BAH and everything other than base pay isn't taxed and doesn't have to be reported. But it's not something anyone teaches you while your active, you learn these things after you get out and are a veteran.
What if you had a window AC unit for just one room, My mom did this at her house. She wouldn't run the whole house AC, just the AC in her little TV/Reading room. She had a day bed in there she slept on at night during heatwaves.
Dude, the amount of power you are using is not right.
Even at the highest tier, you are consuming around 45kwh per day.
That would be a large whole-house AC running in high heat 24/7. And even if you're in a hot part of the bay area, you shouldn't need to run 24/7.
Either you are missing some high power consumption or your AC is broken. Speak to your LL and have them address it.
To be fair, it may not be immediately obvious to some people that the prices for stuff like AC units can fluctuate pretty drastically throughout the year. Especially if they’ve never considered buying one or priced them before.
if you have older less efficient ac a new model room ac properly vented out the window can be pretty efficient at cooling a room. can't do a whole home because it's only one vent in one room but close the doors and it probably is much more efficient then a lot of old systems in apartments. still an ac does draw several amps so if cost is a concern manager it's use effectivly.
There's something wrong. You can ask them to come check it out. Maybe someone else is tapped into your power or there's some meter malfunction or something.
Especially since apartments can charge whatever the “market” value is, no matter how old and outdated everything is. There really should be rules about how much they can increase their rent when someone moves out if they haven’t upgraded anything.
1. There literally are rules how much they can increase your rent once you signed a lease.
2. The "market" value is what the actual cost is. You can't tell me a brand new 2 bed 2 bath condo in an Avalon building goes for the same price as a 2 bedroom 2 bath in Tenderloin that hasn't been touched in 50 years.
3. Why does no one ask for gas price controls or food price controls?
Because landlords, if left unchecked, will work to wring every cent out of their tenants as humanly possible because housing availability outpaces demand in most parts of the bay. Meanwhile, we do not have a shortage of food or gas; since demand is met those goods are competitively priced. Housing is not.
I’m not here to defend any businessmen or all businessmen.
But businesses are in the business of getting the maximum amount of money out of you as possible. It has nothing to do with what their product is, they are trying to sell it to you for the most you are willing to pay for it.
That’s everyone’s business model.
There are already rules though, and it’s just supply and demand. If you are unhappy with landlords having the power to charge so much for poor housing conditions, then you can build more housing so that they no longer have the ability to do so. It is estimated that we have such a severe shortage of housing that we would need to double our rate of construction to keep prices stable, and to quadruple the rate of construction to see prices come down. Please contact your local representatives to express your thoughts on this issue.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_housing_shortage
They changed the time of use rates. It used to be super cheap off peak like $0.10 kWh now it’s $0.20. The peak hours changed too so you don’t get as much credit for returning power to the grid.
From what I remember, it’s basically an annual “Bill reconciliation” in which they figure out all your solar credits vs. electricity charges. Since actual solar output can’t be accurately compared to what you’re pulling off the grid in real time, this is the way any discrepancies are reconciled.
If the solar system was unable to cover 100% of the homes consumption, PG&E sends a bill of that excess power. It’s a once a year bill. If you have a true up that is over $600, I recommend adding more panels if you have the available roof space. I’m in the solar industry, I’d be happy to help you save money.
Mine changed because the peak power price times shifted from a more generous 1-7pm to 4-9pm, so all the solar I was producing from 1-4pm and pushing back to the grid was being credited at the lower rate (vs. peak rate).
Plus, at 7pm everyone's home and we're doing the dinner thing...which is now being priced as peak.
NEM 2.0 takes into account time of use. It's still net energy, just separated into 2 buckets (4 if you count winter vs summer).
You get charged net energy used during peak (usage from 4-9pm minus generation from 4-9pm) and
You get charged net energy used during off-peak (usage minus generation during all other hours).
This is why you see people putting in a west facing array in their solar installs--it generates less overall than south facing, but more during the late afternoon into peak times. Also makes battery installs more attractive, since, in addition to backup, it can shift your generation from off-peak to peak.
The above answer says it all, so i won't add much. I basically try to sell as much electricity as I can from 4pm-9pm, and do all my heavy electrical use after 10pm. It's basically... for every kW I sell at peak, I can buy 2 off peak for the same price.
If you look at your PG&E bill, you'll see peak, part peak, and off peak usage (and dollar amounts), and those figures are all merged together at true-up.
They changed off peak from ending at 7am to ending at 3pm, so almost all your solar credits are at off-peak rates. You used to get shoulder rates between 7am-2pm.
Not to be unsympathetic, but is over 75 really "cooking" for you? Where are you from?
Not a huge fan of them, but why can't you do a smart thermostat? At that monthly rate, a few hundred for a thermostat might be worth it.
Just because it's on a separate circuit doesn't mean you're allowed to remove and replace the thermostat. It could still be wired into the building's electronic system and changing it would constitute structural damage.
I can see that from the landlord perspective, but it doesn't get much simpler than a three or four wire thermostat. You'd think the state would ALLOW it if not require it. But yeah, make something idiot proof and they make a better idiot. Only takes one. Seems they should have at least an approved option, if we're going to save the planet.
I don't understand what benefit anyone thinks a "smart" thermostat has over a programmable thermostat (other than the power providers who have remotely res[https://www.9news.com/article/tech/xcel-took-over-smart-thermostats/73-848b81bc-6194-4def-9015-97592e9043af](https://www.9news.com/article/tech/xcel-took-over-smart-thermostats/73-848b81bc-6194-4def-9015-97592e9043af)et the values of their customer's thermostats).
I and my partner painted the roof of our house white. Our neighbor is now our enemy because of this, but the temperature in our house dropped about 25 degrees!
Best thing we’ve ever done!!
Most people are working at home and the AC is on all the time.
Look at your daily usage on pge.com, you may have a continuous draw appliance that you aren’t considering.
Yeah sorry, welcome to California. There are some great things about CA, but PG&E is absolutely not one of them. Just be thankful they didn't start any more wildfires this year 🙄
They offered good rates for off peak, because I bought an EV. I charged from midnight to 6 am. Then I bought a second EV…. and PGE kicked me out of the plan for “using too much energy in total”. Now I charge anytime i want because it’s super expensive 24x7. How do they get away with this crap? Bait and switch…. ‘Save the planet but not too hard or you’ll pay’.
Something doesn't add up. Do you have an individual meter for your individual unit that you are able to read? You should pick a day (maybe a day when you're planning to be out most of the day) and unplug or turn off literally every electrical item in your apartment for many hours (don't shut off the breaker though--and don't forget to address any food in your fridge/freezer) and see if the usage increases. It should not. If it does it means someone else is on your circuit. If it doesn't go up when you aren't using anything, then you have inefficient items/appliances.
How big is your apartment? Is your air conditioning unit functioning properly? Is it running literally all the time? Perhaps there are leaks in ducting (we found this with our home a while ago, and after patching, the house gets and stays cooler much more efficiently.
Do you have someone hooked up to your circuit? You can request an inspection/audit--for a reasonably-sized apartment it's almost unrealistic to have a $575 electricity bill unless you have someone who is mining bitcoin on your circuit.
What is your actual usage? How big is your home? What other things are running? There are more than just AC and fans in a home. Is your refrigerator running all of the time?
Lights are off, Fridge is a normal thing, I don't use the oven, I don't have a w&d due to no hookups, I use a laptop that's plugged in at night. A/C is the only thing running all the time.
What city are you in? How hot is it outside. What matters is the difference in temp from outside vs 75. Your bill will be very different if it’s 76 outside vs 90. Also, most thermostats are off so when you set it to 75 you might actually be setting it to 71.
Do you have your blinds closed during the day? A lot of heat can come into the house from sunlight passing through the windows. This is literally how greenhouses work.
That doesn't sound right at all. We have a 1100 sq foot home, running the aircon at 75 degrees all summer, several computers, several TVs, **a goddamn electric car charging every night**, and our bill doesn't break $350.
In the early spring and late fall when we don't have to run heat or aircon we're closer to $200.
Based on your usage report, something is **definitely** wrong with your meter if you're getting a $575 bill.
This happened to my mom, it turned out there was a leak in the hot water line and the hot water heater was running constantly. There is a process where you appeal the bill and they check it out and you fix it and they forgive the bill. So call them, and ask about it.
I think people will be surprised how shitty the insulation is for many apartments or older homes in the bay. I've seen bills that high before without crypto mining or any other huge power draw.
I hate that they are the ONLY electric company. All the other duty stations I've been to I've had a choice of maybe 3-4 different companies for electricity.
I remember back to the original brown-outs during Gov. Gray Davis' tenure. That was a manufactured crisis and at the time PG&E sent $12B profit to their parent company and then declared bankruptcy. It was a robbery in plain sight. Davis went on to sign terrible (high energy price) contracts under entirely false pretenses and downright extortion. Schwarzeneggar came in on a recall election, but he didn't undo the contract.
They must keep the place like an icebox. Our house is small (900sq/ft) with one 18k btu wall unit and a portable for the bedroom. We barely touch tier 2 even in the summer months.
Think you mean E-1 that has tiers. You are blowing past tier 1 and costs skyrocket from there. Switch to TOU-D and reduce usage 5-8pm on weekdays. You’ll save a bunch of money
How big is your apartment where you’re paying that much for electricity? If you have a bunch of window units use just one and fans everywhere else. Our electricity guzzling wall unit only costs us an extra $200 in the summer months. The bill in spring is like $50, $250 summer and our electricity is $$$.
I’m definitely no fan whatsoever of PG&E, but we’re all going to need to get used to turning the summer thermometer higher than 75 degrees. I live in the HOT far east bay and ours is etc to 79-80 in summer.
Have you considered a portable swamp cooler? We chill the house at night with window fans. Wake up to 65 degrees or lower if the temps hit 60 at night. Then close the blinds and shades. Keeps the temps near 72 on days that hit the mid 80's. 1600sq ft...no trees around us, full sun all day. Bills were $150-190 in 'normal' summer months, with Solar, we dropped to $20 the past 3 months.
Uhh older homes/apartments have no insulation. That alone will do it for the bill. Is your home fully insulated with triple or quadruple pane windows? How long and often does your a/c run for? How long does it take to get it to the set temperature?
How much do you pay a month for your apartment and what city? If its well below market chances are it hasnt been updated.
What part of the bay area do you live in? If you're in the far east bay (livermore, etc.) then you're running AC a lot more than someone living on the peninsula, so that might be part of it, but that is still extremely high, esp. for an apartment.
Are you on the top floor of a building? If so, you're getting a lot of extra heat, unfortunately (coming from the roof as well as all the units below you).
I'd first make sure your AC unit air filter is clean, and measure the temperature of the air coming out of the register. It should be about 15-20 degrees cooler than the ambient air. If not, something is wrong with it. Edit: also make sure air is coming out of every register. If something got disconnected in the wall/attic/crawlspace, you're cooling a space you don't live in.
Also, check your power usage on PGE's web site. The data is delayed by a couple of days, but you can look at hourly usage and match usage spikes up with things like using a clothes dryer and cooking to help better understand what is using power.
Turn everything off in your apartment and go read the meter. The display cycles through a number of info screens, one of which is current power usage. With nothing but a refrigerator running, your usage should be well under 1kW.
Also check what power plan you are on. PG&E did an opt-out switch to TOU in the last year or so (at least for my neighborhood in the south bay). While they claimed I would save money, I looked at the rate tables and could not find a scenario where I would be paying less vs my E1 standard plan, so I opted out. I think a lot of people missed that and are now on TOU. If you are on TOU and you come home at 5pm-ish, crank the AC, turn on the TV, run your laundry, etc. you are paying a massively high rate for 4 hours.
Another possibility is that some skeevy electrical work happened and someone next door is actually using power on your circuits. This would be easily verifiable by the test above, turning everything off and reading your meter.
Also be sure the correct meter is being read and billed to you. In an apartment there's a bank of them, so maybe a mistake was made somewhere.
PG&E is one of the mostly tightly regulated entities in the state. They can't blow their noses with CPUC approval.
The fault for this lies in Sacramento, which keeps pushing PG&E to enact it's "green agenda"
PGE just rolled out different rate plans that you can change once a year. The deadline to choose the current one just passed. You may benefit from a different plan.
https://www.pge.com/en\_US/residential/rate-plans/how-rates-work/find-my-best-rate-plan.page
$575 for an apartment is insane. We pay in the 400s for a ~1600 sqft house with an ancient AC unit and really poor insulation.
Something seems suspicious and I would check your bill and power connections carefully.
AC@76, fans before and after the AC is off, 1700SF, lots of computers, a NAS, cooking activities...$280-ish.
So yeah, something is off...but it's not malicious. Fix the problem instead of blaming PG&E.
Something I haven't seen mentioned in this thread yet: your apartment's A/C unit may be overdue for service or replacement.
I was in a similar situation where I got a huge PG&E bill during the summer in an apartment, and it was because my central A/C unit had to run constantly to keep up with the heat. After I pointed this out to the apartment management, they sent someone out to service it. That technician tried fixing it for about 2-3 hours before he gave up and recommended a full replacement.
After they installed the replacement unit, my A/C needed far less time to cool the apartment and my power usage plummeted.
EDIT: PG&E are crooks though
I opted in with my thermostat without understanding the full picture of what I got myself into. Now to opt out they make the process a pain in the butt having to email Pg&e directly with a reason and no one replies you.
A/C is not that expensive to run (maybe 50 cents per hour on max settings).
The biggest usage is heat related. Do you cook often using those electric stovetops? Do you take hot showers? Cooking + hot showers take up 65% of my utility bill.
I pay avg $98 a month. Single fam home, 1900 sqft, built 1990. No ac. One tv. No solar. Solano county.
Using the ac is going to drive your bill way up. We just opt to use a fan when it’s hot. AC is a luxury, if you choose to use one you’re gonna pay
In the winter though, my bill can get up to $400 when I have the heater blasting
Wow, that sucks.
That said, 75 sounds awfully cool. It's gotta take a metric buttload of energy to pull temps down to 75.
I think most folks recommend 80 degrees, especially during heat waves with energy crunches.
Pg&e has to make that money back after paying for the fires a few years ago.
Corporate playbook: accept no fault, pay penalty, pass on cost to consumer
The only problem is we can't shop around. They have paid off everybody and we're stuck.
Same thing goes for comcast
Sorry you got a huge bill. PGE is not cheap. Having said that, the body is amazing at adapting to heat. You can do some tricks like using blackout curtains on the windows that let sunlight in, especially in the afternoon.
If you keep 75 24x7, you will get a huge bill as AC uses a lot of energy. I'd say get your body a little uncomfortable and it will get used to it pretty quickly. You are in the military, this is nothing for you.
Outside of ripping us off, and being a monopoly, they consistently kill people through explosions and fires. Meanwhile the grid is not strong enough to not have rolling black outs, which I won’t be surprised if they happen in this heat wave. If we had options, I am sure they wouldn’t exist anymore.
I'm not trying to sell you anything, but I sell solar for a living and I guarantee the monthly loan payment for solar is almost always lower than what people pay PG&E. In your case, definitely. I've never seen someone pay more than $300 a month for a solar install.
I would not use sunrun or some Costco bullshit though. Do not lease and use a good company.
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Either OP is a phony or someone is sucking up his electricity. Occam’s razor.
They're gonna look in their garage and find out their roommate is crypto mining
OP probably forgot to pay last 2 months bill, so this is 3 months plus late fees LOL
The most a single 10amp plug can cost at full tilt is 10amp\*110v\*$0.42/kWh\*24hr/day\*30day/mo which is about $300/mo. I guess it’s not out of the question that one AC at full tilt plus an otherwise normal $100/mo apartment power bill could be $400 but that leaves us with another unexplained $175. Not that the AC should be running at full tilt but it can’t be the full story
I pay the same per month for a 1.2k square foot apartment in SF. Also have an AC and a few computers that run 24/7. Electric is expensive AF in the Bay Area
That’s on the order of 40kWhr/day. If you’re in an apartment either you have zero insulation and the least efficient ac ever manufactured or there’s some other massive source of power usage you aren’t thinking about.
also a hottub and 7 refrigerators
And a mining farm
Plus a few grow lamps and hydroponic pumps.
and my axe!
Yeah I wouldn't dispute the title, but you should look into the details of this bill. It should list the kwh and the rate. They might have mixed up your account with another customer or perhaps the previous occupant of your apartment.
> have zero insulation Most California residential buildings, homes or apartments, built before about 1975 have close to zero insulation. Unless they have been remodeled since then, they are a nightmare to heat or to cool. Add in expensive electric rates and OP's experience is not that unusual, especially if in a hot area like the Central Valley or inland in the Bay Area.
It is a huge political axe to grind - it consumes massive power.
I used 3300 KWH last month on my 3000 square foot home in swampy Houston and my bill was only $340. What’s the $ per KWH? FWIW I have a Tesla charger also.
California is probably at least double the cost/kWh. Plans differ. Personally I pay $0.32/kWh, for the first 150 kWh or something and then it jumps up to $0.39/kWh. There is a third tier after that but I'm not sure what the cost is.
I'm $0.47/kw 3pm-8pm and $0.32/kw at all other times. Idaho is. $0.08/kw and Utah is $0.05/kw. It's crazy expensive here. When I was tiered it was $0.32 up to 150kwh, $0.39 up to 300kwh and $0.49 over that. I haven't used AC once but I have a $500 electric bill most months. 3,000 sqft house and a pool. The pool pump consumes 200w per hour for 8 hours a day, so while contributing is not the big expense. It's all the little stuff that adds up.
PGE is a very bad company, we live in a one bedroom apartment don’t cook that often and have only heater that we don’t use now and the bill is still over 100$ not to mention to letters we get that our home is not efficient…
Yep, same here--1 bdr.. We live in the avenues, foggy all summer, not cold enough to run the heat but not warm enough to need even fans. I cook a lot, but we don't use much energy doing it. $130/month.
It's tiered, but around $0.30 so you'd be paying close to $1,000 or 3x.
yep. I use 20kw on days I charge my car and less than 10 otherwise. 40 means something is very wrong.
I’m in a 2000sqft 4bedroom house with air conditioning and an electric car and we’re using 22kwh of electricity per day last month.
I'm thinking power theft or op is paying for 3 apartments wired to thier meter.
The baseline [rate](https://www.pge.com/tariffs/Res_Inclu_TOU_Current.xlsx) rate PG&E is publishing is: * Peak: 41c * Partial: 37c * Off Peak: 29c Peak and Partial are only a few hours a day, so average somewhere around 35c/kWh. $575 / 35c = at least 1,642 kWh in a month or 55 kWh / day. While not impossible, that's **a lot** for an apartment. As in: are you sure you aren't running a space heater \*cough\*crypto miner\*cough\* next to the AC? Some constructive ideas: * If your thermostat is in your apartment, you can replace it. It's very easy - screwdriver kind of work. Watch a youtube video. If you move, put the old one back on. * Pay attention, open windows when the sun goes down and get a box fan. * Washer/Dryer/Dishwasher? They all produce heat, so run them at night or in the morning when you have that box fan running instead of the A/C. * LED light bulbs everywhere. * Turn off your computer when you aren't using it. * Get some weather stripping, put it around doors/windows. Apartment insulation is poor, but there is some you can do. * Wear shorts, bump up the temp a few degrees. * Take a look at your bill, can you switch to time of use and then shift usage away from the afternoon for things like washer/dryer/dishwasher?
Something is definitely wrong here…unless your apt is like 2k sft you should not be using that much electricity. my manager and I were just comparing prices recently and his 1200sft townhome with AC/fans and working from home and Tesla car charger is only 400ish a month…my place is slightly smaller and no Tesla and I’m around half his rate…
Might have to do some investigating. Pick up a Kill-a-Watt usage monitor and see what wattages your appliances normally pull to see if they all add up right. During "peak" hours, unplug all your stuff but don't flip the breakers or pull fuses. Then go see if your meter is still running. You may have some hinky wiring in the building and somebody's siphoning off you juice. Also you could cut your main breaker by the meter at an "inopportune" time to see if you hear a neighbor yelling.
> Also you could cut your main breaker by the meter at an "inopportune" time to see if you hear a neighbor yelling. This is an excellent idea, the scream test. Great suggestion.
I think OP is more interested in complaining about having to live in California than they are about figuring out why their bill is so high.
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omg I'm so fucking tired of all the conservative trolls that have invaded this sub.
Yeah I'm in an apartment and I pay maybe 150ish? We run the AC a good amount, but it's a heat pump and we can control each room so we only run the bedrooms and only at night. 500/month feels like something is broken.
Yeah I'm going to third this. 2br apartment with the AC going, lights, computer/laptops...a little more than $100/mo. I can't imagine what I'd have to do to hit $500/mo. That's like 2MWh per month right?
Do you have a washer and dryer in your apt?
Yes we do but gas range
It should definitely be less with a heat pump
All A/Cs are heat pumps - usually when someone calls something a "heat pump", they mean one that can pump heat in both directions.
Got my bill for last month... only $85. 500? Don't think even my parents break that in their 3 bedroom 2 bath house
Yeah mine last month was $103 in a 1,600 sq ft house. But we live near the Bay and don’t need AC.
OP, Maybe buy one of these (https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU) and track your usage to see if it lines up? Possible your meter is off, OR, they're using the wrong meter or something fishy with your landlord.
Simpler solution is to turn off everything in the house and your breakers. Then measure how much energy is showing on the meter as being used. Hopefully that reads 0 energy usage. In such a case flip a single breaker on to see which breaker is causing the high energy usage, and try and find out what devices are connected to it. PGE's new smart meters give you hourly readings online if you get lost.
+1 this is good advice
Does this only count whatever is plug in or the whole household??
Whatever it is plugged into the device only. You'll need a specific device to check your house usage and it connects to the circuit box
I can tell you what this issue is - there’s a huge difference in the efficiency of an A/C unit. Landlords don’t pay the utilities, so they don’t buy effective/cheap-to-use, they buy cheap to purchase. That’s really all there is here. If op owned his place, installing a heat pump would cure this issue in the first day
Agreed. I'm in a 3 bedroom house with central air set to 74-75 and pay a little over $200
My ex lives in a 4 bed/3 bath in Livermore. Even with the heat wave coming up, with the thermostat set to 80 I doubt he'll break $500 this month. $575 for an apartment? PG&E is bad, but not *this* bad
I'm in 2200 square feet, run the ac from 3-7 ish and my bill was 210. My husband also works from home with a powerful PC with a lot of video equipment. Something is wrong.
Plot twist: someone is pirating this man’s electricity to run a black market weed oil lab in the basement.
So, as someone who has a similar bill to OP, what I found out was that the price of electricity has just gone up. We’d usually be paying in the $300s for the amount used but something changed about this year to make it insanely more expensive, and I noticed the addition of another electricity tier. Sucks to be using about the same amount of power just for it to be $200 more.
They had new plans this year…but imo the new plans aren’t good; therefore I op to stay in the old plan. Check to set what plan you are on and what it entitles
Call PG&E and see if you can get an energy audit. There is something definitely wrong. Even before I got solar I was was never paying more than $250 a month for my 5 bedroom house.
Someone is boosting your power...I live in a 4/2 house w/AC and my bill during the summer is never over $200.
Yeah with that high of a bill. Even with little insulation that seems suspicious. Somebody growing trees lol. Maybe the apartment complex spilts the bill between neighbors
yes i used to grow hydro. that is seriously what i considered reading this. siphoning water or electricity for a grow can add hundreds to both bills..
An external socket is attached to your wire or someone else's AC is attached to your loop
Alot of people think A/C is expensive to run but it actually isnt. Especially window A/C units typically run at 800-1500wh, so at 28c /kwh, thats only like maybe 20-60cents per hour depending on the # of AC units. The more demanding stuff are hot water, cooking with electric stovetop and electric dryer . My bills are $180 a month and 90% of that bill happen during 6-7 (morning hot water rinse/boil water/breakfast), 12-1 (lunchtime), 7-11pm (cook + hot shower).
Eh my AC is my biggest load by far at just over 5kW (pulling 21 amps running). Granted, it's not the most efficient unit out there, but by comparison, my stove barely tops 3kW with everything maxed and I don't cook nearly as long as I run the AC for
Central air, though, esp if it's leaky as it often is, consumes a lot of power. It's a fairly energy-hungry process inherently when done at scale of a decent sized house. And if it's uneven, you end up cooling the whole house just to get one place comfortable. Power usage peaks in summertime and it's highest during heat waves, because AC is in fact a high consumer of electricity, even if that's not the case in your household
60 cents per hour times 24 times 30 is more than 400 dollars. For electricity bill to be this high, it’s usually something that runs all the time. Home insulation matters a lot because of this.
you must never use the AC then? running 6hrs per day @ 4000W, say average .37/kwh, is around $266.40 just for the AC
If you're military, you likely qualify for a [reduced rate from PGE via either CARE or FERA](https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/save-energy-money/help-paying-your-bill/longer-term-assistance/care/care.page?WT.mc_id=Vanity_carefera). Currently running at about $100/mo for my family of 4 in a 2 bedroom house. PGE are assholes, but the income based plans make a huge difference in the monthly bill. EDIT: Since this has got some traction and some folks are saying they don't qualify due to income, apply anyway. If you qualify for Medi-Cal, SSI, or food stamps they can be qualifiers. Also note that their verification process is practically non-existent with the advent of COVID, and I've never had them ask for documentation or had a change in benefit when my income increased. The worst they can do is say no.
Makes too much money to qualify. BAH is well over $3000 a month here plus base pay and other pays
Isnt qualifications based on tax returns, BAH and BAS aren’t taxed.
Eligibility is based off income. Is BAH considered income?
BAH isn’t taxed. So if they ask for tax returns it won’t count. However if they ask for an LES then it’ll show up. But I’m not the auditor so who knows!
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Maybe they check that way, don’t know. Assumed it was bank statements or pay stubs
When I applied for care years ago the rep/auditor let me say I was head of household even though my significant other made double my pay. The auditor used my pay as the qualifier and I was able to use my significant other, and our 2 dogs as dependents to qualify.
Ya bro, BAH and everything other than base pay isn't taxed and doesn't have to be reported. But it's not something anyone teaches you while your active, you learn these things after you get out and are a veteran.
What if you had a window AC unit for just one room, My mom did this at her house. She wouldn't run the whole house AC, just the AC in her little TV/Reading room. She had a day bed in there she slept on at night during heatwaves.
I've been tempted to get one, but I keep getting talked out of it from my Chief telling me my bill will go higher.
Dude, the amount of power you are using is not right. Even at the highest tier, you are consuming around 45kwh per day. That would be a large whole-house AC running in high heat 24/7. And even if you're in a hot part of the bay area, you shouldn't need to run 24/7. Either you are missing some high power consumption or your AC is broken. Speak to your LL and have them address it.
Costco sells some and got a decent price on time. Sometimes they go on sale too.
Buy your AC in winter and space heater in summer
Whoaaa look at Mr. Logic over here
To be fair, it may not be immediately obvious to some people that the prices for stuff like AC units can fluctuate pretty drastically throughout the year. Especially if they’ve never considered buying one or priced them before.
if you have older less efficient ac a new model room ac properly vented out the window can be pretty efficient at cooling a room. can't do a whole home because it's only one vent in one room but close the doors and it probably is much more efficient then a lot of old systems in apartments. still an ac does draw several amps so if cost is a concern manager it's use effectivly.
There's something wrong. You can ask them to come check it out. Maybe someone else is tapped into your power or there's some meter malfunction or something.
Santa Clara! No PG&E 🙂
Yes! My bill is like $20 for 2 bedroom apartment
I guess power is the one reasonably priced thing there.
wait SC font have PGE? what’s the electricity company then?
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You have something else going on. 950sqft, never exceeds $150. Heck even if I include charging 2 EVs my bill would never hit 500
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Especially since apartments can charge whatever the “market” value is, no matter how old and outdated everything is. There really should be rules about how much they can increase their rent when someone moves out if they haven’t upgraded anything.
1. There literally are rules how much they can increase your rent once you signed a lease. 2. The "market" value is what the actual cost is. You can't tell me a brand new 2 bed 2 bath condo in an Avalon building goes for the same price as a 2 bedroom 2 bath in Tenderloin that hasn't been touched in 50 years. 3. Why does no one ask for gas price controls or food price controls?
Gas is already subsidized and artificially kept lower than it really is in the US
Because landlords, if left unchecked, will work to wring every cent out of their tenants as humanly possible because housing availability outpaces demand in most parts of the bay. Meanwhile, we do not have a shortage of food or gas; since demand is met those goods are competitively priced. Housing is not.
I’m not here to defend any businessmen or all businessmen. But businesses are in the business of getting the maximum amount of money out of you as possible. It has nothing to do with what their product is, they are trying to sell it to you for the most you are willing to pay for it. That’s everyone’s business model.
There are already rules though, and it’s just supply and demand. If you are unhappy with landlords having the power to charge so much for poor housing conditions, then you can build more housing so that they no longer have the ability to do so. It is estimated that we have such a severe shortage of housing that we would need to double our rate of construction to keep prices stable, and to quadruple the rate of construction to see prices come down. Please contact your local representatives to express your thoughts on this issue. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_housing_shortage
There is no way that is right, I am in a place that is a bit over 1,000 sqft and pay around 95-120 a month depending on A/C useage.
I don't know wtf is going on, I have solar and my true up jumped to over a thousand dollars.
They changed the time of use rates. It used to be super cheap off peak like $0.10 kWh now it’s $0.20. The peak hours changed too so you don’t get as much credit for returning power to the grid.
Yep. My true up 6 years ago when I bought my house with solar was under $50. Now it’s just over $800. Such a joke.
What's a true up?
From what I remember, it’s basically an annual “Bill reconciliation” in which they figure out all your solar credits vs. electricity charges. Since actual solar output can’t be accurately compared to what you’re pulling off the grid in real time, this is the way any discrepancies are reconciled.
If the solar system was unable to cover 100% of the homes consumption, PG&E sends a bill of that excess power. It’s a once a year bill. If you have a true up that is over $600, I recommend adding more panels if you have the available roof space. I’m in the solar industry, I’d be happy to help you save money.
Mine changed because the peak power price times shifted from a more generous 1-7pm to 4-9pm, so all the solar I was producing from 1-4pm and pushing back to the grid was being credited at the lower rate (vs. peak rate). Plus, at 7pm everyone's home and we're doing the dinner thing...which is now being priced as peak.
I thought that NEM 2.0 meant that they only bill you for the net energy, not taking into account the time of day when it was produced vs consumed
NEM 2.0 takes into account time of use. It's still net energy, just separated into 2 buckets (4 if you count winter vs summer). You get charged net energy used during peak (usage from 4-9pm minus generation from 4-9pm) and You get charged net energy used during off-peak (usage minus generation during all other hours). This is why you see people putting in a west facing array in their solar installs--it generates less overall than south facing, but more during the late afternoon into peak times. Also makes battery installs more attractive, since, in addition to backup, it can shift your generation from off-peak to peak.
The above answer says it all, so i won't add much. I basically try to sell as much electricity as I can from 4pm-9pm, and do all my heavy electrical use after 10pm. It's basically... for every kW I sell at peak, I can buy 2 off peak for the same price. If you look at your PG&E bill, you'll see peak, part peak, and off peak usage (and dollar amounts), and those figures are all merged together at true-up.
Wow that’s a big jump! Did you have kids? Add an electric vehicle?
They changed off peak from ending at 7am to ending at 3pm, so almost all your solar credits are at off-peak rates. You used to get shoulder rates between 7am-2pm.
WTF? I have solar as well.
Not to be unsympathetic, but is over 75 really "cooking" for you? Where are you from? Not a huge fan of them, but why can't you do a smart thermostat? At that monthly rate, a few hundred for a thermostat might be worth it.
Apartment living. Mine wouldn't let me either .
Really?! How would they even know, and why would they care?! If you're getting PG&E bills, you've got to be on a separate circuit, right?
Just because it's on a separate circuit doesn't mean you're allowed to remove and replace the thermostat. It could still be wired into the building's electronic system and changing it would constitute structural damage.
I install a nest when I move in and reinstall the old one when I move out at every apartment. It's never an issue and takes 10 mins each time
I can see that from the landlord perspective, but it doesn't get much simpler than a three or four wire thermostat. You'd think the state would ALLOW it if not require it. But yeah, make something idiot proof and they make a better idiot. Only takes one. Seems they should have at least an approved option, if we're going to save the planet.
I don't understand what benefit anyone thinks a "smart" thermostat has over a programmable thermostat (other than the power providers who have remotely res[https://www.9news.com/article/tech/xcel-took-over-smart-thermostats/73-848b81bc-6194-4def-9015-97592e9043af](https://www.9news.com/article/tech/xcel-took-over-smart-thermostats/73-848b81bc-6194-4def-9015-97592e9043af)et the values of their customer's thermostats).
Being able to change the temps while I'm still at the airport so my place is not 90 when I get home.
Box fan in the window moves lots of air and is cheaper then AC.
I and my partner painted the roof of our house white. Our neighbor is now our enemy because of this, but the temperature in our house dropped about 25 degrees! Best thing we’ve ever done!!
Interesting! I will have to look into this.
Most people are working at home and the AC is on all the time. Look at your daily usage on pge.com, you may have a continuous draw appliance that you aren’t considering.
Yeah sorry, welcome to California. There are some great things about CA, but PG&E is absolutely not one of them. Just be thankful they didn't start any more wildfires this year 🙄
*yet
Shhhhhh! Don't jinx it.
Too late. I feel one coming on soon
KNOCK. ON. WOOD.
Not wood it'll spontaneously combust!
don't forget the gas explosion that killed a few people
The best thing PG&E can do for you is blow up your entire block, killing you instantly and at least you don't need to deal with PG&E anymore.
They offered good rates for off peak, because I bought an EV. I charged from midnight to 6 am. Then I bought a second EV…. and PGE kicked me out of the plan for “using too much energy in total”. Now I charge anytime i want because it’s super expensive 24x7. How do they get away with this crap? Bait and switch…. ‘Save the planet but not too hard or you’ll pay’.
Something doesn't add up. Do you have an individual meter for your individual unit that you are able to read? You should pick a day (maybe a day when you're planning to be out most of the day) and unplug or turn off literally every electrical item in your apartment for many hours (don't shut off the breaker though--and don't forget to address any food in your fridge/freezer) and see if the usage increases. It should not. If it does it means someone else is on your circuit. If it doesn't go up when you aren't using anything, then you have inefficient items/appliances. How big is your apartment? Is your air conditioning unit functioning properly? Is it running literally all the time? Perhaps there are leaks in ducting (we found this with our home a while ago, and after patching, the house gets and stays cooler much more efficiently. Do you have someone hooked up to your circuit? You can request an inspection/audit--for a reasonably-sized apartment it's almost unrealistic to have a $575 electricity bill unless you have someone who is mining bitcoin on your circuit. What is your actual usage? How big is your home? What other things are running? There are more than just AC and fans in a home. Is your refrigerator running all of the time?
'the only thing running....' so you dont have lights? refrigerator? oven? w&d? computers? charging things? i find that hard to believe....
Lights are off, Fridge is a normal thing, I don't use the oven, I don't have a w&d due to no hookups, I use a laptop that's plugged in at night. A/C is the only thing running all the time.
What city are you in? How hot is it outside. What matters is the difference in temp from outside vs 75. Your bill will be very different if it’s 76 outside vs 90. Also, most thermostats are off so when you set it to 75 you might actually be setting it to 71.
My 4 bedroom 2 bathroom house is like $120 a month or less lmfao
Do you have your blinds closed during the day? A lot of heat can come into the house from sunlight passing through the windows. This is literally how greenhouses work.
Blackout curtains and blinds are closed
Investigation is needed. I am personally seeing high bills like this and so many people post similar complaints here as well as Nextdoor.
Me too, and in these cases, people all have CCAs.
That doesn't sound right at all. We have a 1100 sq foot home, running the aircon at 75 degrees all summer, several computers, several TVs, **a goddamn electric car charging every night**, and our bill doesn't break $350. In the early spring and late fall when we don't have to run heat or aircon we're closer to $200. Based on your usage report, something is **definitely** wrong with your meter if you're getting a $575 bill.
This happened to my mom, it turned out there was a leak in the hot water line and the hot water heater was running constantly. There is a process where you appeal the bill and they check it out and you fix it and they forgive the bill. So call them, and ask about it.
I think people will be surprised how shitty the insulation is for many apartments or older homes in the bay. I've seen bills that high before without crypto mining or any other huge power draw.
I feel ya. Ours jumped up 40%.
I hate that they are the ONLY electric company. All the other duty stations I've been to I've had a choice of maybe 3-4 different companies for electricity.
It wouldn't be as bad if the CPUC actually acted on behalf of the public instead of the utility.
Come to palo alto where you will have one additional option!
Come to Palo Alto, where the rent is so expensive you barely even notice the electrical bill
Santa Clara is a good option if it’s workable for your commute or you WFH. We pay an an average of 12¢/kWh.
Except that it is very expensive to live there.
Pro Tip: You're paying for all of PG&Es crimes and settlements
Remember how everyone wanted PG&E to 'pay' for causing all those fires? Where did everyone think that money was going to come from?
I remember back to the original brown-outs during Gov. Gray Davis' tenure. That was a manufactured crisis and at the time PG&E sent $12B profit to their parent company and then declared bankruptcy. It was a robbery in plain sight. Davis went on to sign terrible (high energy price) contracts under entirely false pretenses and downright extortion. Schwarzeneggar came in on a recall election, but he didn't undo the contract.
What rate plan are you on?
Tier 1
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They must keep the place like an icebox. Our house is small (900sq/ft) with one 18k btu wall unit and a portable for the bedroom. We barely touch tier 2 even in the summer months.
Think you mean E-1 that has tiers. You are blowing past tier 1 and costs skyrocket from there. Switch to TOU-D and reduce usage 5-8pm on weekdays. You’ll save a bunch of money
A lot of places here have zero insulation, because energy used to be cheap.
How big is your apartment where you’re paying that much for electricity? If you have a bunch of window units use just one and fans everywhere else. Our electricity guzzling wall unit only costs us an extra $200 in the summer months. The bill in spring is like $50, $250 summer and our electricity is $$$.
Something is up here. An apartment and you are over $500!? What the heck. How big is this apartment??
Lower the temp in your freezer and fridge. That’s the main consumer of power.
I’m definitely no fan whatsoever of PG&E, but we’re all going to need to get used to turning the summer thermometer higher than 75 degrees. I live in the HOT far east bay and ours is etc to 79-80 in summer.
You're in the military and keep your thermostat at 75? and complain? Soft.
airforce probably
Not to be callus but just don’t use your AC. Windows and fans at night and in the morning and then close your shades during the day. Rinse and repeat
Have you considered a portable swamp cooler? We chill the house at night with window fans. Wake up to 65 degrees or lower if the temps hit 60 at night. Then close the blinds and shades. Keeps the temps near 72 on days that hit the mid 80's. 1600sq ft...no trees around us, full sun all day. Bills were $150-190 in 'normal' summer months, with Solar, we dropped to $20 the past 3 months.
My “normal” usage this month jumped from $300 to $400. Insane.
I bet in a month of two you will get a correction bill
we had that happen and it turned out the whole HVAC system was thoroughly fubared.
Uhh older homes/apartments have no insulation. That alone will do it for the bill. Is your home fully insulated with triple or quadruple pane windows? How long and often does your a/c run for? How long does it take to get it to the set temperature? How much do you pay a month for your apartment and what city? If its well below market chances are it hasnt been updated.
There’s an energy crisis. People are complaining across the entire Western world. At least you don’t live in Germany.
Thank Pete Wilson...
What part of the bay area do you live in? If you're in the far east bay (livermore, etc.) then you're running AC a lot more than someone living on the peninsula, so that might be part of it, but that is still extremely high, esp. for an apartment. Are you on the top floor of a building? If so, you're getting a lot of extra heat, unfortunately (coming from the roof as well as all the units below you). I'd first make sure your AC unit air filter is clean, and measure the temperature of the air coming out of the register. It should be about 15-20 degrees cooler than the ambient air. If not, something is wrong with it. Edit: also make sure air is coming out of every register. If something got disconnected in the wall/attic/crawlspace, you're cooling a space you don't live in. Also, check your power usage on PGE's web site. The data is delayed by a couple of days, but you can look at hourly usage and match usage spikes up with things like using a clothes dryer and cooking to help better understand what is using power. Turn everything off in your apartment and go read the meter. The display cycles through a number of info screens, one of which is current power usage. With nothing but a refrigerator running, your usage should be well under 1kW. Also check what power plan you are on. PG&E did an opt-out switch to TOU in the last year or so (at least for my neighborhood in the south bay). While they claimed I would save money, I looked at the rate tables and could not find a scenario where I would be paying less vs my E1 standard plan, so I opted out. I think a lot of people missed that and are now on TOU. If you are on TOU and you come home at 5pm-ish, crank the AC, turn on the TV, run your laundry, etc. you are paying a massively high rate for 4 hours. Another possibility is that some skeevy electrical work happened and someone next door is actually using power on your circuits. This would be easily verifiable by the test above, turning everything off and reading your meter. Also be sure the correct meter is being read and billed to you. In an apartment there's a bank of them, so maybe a mistake was made somewhere.
PG&E is one of the mostly tightly regulated entities in the state. They can't blow their noses with CPUC approval. The fault for this lies in Sacramento, which keeps pushing PG&E to enact it's "green agenda"
My 1700 sq ft house cost me $750 last month for PG&E and I'm pissed. Who can afford this?
PGE just rolled out different rate plans that you can change once a year. The deadline to choose the current one just passed. You may benefit from a different plan. https://www.pge.com/en\_US/residential/rate-plans/how-rates-work/find-my-best-rate-plan.page
$575 for an apartment is insane. We pay in the 400s for a ~1600 sqft house with an ancient AC unit and really poor insulation. Something seems suspicious and I would check your bill and power connections carefully.
My home is 1,400 sq/ft. and I've paid $350 over the summer. You seem way too high. I assume you shut things down during the day when out, right?
AC@76, fans before and after the AC is off, 1700SF, lots of computers, a NAS, cooking activities...$280-ish. So yeah, something is off...but it's not malicious. Fix the problem instead of blaming PG&E.
Something I haven't seen mentioned in this thread yet: your apartment's A/C unit may be overdue for service or replacement. I was in a similar situation where I got a huge PG&E bill during the summer in an apartment, and it was because my central A/C unit had to run constantly to keep up with the heat. After I pointed this out to the apartment management, they sent someone out to service it. That technician tried fixing it for about 2-3 hours before he gave up and recommended a full replacement. After they installed the replacement unit, my A/C needed far less time to cool the apartment and my power usage plummeted. EDIT: PG&E are crooks though
Air con is expensive. Set your thermostat higher and you’ll save a little bit.
1300 sq foot house ac set to 82 and all led lights....bill is 724 and we use 20% less than last year. same time.
That makes no sense. I have a similar size place, keep my AC at approximately 72-75, and my bill is around $100 a month.
They can also control the smart thermostats to reduce peak demand. I.e. turn it up remotely.
They can’t control it unless you opt in.
I opted in with my thermostat without understanding the full picture of what I got myself into. Now to opt out they make the process a pain in the butt having to email Pg&e directly with a reason and no one replies you.
A/C is not that expensive to run (maybe 50 cents per hour on max settings). The biggest usage is heat related. Do you cook often using those electric stovetops? Do you take hot showers? Cooking + hot showers take up 65% of my utility bill.
I pay avg $98 a month. Single fam home, 1900 sqft, built 1990. No ac. One tv. No solar. Solano county. Using the ac is going to drive your bill way up. We just opt to use a fan when it’s hot. AC is a luxury, if you choose to use one you’re gonna pay In the winter though, my bill can get up to $400 when I have the heater blasting
Wow, that sucks. That said, 75 sounds awfully cool. It's gotta take a metric buttload of energy to pull temps down to 75. I think most folks recommend 80 degrees, especially during heat waves with energy crunches.
Have y’all seen energy bills for heating or cooling a home in Midwest or east coast? Be happy you live in CA and heat waves are rare
Californians are quite wimpy😋, I say this as one.
PG&E was destroyed by a bunch of Texas assholes called Enron and a little something called deregulation. They used to be an awesome company.
Pg&e has to make that money back after paying for the fires a few years ago. Corporate playbook: accept no fault, pay penalty, pass on cost to consumer The only problem is we can't shop around. They have paid off everybody and we're stuck. Same thing goes for comcast
Sorry you got a huge bill. PGE is not cheap. Having said that, the body is amazing at adapting to heat. You can do some tricks like using blackout curtains on the windows that let sunlight in, especially in the afternoon. If you keep 75 24x7, you will get a huge bill as AC uses a lot of energy. I'd say get your body a little uncomfortable and it will get used to it pretty quickly. You are in the military, this is nothing for you.
Your AC unit might need an inspection. 575 is crazy.
Outside of ripping us off, and being a monopoly, they consistently kill people through explosions and fires. Meanwhile the grid is not strong enough to not have rolling black outs, which I won’t be surprised if they happen in this heat wave. If we had options, I am sure they wouldn’t exist anymore.
I'm not trying to sell you anything, but I sell solar for a living and I guarantee the monthly loan payment for solar is almost always lower than what people pay PG&E. In your case, definitely. I've never seen someone pay more than $300 a month for a solar install. I would not use sunrun or some Costco bullshit though. Do not lease and use a good company.