When I moved to Eugene in 1995 I was surprised at the size of my first EWEB bill. Perhaps I was unduly influenced by the songs of Woody Guthrie, but I assumed that with lots of hydro and rain, electricity and water wouldn’t eat into my mortgage payments much.
Woody steered me wrong. EWEB was a classic government protected monopoly gone bad, and the bills were steep. I had an $863 mortgage on an 1100 sq ft house with oil heat, and EWEB was charging another $120 for water and lights. I couldn’t make it work without my parent’s help – and I knew lots of people didn’t have that kind of help.
Things have now changed. A few years ago the EWEB board hired a new manager, who has cut costs and your EWEB bill. Now he wants to increase the use of “smart meters” which use cell-phone technology to record electricity use and calculate bills, freeing up meter readers for more productive work, cutting your bill even more. Interestingly, if you click here and read the article, you’ll see that smart meters may not be the answer. This day and age people try and cut their bills even more by seeing if switching to different energy providers, such as Infuse Energy for instance, can decrease their electricity bills further. When a homeowner does compare energy plans, they do usually find more affordable ones. However, some energy bills will remain similar in price, so it’s important for those homeowners to look at other ways to reduce their bills. They should be able to get some good tips by visiting this website here. Hopefully, that will help more people to save some money on their energy bills. It should highlight how things like payless power could be very beneficial to the bill payer as it sets out plans that give you the option to pay for the electricity earlier, later, or on time.
And yesterday the EWEB board voted in favor of this, despite the testimony of a small group of tin-hatters who thought the radio waves would harm their already iffy brain functionality. The RG has the story: http://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/36419454-75/eweb-decides-customers-must-opt-out-if-they-oppose-smart-meters.html.csp
In celebration, a reader sent me this fabulous video, showing how to put those redundant old electricity meters to a higher valued use. Woody Guthrie would be proud:
yes the entire explanation behind UO dysfunction is indeed
iffy brain function of admins that came to us from places
that used smart meters …
$120? In 1995? For just water and lights, no heating? I’d like to see a scan of that bill. That, frankly, seems highly unlikely.
The oldest EWEB bill I can find for my house is for December 1999 (a winter month, so the highest bill of the year). This was for an all-electric house (electric heat, hot water, and cooking), and my total bill was $58.85, including $10.72 in non-EWEB charges for storm water and waste water. That’s $48 in EWEB charges.
The electric and water portion of my January 2018 EWEB bill was $117, in a bigger house with more people living in it. That’s 5% inflation per year for me, a significant portion of which came as a result of the California “energy crisis” (think Enron) and through cost increases for the power that EWEB buys from other sources.
Of course, the continued low prices (compare your bill to those of people in other states!) are helped by most of EWEB’s electricity coming from dams that were paid for by (gasp!) the government.
Sorry but I burned those bills in the fireplace, trying to keep my fingers warm while I typed out the papers on the Toshiba T1000SE laptop that got me tenure.
It was probably a good heating source for winters in PLC…
Individual electricity bills are a strong function of individual household habits. But, it is no longer true that Oregon is the land of cheap electricity (and this hasn’t been true for years). One reason is climate changed induced reduced Columbia River flow.
https://c1cleantechnicacom-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/files/2017/12/US-electricity-prices.png
Is the most recent map of US residential electricity rates.
where it is clear that OR doesn’t stand our
Based on more reliable and up-to-date data at https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_02_10.html
it appears Oregon had the 10th cheepest consumer electricity in the US in 2016 at 10.66 ¢/kwh. Washington was third 9.48 ¢/kwh, reflecting the closer proximity the main Columbia generating sites to Washington’s population centers.
These compare to a national average of 12.55 ¢/kwh and whopping 17.39 ¢/kwh in the state directly south of ours.
both data sets come from the same place (EIA)
only the time periods are slightly different
an average is nothing without a standard deviation
way back when, oregon was a full 1.5 standard deviations
below the national average – now it is much closer to the
average
I also think, but don;t know, since I failed intro stats, that Portland is much closer to the Columbia river than Seattle …
EWEB’s residential rates are about 9 cents per KWH, a little below the state average. Portland is supplied by PGE, an investor-owned utility, which has very little access to federal hydropower. This is part of the reason Portlanders pay more than double per kwh than Eugenians. It also has a significant effect on the Oregon-wide average. Seattle City Light is publicly-owned and hydro dominated.
As an aside… One of the most significant cost drivers of PNW hydropower is fish mitigation. Currently it accounts for about 25 cents of every dollar BPA collects. That means Eugenians (and Springfielders) are paying for the environmental costs associated with our electricity. Portlanders are not as there is not yet a price on carbon. And still our power is cheaper.
The privacy concerns were skipped over in the article, but are quite real: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2012/12/121212-smart-meter-privacy/
Having moved to Eugene from Palo Alto, where they have the only municipal utility west of the Mississippi that provides water, gas, and electricity, and where I worked with utility bills from a condominium association and one of the largest utility customers as well as my own residence, I think the comment about government protected monopoly is way off base. It’s just the lousy way the powers that be in Eugene manage things.
And I too was shocked by the utility costs when we moved here. Probably not due to the meter readers, however, and I’d be suspicious of the smart meters. Not just nutty to suspect them.