You’ll have to excuse me today. I have a bit of a rant.
I said last week that I am most looking forward to getting to the payback stage of our solar panels. Friday night, we came home to an envelope from the hydro company. Inside was not a payment, but a bill.
The panels use a little bit of power to operate. Once our account is fully set up, this amount will be deducted from the total we generate. The payment side, though, isn’t set up yet. The billing side is. Funny how that works, eh?
Delays in getting our payments are not my complaint.
Country living is not simple, and it’s not cheap. One of my biggest surprises in moving to the farm was how much electricity costs.
Well, it’s not so much electricity. The rates are the rates. What changes depending on where you live is the delivery rate. In the country, where the population is less dense and there are fewer houses, delivery (the cost to get electricity from the generating station, through the lines and up to my house) is more than half my regular bill. Ouch.
I’m willing to suck it up and pay for the privilege of living where I do. However, this latest bill for our solar is completely out of whack. Look at the numbers.
We used 1 kWh of electricity. One. Delivery was $5.40. Five freaking dollars and 40 freaking cents. Oh, and let’s throw 70 cents of tax on there just for fun. The total bill of $6.10 does not include a charge for using any actual electricity. It’s all just delivery and tax. Ridiculous.
Ask Matt and he’ll tell you that I’m a little bit bitter about the delivery charge. I’ve hated it for pretty much every hydro bill during the last two and a half years. I cannot wait until the hydro company finally starts paying us for the electricity we’re generating.
Home on 129 Acres 
That makes no sense! I can see how you would be upset! I have never paid attention to the breakdown of our bill. I am not sure if they spell out the delievery fee (I am sure there is one!).
One of my latest pet peeves is the processing fee to do a mortgage. They base the fee on the dollar amount of the loan, eventhough the paper work is identical whether the loan is $5 or $500,00.
Oooh. That’s another annoying one, Sarah.
Hi Julia, How are you!! Hope you are keeping well J Yes, I too dislike the delivery fee! …….. with me living on my own, I am always trying to save by using the “off peak” and “mid peak” usage and they still charge me the “flat delivery rate” of $48.25 Electricity Service Address: Off Peak Usage 332.14kWh @ 0.07200 0 0 $23.90 Mid Peak Usage 63.52kWh @ 0.10900 0 0 $6.92 HAMILTON ON Provided by Horizon Utilities Corporation as Standard Supply Service Delivery $48.25 Regulatory Charges $3.23 Debt Retirement Charge__________________________________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _$_3_._2_8__ Nola J
Nice to hear from you, Nola. We wait for the magic off-peak hour too. Dishwasher, washing machine, nothing goes on until after 7pm.
I think I’m getting ripped off royally, we live in a teeny tiny house, always turn off lights and electrical items not in use, and we always end-up paying well over $150/month… I think I need to look into this, I wonder if someone is stealing my hydro??
Sorry about my rant, but now you got me going on this!
Modern living is definitely expensive. You can only save so much. Electricity a necessity, so it’s not like you can say cancel my account.
Ugh, how frustrating. As you know, I don’t live in the country. But I’m going to be taking a closer look at my bill too, to make sure there aren’t any ridiculous charges for me as well.
It’s important to keep an eye on these things.
Man, I wish I had a way to make our hydro company start paying us!! We’re actually moving because the hydro bill is so expensive here. Moving, with all that entails! Grrr…
Wow. That’s a drastic solution. Hope it lessens your expenses.
It is a drastic solution, I agree. We’re living on a super tight budget and doing the Dave Ramsey plan, and these giant bills coming in every second month throw everything off. The other issue at our place is that the yard is huge, like a park, and with Sharon’s poor health and me working 1 1/2 jobs, we just can’t keep up with it. So…it’s on to a new phase, hopefully one that moves us forward on this recovery plan.
I hope it all works out for you.
Thank you! 🙂