When I open my billing page, I’m often asked “How easy is it to understand your bill?”, which I usually answer with ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. I was reminded of this when I recently had a message from an acquaintance ‘over there’, who was bragging about getting a negative bill for electricity for the first time since installing a solar PV array last year. He has gas central heating. This is what he was so proud of:
They use a sliding scale of unit rates, increasing with usage per month:
[From Residential Rates (austinenergy.com)]
So, all sorts of costs on top of the unit rate plus a standing charge ($14/month) equivalent to 37p/day. Apparently, the average household in Austin uses 10,200 kWh of electricity annually.
Apart from the surprise that this capital of the ultimate capitalist state has its utilities in socialist public ownership - which explains the charge for street lighting - I was struck by the complexity of the bill. Can you work out what the average household’s annual bill would be?
I’ll happily give five stars every time I’m asked about OVO’s bills from now on.
