Oklahoma Will Charge Customers Who Install Their Own Solar Panels

[djean111]

32. I am looking at my latest electricity bill.

From TECO's web site:

Customer charge
The monthly customer charge covers the cost of maintaining your electric meter and the wires that bring electrical service to your home or business. The customer charge also covers the cost of reading the meter and maintaining customer records and accounting for bill payments, credit and other transactions affecting your account. The customer charge is incurred even if electricity is not used during the month.

Energy charge
The monthly energy charge includes all other costs of producing the electricity you purchase, except fuel. This also includes conservation, environmental and capacity cost recovery charges.

Fuel charge
The monthly fuel charge is the cost of fuel used to produce your electricity. Fuel costs are passed through from fuel suppliers to our customers with no markup or profit to Tampa Electric.
The maintenance thing - "freeloading" is bullshit, IMO - if I am using less electricity, the power company does not have to pay for as much fuel.

Energy charge and fuel charge have always been pegged to how much electricity I use - if I use less, then I am putting less load on the grid, and using less fuel. Plus, I would be actually SUPPLYING Teco with electricity that it does not have to create.

I am pretty damned lucky TECO was not bought out by Duke Power - I would be paying for nuclear plants that I don't want, and that Duke has no intention of building - just "planning" and sucking up government subsidies.

Come to think of it - freeloader can probably be applied more to companies than people.
If I had solar, I would be more than happy to store excess electricity, and I wonder if it is required to sell excess back to the power company.