[ursAxZA]

It’s strange that in 2025 we still don’t have even a minimal, per-capita baseline tier for electricity.

If a household uses less than the monthly per-capita average, why not cap that baseline at something like $10?

Yes — that gap would need to be subsidized, probably through taxes. But that’s already how grid maintenance works: we socialize the fixed costs while pretending rates are purely volumetric.(and I might be overstating this slightly).

Right now we punish low-usage consumers and reward structural inefficiency. A baseline tier would at least make the incentives coherent.

[themafia]

> we socialize the fixed costs

Then we should socialize that infrastructure as well. Otherwise if we're merely _amortizing_ the costs then a total capacity metric should apply to each user.

A private company shouldn't be allowed to socialize important shared infrastructure simply because a weak PUC pretends to engage in oversight.

[ursAxZA]

I get the intuition behind fully socializing it, but I wouldn’t go that far. Single-operator systems lose redundancy fast, and that’s dangerous for infrastructure.

A layered mix — county-level public utilities, some private operators, and some hybrid/municipal entities — might be closer to a resilient structure.

Not clean or elegant, but fault-tolerant.

[Manuel_D]

It is essentially socialized. The government dictates the rates that utilities company is allowed to charge.

[nospice]

That's more or less the system that exists today? You pay a lower rate up to a certain threshold and then a higher rate kicks in.

The problem with PG&E isn't the rate structure, which isn't all that different from utilities anywhere else in the world. It's that their costs are exceedingly high, through a combination of regulatory pressures and grift. This is exacerbated by municipal and state regulators who are pushing consumers to be more reliant on electric power (bans on gas appliances in new construction, pushes toward EVs, etc).

There are vast swathes of the country where people pay 5-10x less for electricity.

[ursAxZA]

My point was simply that electricity has a “civilization tax” aspect to it, and lower baseline access feels closer to the kind of future-proof system we should be aiming for.

If the floor is gentle, people can actually reduce usage without feeling punished for doing the right thing.

At the moment the baseline tier feels… maybe a “C-rating” version of what a real baseline could be?

[itsdrewmiller]

Where do people pay 3-6 cents for electricity in the US?

[bdangubic]

which country, UAE? :)

[labcomputer]

So PG&E already has something like this. It’s called either E-1 or TOU-C, depending on whether time-of-use billing applies. The price for the baseline tier is higher than you’d expect, though.

[ursAxZA]

That makes sense — but it feels like the balance could be better.

If we treat baseline access as a kind of ‘civilization tax,’ the pricing shouldn’t feel punitive for low-usage households.

[refurb]

I don't get it. A very cheap baseline tier would encourage consumption versus what we have today, not reduce it.

Today if I build a cabin somewhere I might decide not to electrify if it costs me $50 per month. But at $10? Sure!

[ThePowerOfFuet]

Then if you do electrify, you'll use electricity instead of less-efficient, more-polluting alternatives.

It's a feature, not a bug.

[JumpCrisscross]

Limit it to one use per SSN (dependents included).