Thank you for calling Defiant Energy, this is Ken, may I help you?
Yes Ken, I have some questions about my light bill.
Yes sir, how may I help you?
I’m looking at my bill for this month and my bill for last month, and I’m trying to figure out why the rates are higher?
Sir, starting May 1st, we began our summer billing rates.
How long does that last?Until the end of October sir.
Oh….but it just seems so high.
Sir, let me check your record…your bill for this month last year was actually $50 more than your bill this year. But if you want, we can send a technician out to double check your meter to make sure it’s reading correctly.
Yeah..send somebody out here to check it!
That will be at an $8 charge sir.
$8??? Just for having somebody come out here and do their JOB??
That’s the company policy sir.
Okay, well forget about that, don’t send anybody out here, cuz I know all ya’ll are going to say is, ‘Your meter is working fine..$8 mo dollars please’ Naww…ya’ll ain’t go get THAT $8 from me..but look here, what’s up with the billing cycle??
What do you mean?
Last month I was charged over 29 days, but this month it’s 33 days! Months don’t have 33 days mane!!
Sir, we can only go by the day that the meter was read, sometimes the billing cycles range anywhere from 26 to 35 days.
Mmhmm..it sure is strange that once the rates go up, ya’ll decide to have a LONG billing period. Ya’ll make me want to start shopping around for cheaper rates.
Sir, January 2005 will mark the beginning of deregulated power, and once that happens, we will be able to offer more competitive rates to our quality customers.
Quality customers? What does that mean?
Those who have a good payment history..and looking at your record sir, yours is excellent.
Really?? I mean..yeah..uhh..okay. So there’s nothing you can do about this billing period?? Maybe take off 2 days or something?
I’m sorry sir.
Aiight, I was just asking..maybe I need to talk to somebody else who can help a ‘quality’ customer??
Sir, if you are dissatisfied or have questions about unauthorized charging of your account, then you should contact the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
I hear that…ya’ll just watch out now, cuz I’m looking at that billing period mane, and if ya’ll pull another 33 out next month, I KNOW something is janky.
Yes sir.
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Last August, I wrote a post entitled Power. In it, I tried to breakdown the electrical distribution process, starting from the power plants all the way to the breaker boxes located at every residence or commercial building. I wrote Power the same night that I was trapped in an elevator in Buffalo, NY for over 30 minutes due to the rolling blackouts across Northern America. Millions of residences and areas were without power from New York all the way to Detroit, as well as some parts of Canada.
Recently, my local energy provider gave me an impulse to write about Power again, especially after I received my light bill for June. Above are 2 different bills. Maybe some of ya'll are balling so hard that you wouldn't even notice such an increase of more than double the previous bill, but I ain't got it like that. When I saw the bill, I had to first look and make sure the total due didn't include the amount from last month's bill. What? C'mon now, ya'll ain't got to front and act like you ain't never paid one of those 'pank' light bills before? You know..the kind that's riding the balance from the month (maybe even 2) before? Well, once I found out that this wasn't the case, and the total due was for the current month's charges only, I had to get out my calculator and pencil and try and figure out what the hell was going on.
The first thing I noticed, was that the calculation rate was different. For the previous month's bill, the rate was tiered into 3 different levels. (First 250 kWh, 250-800 kWh, All additional kWh), while the current month's bill had only 2 tiers (First 250 kWh, All Additional kWH). The first problem with this for most folks, is that they have no idea what a kWh (kiloWatt-hour) means. Watt is a unit of measurement for power. We get the term 'watt' from a Scottish inventor by the name of James Watt (1736-1819), who did a lot of research and improvements to the steam engine. He was the first person to come up with the term ‘horsepower’ as a unit of mechanical power. In honor of his contributions, the term ‘watt’ was later used for electrical power measurement. 1,000 watts = 1 kW, so if you use a 100-watt light bulb for one hour, you’ve used 100 Watt-hours which is the same as 0.1 kilo-Watt-hours (kWh) of power.
I know all those hustlers out there can feel that, cuz if not for any other measurement, I know ya’ll know what a ‘kilo’ is. Everything around the house that is running off of electricity is causing that dial on your electric meter to spin faster. Usually the largest power consumption item in the house is the air conditioner, which explains why you use so much more kWh of power in the hot summer months since the a/c is on more. Just thinking about the rates being raised right when it was starting to get hot made me a bit perturbed, so I had to give the power folks a call.
So for all ya’ll bill payers out there looking crazy at your light bill, you’re not alone. With the high price of gasoline, rising health insurance, and soaring energy rates, the operating budget for the American household is steadily expanding. Conserving electrical energy can be done by turning that thermostat up a bit and putting some shorts on and running some fans. A fan uses a lot less energy than the air conditioner, so you save power. It’s also good to make sure your attic, windows and doors are properly insulated and remember to turn off lights and appliances whenever they’re not in use. My dad used to give us ultimatums as children:
"Ya’ll either stay in or stay out!!! Don’t keep running in and out that door letting all my cool air go out the house!!! And don’t just stand there with that refrigerator door open! "
I used to think my dad was off his rocker yelling about some ‘air’, but I almost had to catch myself when I realized I was yelling these same words to my kids just the other day. It’s funny how the tables turn once those bills become part of YOUR responsibility. I’m sure my dad is laughing as he’s reading this right now…I couldn’t FEEL him then, I just thought he was crazy. But now, I’m one of those crazy dads too. Now hurry up and get through reading this, that computer is adding on to the light bill too!!!
