We often hear the more bill, the more BP (blood pressure), but do we know how all this goes. Let’s ponder over the dialectics of this topic.
Energy rates -The foremost term showing up in Houston Electricity Rates . The energy rate is the fixed amount of money you pay for one unit for your consumption. The total bill calculates the revenue of each unit used.
You wonder, your bill came up huge this time?
Let’s see what is included-
- Consumption costs – A consumer is charged as per the amount of energy used. Fixed tariff slabs are used to determine the final cost of energy. These slabs include overcompensation of energy if the usage surpasses the fixed threshold. This price is influenced by the market: demand, weather conditions, world reserves, and the international political situation.
- Supply cost – This part of the bill deals with the supply of energy from its place of production to different areas. This also involves the maintenance of the pipelines or wires i.e., the path of energy.
- Surplus taxes and charges- Surplus taxes, fees, and other extra amounts set by the state are charged.
Tariff arithmetic
The tariff slab is varied with the type of consumer. Domestic tariff slabs are way different that of industrial ones. The electricity tariffs depend on the following factors.
- Type of load
- Time at which load is required.
- Maximum load and usage.
- The power factor of the load.
- The amount of energy used.
Price hike in pandemic
Let’s see why?
Although energy rates do not change frequently over a period of 4-8 years there can be mishaps at any moment. The normal cycle runs gradually but in cases of unforeseen calamities prices tend to hike at a very fast pace in a small time. Some of such Factors leading to sudden hike in prices are-
- Extreme Weather: Unforeseen weather extremities like storms, floods cause a high need of energy demands while predicted extremities are no less. Many distribution pipelines, connections are broken leading to scarcity of energy.
- Outages: Sudden stoppage of production areas can severely lead to price hikes. There are many reasons for
- Source Fuels: The interconnection of raw fuel to produced energy affects the energy rates at a big level. Forex Electricity prices greatly depend on coal prices
- Geopolitical Events: Many regions which import or export energy are prone to sudden changes in case of political issue (unrest), wars, etc. This lead to a sudden dramatic change in energy rates.
Risen prices in India..!!!
Recent studies show that energy rates for Indian consumers are highest in South Asia even India ranks lowest among 12 countries in power generation. We have understood what affects the tariff of a particular region. So the question arises of how other countries manage to serve energy at less prices despite producing at prices higher than India. Much of this credit goes to the malpractices practiced by India’s power retail companies who often increase their tariff. It seems that the privatization of electricity didn’t seem to work for our country. Factors like faulty meters and misleading bills add up more to this cause.
We know the diversity in India, in this note even tariff slabs show diversity also. In states like Maharashtra and West, Bengal prices are as high as Rs 7-8 and in regions like Delhi, it is as low as Rs 3 per unit.
Huh, we don’t own an energy plant and can’t turn the tables but
“The more we save, the less we crave”