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Old 02-15-2008, 03:33 PM
 
2,185 posts, read 6,437,296 times
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I've had City of Austin electric and soon will have PEC. What's the difference and how much higher or lower is your bill. Any PEC homeowners out there?
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Old 02-15-2008, 03:55 PM
 
Location: Austin, TX
15,273 posts, read 35,660,788 times
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PEC has one of the highest rates in the area (maybe even state?), since they are not subject to competetive forces. Austin has some of the cheapest rates in the state, since it is a semi-private governmental entitiy. I know that does not give you any numbers, but it will probably be a very noticeable difference.
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Old 02-15-2008, 05:32 PM
 
Location: Up in a cedar tree.
1,618 posts, read 6,619,357 times
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PEC was on the news about its high spending in budget. Looks like the EXEs were getting too much money to toy with. I'm getting letters / post cards in the mail from PEC about their actions and the lawsuits are going.

Does anyone here know if you could switch to another electric company? I would love to drop PEC
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Old 02-16-2008, 06:02 AM
 
Location: SW Austin & Wimberley
6,333 posts, read 18,065,664 times
Reputation: 5532
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trainwreck20 View Post
PEC has one of the highest rates in the area (maybe even state?), since they are not subject to competetive forces. Austin has some of the cheapest rates in the state, since it is a semi-private governmental entitiy. I know that does not give you any numbers, but it will probably be a very noticeable difference.
Hmmm, I thought the opposite was true. We've had PEC since 1999 in three different homes and have always have VERY low electric bills. In a 3700 sqft home we averaged $150/mo with the highest ever being about $250 during a hot summer month. Mild winter months sometimes dipped to right at $100.

Steve
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Old 02-16-2008, 07:07 AM
 
124 posts, read 576,458 times
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I am gonna have to agree with AustinSteve. I used to use Austin Electric and my bill was never below $200 in a 900 sq. foot apt. With PEC I have lived in two homes... one a 2100 sq. foot home running on 100% electric (no gas) and it's worse bill was $170. My second home has gas and the electric part has not been over $120 in the hot months.
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Old 02-16-2008, 07:25 AM
 
Location: SW Austin & Wimberley
6,333 posts, read 18,065,664 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Breezerboat View Post
I am gonna have to agree with AustinSteve. I used to use Austin Electric and my bill was never below $200 in a 900 sq. foot apt. With PEC I have lived in two homes... one a 2100 sq. foot home running on 100% electric (no gas) and it's worse bill was $170. My second home has gas and the electric part has not been over $120 in the hot months.
Here's the irony of it all. Once they get rid of the crooks who've been running PEC, and put honest people in charge who keep proper books, etc., I expect our rates will increase. In other words, proper supervision and accounting practices will be more costly than the skimming that was going on.

Such is life. Reminds me of something I never forgot in a book written by Donald Trump (Art of the Deal - 1987) in which he recounted having a crooked property manager at an apartment building he owned. He never fired the guy because he ran such a tight ship and kept costs down and kept the places rented. He knew the guy was skimming, but even adding the skimming to the bottom line he was out-performing all of his other property managers. His joke was that he paid him "$x plus everything he can steal".

Thus, as I watched the PEC board member saga unfold over the past year or so, and knowing how low my electric bills have been, I've been wondering if it's not a similar scenario (not that I condone stealing).

Steve
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Old 02-16-2008, 07:35 AM
 
2,269 posts, read 7,337,308 times
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PEC charges 8.52 cents per Kwh and a $20 a month service charge. Austin Energy charges 3.55 cents for the first 500 Kwh and 6.02 cents thereafter (this changes to 7.82 cents in summer). Service charge is $6 a month.

You may have paid more when you lived in the apartment where you had Austin Energy, but I think that was because of apartment construction, not rates. We lived in an apartment before we bought our house and our bills were very high.

I'm always pleasantly surprised when I receive my City of Austin utility bills, especially when I read so many horror stories on these forums about the price of electricity in Texas (especially Houston ). We have a 2,000 sf two-story house and last month's bill was $48 for electricity and $70 for natural gas. I checked the August bills and electricity was $113 and gas was $20. In our 1,200 sf apartment, our electric bills (Austin Energy) were always around $200.
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Old 08-18-2016, 06:20 AM
 
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Train wreck I think you may be bias towards PEC for some reason because your statement is not the truth. I grew up in Austin lived in multiple houses and apartments and I have never had a bill below $200. I was paying $400-$500 a month for a 1900sq ft house in ACL. In hays I've lived in 3 different houses. The current one is a two story 2430 sq ft and my PEC bill for July 2016 was $220. I'm sure I don't need to remind you how hot July was. So I think the crooks are employed at Austin Energy/ Austin City council/ Austin.... I have facts to back it up! My electric bills if you want to see them. Austin used to be a great place to live. Now it's over priced! Way to crowed! And the info structure is 25 years behind schedule. It sad to because it used to be a great town!
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Old 08-18-2016, 06:32 AM
 
2 posts, read 3,461 times
Reputation: 11
Austin is spending millions in tax payer money to build more and more bike lanes for the handful of bikes that actually use those bike lanes. The money needs to be used to build new roads and upgrade the highways. This bike thing in Austin is ridiculous! If you can afford to live downtown sure it may make sense to ride a bike. But majority of people leave in suburbs of Austin and have cars/trucks and prefer better roads for traffic. Stop spending my tax dollars on damn bike lanes!!!!
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Old 08-18-2016, 07:01 AM
 
Location: Austin, TX
1,825 posts, read 2,830,130 times
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Quote:
PEC charges 8.52 cents per Kwh and a $20 a month service charge. Austin Energy charges 3.55 cents for the first 500 Kwh and 6.02 cents thereafter (this changes to 7.82 cents in summer). Service charge is $6 a month.
You are mistaken about both tiers and left out the top three tiers for AE.

Summer rate schedule:

0-500 kwH is 3.30 cents.
501-1000 is 8 cents.
1001-1500 is 9.1 cents.
1501-2500 kWh is 11 cents.
2500+ kWh is 11.4 cents.

"Power supply adjustment": 2.783c/kWh
Community Benefit charges: 0.172 + 0.093 + 0.289c/kWh (for stuff)
Regulatory charge: 1.414c/kWh

Last I looked, the average rate in TX was about 11 cents/kWh, which was under the national average of 12 cents. States like NY and CA are over 30 cents.

We had PEC for three years and have AE now. At least for us, we found PEC to be cheaper but AE has solar incentives. So, thanks, COA taxpayers, for our shiny solar panels.
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