I received my gas and electric bill today and have always been curious what baseline energy usage means because I always exceed it by at least 2 times and usually more than that. For energy usage > 100% of baseline, the rate increases and then increases more as the usage goes up. Turns out, the baseline is based on a) location (there are 4 zones, coastal, inland, mountain, and desert), season (summer or winter), if all electric or gas and electric applications, and number of days in the month. For the summer, where I live (inland), the baseline is 11.8 kilowatt hours per day. The big problem with this is that the size of the house nor the number of family members is taken into account. So a person with a 1000 square foot house has the same baseline as someone with a 2500 square foot house or a house with 2 people and a house with 4 people have the same baseline. Unless I’m missing something, this is completely ridiculous. I do what I can to conserve energy (I still haven’t turned on the A/C despite the 90+ degree weather outside), but my bill doesn’t reflect it. Granted, I do have to run computers all the time for my business.
I guess if you can afford additional family members or a bigger house, you deserve to pay more for electricity.