Seco
 

I have lived in many locations but never have I experienced a fixed charge as high as that levied by SECO

It has just gone up to $1.15 per day - $420 per annum

Bermuda, which gets "proper" hurricanes and has to import virtually everything, charges $309

I don't have a fixed charge on my SECO bill. What does the line item on your bill say the reason for the fixed cost is?

The $1.15/day first appeared in May 2023.

I no longer have any old bills from MD to compare but my feeling is I am paying less here now than I paid there four years ago.

Look in the block on the left side of the page. CUSTOMER CHG

Thanks! See it. Won't judge if it is high or low but our overall electric rate is much less than other places we have lived! Overall bill here is cheaper! That all I really care about.

Our electric bill is about 2/3 what it was Arizona; about half what it was the 25 years we lived in California. I LOVE what it costs out here!

:sigh:

SECO is a coop, and that $1.15 charge is for your membership to the coop. It used to be $1/day. You don't have a choice as to whether you want to be a member or not - if you want power, you have to be a member.

And like your amenity fees, if you are a full time resident the snowbirds are subsidizing your electricity. They pay that daily customer charge even when out of town and not using much, if any, electricity. Ask me how I know...

Wouldn’t t that be their choice. If I could afford two houses I wouldn’t be worried over buck 15. Yes it’s your choice to be snowbird.

Yup, our SECO bill per kilowatt is only 49.5% of what we have to pay to Eversource in Western Massachusetts. No complaints here about SECO : )

Electric at family home 3,400 sf with 2100sf walkout basement up north during summer is $265. The surcharge per day $1.25, for that privilege. Loose power monthly, anywhere from a few hours a month to the longest is 9 day during winter ice storm. WH generator gets a work out year round.

You coukd look at it the other way: full time residents are subsidizing the snow birds. SECO gets a lot less monthly from snowbirds in the summer so they have to charge a higher minimum bill to everyone to make up for lost revenue

If you own a home here and want power, then you pay the cost to join the co-op. It’s like signing up for a streaming service or cable — you pay whether you watch it or not.

I did a customer payment analysis of over 30,000 customer's payments at one of my finance jobs. The payments days from bill to payment between two types of billing:

Lump sum one line billing
Line item detail billing

The lump sum one line billing got paid faster than the line item detail billing, similar amounts, days difference in payments.

Why? its a behavioral economics proven theory: people who have more details get analysis paralysis over an agreed amount. no difference with your electric bill. hoomans are all the same in many ways, but because its in there, you can't see it out there.

go to an ice cream store:
which is faster for you to pick:
either chocolate or vanilla?
or
1 flavor out of 20?

:popcorn: