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:

Seco is a Coop. That fee is your membership fee for being part of the Coop. Stop complaining!

I have Leesburg electric in Florida and it appears they don't have a daily service charge but I believe their kwh rate is higher than SECO (which works out good for me because I'm a snowbird). Up in NY I have PSEG and while their daily service fee is about $.50/day they have other fees calculated by usage (NOT taxes) that push the service fee up to over $1.00 with absolutely minimal use. However, I compared the two bills and both had roughly 1000 kwh and my Leesburg bill is almost half the PSEG bill ($135 vs $250 with taxes). I had SECO in my prior Villages home and found the rates to also be lower so I was happy then and I'm happy now with the overall electric rates here in FL.
Property taxes in NY are about 3X here in TV so all things are relative to what you may be used to paying but I find the cost of living in TV to be reasonable (especially for what you get).

How do you know? The reality is that the snowbirds have to run their air conditioners when they are gone. Probably the internet too. Nobody is subsidizing anyone else, at least when it comes to residential service. We pay around 11 cents for the first 1000 KwH and around 13 cents for anything above 1000 KwH. The average base cost in the US and Florida is much lower than our $1.15 a day, however the cost per KwH is not unreasonable.

I was referring specifically to the daily fixed charge. You are correct that there is some usage in the summer, but it is nowhere near what someone running the A/C all day uses. We keep the thermostat set at 80 when gone with the dehumidifier doing the bulk of the work. Fridge and router use some juice, but since the doors are never opened, less power to maintain the temp.

You always have the option of having the power disconnected while you are away and saving the daily charge. But you won’t want that, you want electricity available while you are gone. Perfectly reasonable, just as it is reasonable for the electric company to charge the daily rate for providing you access to that electricity.

Pretty evident that classes on utility bills and how "fixed" costs are developed is needed.

here's the legal document from SECO about their "rate tariff", which is the legal term for the electrical rate structure

https://secoenergy.com/wp-content/up...ff_Current.pdf

There are different fixed charges for different customer types. . .

…. And the comment “we pay more back home” is exactly why rates and services keep going up!!! Mr Morse originally wanted people to be able to live on SS. Now you better have 2 pensions or have owned a profitable business!! Just sayn

Milton cost a local utility 2 Billion with a B. Yes, we will all pay some or all of that. Anything the Morse family can do with Mother Nature, LOL

The Gulf of Mexico has been angry lately! since 2017: All 10 major hurricanes that have made landfall in the U.S. struck communities along the gulf — including six in Florida.

There has been alot of electrical grid rebuilding and alot of property damage, such that electrical / insurance rates have to go up until the trend appears to break. . Sucks to be an apex predator at the mercy of Mother Nature.

You are exactly correct.