Job Gripes

[Orchid PE]

Its weird to think that covid would impact utilities negatively? I mean whether everyone is at work or working at home isnt electricity electricity? ( I know thats probably a major generalization?)

I think is mainly depends on what type of loads the utility supplies. If it's like my current utility (mainly commerical and industrial), when the plants shut down for a few weeks and then didn't come back to full capacity, it reduces income. On the other hand, my previous utility was mainly residential load, so with everyone staying home during the day that accounted for any load lost from the industrial customers.

 

[Road Guy]

that makes sense (I always figured one utility owner supplied to both)

The large elec folks in Denver have had to make major investments just to supply power and such to the massive grow houses - everyone making money off of the weed, except the school children that were promised something or another...  j

 

[Orchid PE]

They do. But FL has a lot of regulations that essentially prevent many factories and plants from building down there. They want to keep it more touristy.

Whereas up here we supply both, but the commerical just outweighs the residential.

Stupid energy efficient houses are eating into our profits.

 

[Orchid PE]

This isn't specifically a job gripe, but it does grind my gears a little when I hear people complain about their high electric bill. I mainly heard it down in FL from friends and family, especially when it was the summer and people were keeping their AC at like 72F all day. Yeah, no kidding your bill is $400.

I don't think those people understand all that goes into maintaining a power system and maintaining reliability. Poles need to be replaced, breakers and switches need to be regularly tested, transformer oil samples need to be tested, station batteries need to be checked, techs have to go out and troubleshoot outages, etc. All this adds up. And now with more and more energy efficient houses and buildings coming on the system, and old houses and buildings being renovated to be energy efficient, annual revenue is decreasing. Yet, O&M costs are increasing since new houses and buildings are being built. So people might get away with lowering their power bills now by being energy efficient, but it's going to catch up one day with higher rates. Unless the customers want less reliable power, but I don't think they do. Reliable power, low rates, energy efficient buildings. We can pick two of the three. 

Let's not even get started on people adding solar to their houses. That reduces our revenue even more, yet the exact same O&M costs remain in place because electric power has to be available.

 

[mudpuppy]

that makes sense (I always figured one utility owner supplied to both)

The large elec folks in Denver have had to make major investments just to supply power and such to the massive grow houses - everyone making money off of the weed, except the school children that were promised something or another...  j

Adding to what Chattaneer said, we supply all three load segments (industrial, commercial and residential) in nearly equal parts revenue-wise.  There has been an uptick in residential sales, but with the industrial load nearly totally shut down for a couple months earlier this year, and the commercial load continuing to be way down, our overall sales are still negative.  Normally people are paying to keep their house air conditioned to some set point while they are at work, and at the same time their office lights are on at work, etc.  And since the office buildings are dark and sports stadiums are empty, etc., the overall sales are still down.

The good news for us is our annual raises were announced before all this happened.  But not sure what will happen next year.

 

[Road Guy]

We get this thing from xcel (our mafia electrical overlords) and it always says we use nearly 50% more than the power of other homes in the hood, which I dont get, we have one of the smaller house types in the hood, and we use the shit out of our whole house fan since our AC is undersized - water is on gas, stove is gas, we have an average size fridge, tiny beer fridge - our bill rarely exceeds $150 even in the summer ($400 in Atlanta from May-Aug) -but we do have probably 1/8 or more with solar panels so maybe that lowers the average... but im my mind I am getting off easy compared to my electrical  bill in Georgia!

We have council members that want to outlaw natural gas where we live, not sure how that will work out when its -10 in January, but I am sort of over living in Denver anyways... 

 

[Tiger15]

We get this thing from xcel (our mafia electrical overlords) and it always says we use nearly 50% more than the power of other homes in the hood, which I dont get, we have one of the smaller house types in the hood, and we use the shit out of our whole house fan since our AC is undersized - water is on gas, stove is gas, we have an average size fridge, tiny beer fridge - our bill rarely exceeds $150 even in the summer ($400 in Atlanta from May-Aug) -but we do have probably 1/8 or more with solar panels so maybe that lowers the average... but im my mind I am getting off easy compared to my electrical  bill in Georgia!

We have council members that want to outlaw natural gas where we live, not sure how that will work out when its -10 in January, but I am sort of over living in Denver anyways... 

Not definite, but is it possible undersized AC is running too often and using more power than a properly sized AC would?

 

[Road Guy]

could be, but we really dont run it that much - We play this game:

sun goes down, AC off, Whole House Fan goes on all night

in the am we close all the windows and then dont generally have to turn AC on until noon, and then it will run until sun goes down

repeat.

But still $150 bucks? 

It would be at least $8000 to "upgrade"the AC, which doesnt make sense for 2.5 months of use

 

[Tiger15]

This isn't specifically a job gripe, but it does grind my gears a little when I hear people complain about their high electric bill. I mainly heard it down in FL from friends and family, especially when it was the summer and people were keeping their AC at like 72F all day. Yeah, no kidding your bill is $400.

I don't think those people understand all that goes into maintaining a power system and maintaining reliability. Poles need to be replaced, breakers and switches need to be regularly tested, transformer oil samples need to be tested, station batteries need to be checked, techs have to go out and troubleshoot outages, etc. All this adds up. And now with more and more energy efficient houses and buildings coming on the system, and old houses and buildings being renovated to be energy efficient, annual revenue is decreasing. Yet, O&M costs are increasing since new houses and buildings are being built. So people might get away with lowering their power bills now by being energy efficient, but it's going to catch up one day with higher rates. Unless the customers want less reliable power, but I don't think they do. Reliable power, low rates, energy efficient buildings. We can pick two of the three. 

Let's not even get started on people adding solar to their houses. That reduces our revenue even more, yet the exact same O&M costs remain in place because electric power has to be available.

This is very interesting.

Thinking about the stuff that I bolded. It seems like the move toward energy efficiency is only going to increase, and I don't think solar panels are going to go away. So if everyone is doing that and rates will go up as a result. Then anyone who doesn't improve their energy efficiency and/or get solar is going to get doubly screwed. Inevitable higher rates plus no added efficiency. That kind of make me want to consider solar even more.

I'd love to get your thoughts on how you think an individual consumer should behave.

 

[Tiger15]

Not definite, but is it possible undersized AC is running too often and using more power than a properly sized AC would?

could be, but we really dont run it that much - We play this game:

sun goes down, AC off, Whole House Fan goes on all night

in the am we close all the windows and then dont generally have to turn AC on until noon, and then it will run until sun goes down

repeat.

But still $150 bucks? 

It would be at least $8000 to "upgrade"the AC, which doesnt make sense for 2.5 months of use

Yeah doesn't sound like that's the issue then. We used to have an undersized AC, and we played this game.

Early in the morning crank it WAY down go get the house super cold... like 69F. Then as it runs during the day, the temp would slowly creep back up, but hopefully stay below 80F. AC wouldn't get a rest until night time. Fortunately now, we have a properly sized AC.

 

[Road Guy]

Our neighbors got solar, it was $12K, I just cant see spending that money even if I was going to live in this house forever. 

Many new subdivisions here the local California style Cities mandated they be built with solar as part of approving the subdivision, but the utils still have to provide power - There was a bill passed here which allows the Elec company to bill anyone who is hooked up to the "grid" a certain fee for maintaining the lines and such,  that come to their house.

Lots of people bitched about it because they don't understand that even if the power company is only providing 20% of your power, the poles, plant, etc, still has the same maintenance and upgrade cost.

 

[Orchid PE]

 I'd love to get your thoughts on how you think an individual consumer should behave.

Personally, I don't believe rooftop solar for residential customers have enough returns for them to be viable at the moment. When I was working down in FL, one of my co-workers looked into it and he wouldn't start seeing returns on his investment until after 15 years or so. Claims on solar panels are that they'll average around a 20 year lifespan, basic batteries around 5 years, and idk about the inverter. I think people mainly do it now just so they can help contribute to going green. But, one thing people may not know is that generation facilities are required to have "spinning reserves." So even if everyone was running solar, generation facilities still have to have the generators up and running in case something happens. There's just a tipping point at which the amount of power being supplied by power companies to customers isn't enough to cover the cost of maintaining a functioning system. I don't believe we can't be energy efficient, but I know it's going to come with a high financial cost.

Even just switching from coal to natural cost will eventually increase costs. Natural gas, though it may be cheap now, will go up once coal is done away with. This will be because of the increased demand and increase number of pipelines that will need to be built.

 

[Supe]

The rooftop residential here is a shit show, especially when going through the utility lease bullshit.  Not only are you not permitted to run your home off your own solar, but it can't even be utilized in the event of an outage.  You can only "sell it back" for a credit, and in order to do that, you have to sign up for their home monitoring/metering program which allows them to cut your power during peak usage.  They can FOAD.  There have been at least two local posts as well of people taking solar OFF their roofs after finding massive water damage due to improper installation.  The companies taking the leased equipment back also basically just cut the line for the equipment on the side of the house, leaving some bullshit jungle gym around the meter.

 

[Orchid PE]

One day there may just be a pivotal shift from how traditional power is generated and supplied.

Thinking way out in the future, I could see power companies owning all rooftop solar, and maintaining reliability and energy storage with micro-grids. Neighborhoods could have shared battery reserves in a small, fenced in area next to the neighborhood lift station  Providing distributed energy storage in this fashion would help prevent major blackouts. It's nifty to see some of this stuff since the company I work for is helping research and develop micro-grid technology. Even still, rooftop solar maintenance would cost a lot of money, and for it to be effective we would have to be cutting down a lot of trees (and I don't think many homeowners would be happy with that). In my current neighborhood, I'd say about 95% of the houses are shaded by trees for at least 75% of the day.

In the near future though, it's going to be natural gas that supplies power and it's going to cost $$$.

 

[Orchid PE]

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/florida-power-and-lights-30-million-panel-promise-mean-for-florida

As an outdoorsman, I dislike seeing stuff like this:

~650 acres.



~400 acres.

 

[Orchid PE]

 

[Orchid PE]

So I've been in contact with a supervisor at my previous company and it looks like they might be able to make me an offer for the job I want. I called at the right time, because when I did the supervisor said they just had a vacancy open up. Hoping to hear something this week.

Even with all that has happened I would still feel bad about leaving my current employer since I know how hard it will be to replace me. I've been debating talking with my manager just to let him know "me and my wife are looking to move back to FL for family reasons." That way I don't make it about the job and leave on good terms. Who knows, a year from now I might want to move back lol. That would also make the 2 week notice less of a shock.

 

[Road Guy]

There is usually never an ideal time to leave - I wouldnt feel bad. things happen and people move on.

What part of Florida were you from?

Did they help you relocate or was it all on your own?

If your having issues with the move, FWIW we moved a family of 5 from GA to Co a llittle over 7 years ago, 2 kids in middle school, one in 5th grade, wasnt the most optimum time, first year was pretty rough, spent most of my first year with one leg in CO, one in GA, took me a while to mentally move both legs here if that makes any sense... 

 

[Orchid PE]

There is usually never an ideal time to leave - I wouldnt feel bad. things happen and people move on.

What part of Florida were you from?

Did they help you relocate or was it all on your own?

If your having issues with the move, FWIW we moved a family of 5 from GA to Co a llittle over 7 years ago, 2 kids in middle school, one in 5th grade, wasnt the most optimum time, first year was pretty rough, spent most of my first year with one leg in CO, one in GA, took me a while to mentally move both legs here if that makes any sense... 

NWF.

My current company paid about $10k in relocation expenses. I'll have to pay that back since I'm leaving before the 3 year time frame.

 

[Road Guy]

pro-rated or the full amount?

After I had been here 2 years and got settled, I started to get job offers from back in Atlanta, I was able to use them 2 times to get better pay and a better position in Denver - I was willing to go back to the "ATL" if it didnt work out - but maybe you can see if they will change there mind on the postion they had talked to you about?  At least maybe give you some options?