The war in Iran has caused a spike in gas prices that is hitting California consumers especially hard, according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA).
AAA reports that in California, the most expensive US market for gas, the average price per gallon on Monday was $5.20, compared with $3.47 nationally. The national average climbed nearly $0.50 since the conflict began more than a week ago, while in the Golden state it rose by $0.55.
Since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on 28 February, leading to intensifying violence across the Middle East, the price of oil surged to more than $100 a barrel for the first time in nearly four years. The conflict has damaged oil and gas facilities and stranded ships carrying roughly 20m barrels of oil a day in the Gulf.
About 20% of the world’s oil is shipped through the strait of Hormuz every day but the channel has essentially been closed for the last week.
Only half joking, but all of the new data centers raising energy prices are unfortunately coming for you too. Still way cheaper than the gas equivalent though.
Jokes on you, I’ve got an electric car and solar panels. Fuck the grid!
Man I wish I could do that, but I’d be fucked come winter.
I currently have a fixed price deal. The price is not ideal, but it’s bearable year-round and I don’t use that much electricity in the summer when the market rate is cheaper.
If I had solar panels and wanted it to be connected to the grid (so I wouldn’t have to run them on a separate circuit and could also sell back the excess), I’d be forced to the market rate package. Which in the winter can get ridiculously expensive. And it’s not like there’s a lot of sunshine here in the winter. 6 hours from sunrise to sunset and it’s cloudy most days - and if it’s not cloudy, it gets super cold and electricity demand goes up even more.
Our household has solar panels, two EVs, and a heat pump located in the Midwest. We still have 1:1 net metering so its nearly the ideal conditions as far as energy harvest and economic landscape. I know this won’t last, but I’m enjoying for the years that I can.
We also have a separate deductive meter where we can get about 25% discount on electricity that charges the cars. We only use it during the cold months because car electricity is free during the rest of the year from solar.
We have a small electricity bill in November, then big beefy electricity bills and for when the our location on Earth its tilted away the sun for the very cold months of Dec Jan, and Feb. March we get a bill but its about 1/10 of the cold months, and then usually electric bill until November again.
With the installation of our heat pump we cut off our natural gas connection. So the only energy bill we have is electricity during the cold months. No natural gas bill, no gasoline bill.
Hot damn I wish I could do that. We recently had our first semi serious look into solar for our place. Maybe someday.
If it gets expensive, I can always get solar. Once you pay for the initial investment of the equipment, it’s basically free energy for decades.
I want to say our estimated break even was about a decade at our current consumption. I definitely need to get more quotes and see what the market has to offer. It’s 100% a bucket list item for me. My other hesitation is that I don’t want to live in my state for another 10 years. I think that I’m probably stuck here, but I feel once I pull that trigger, I’ve sealed my fate. My family and my wife’s are relatively near by, and while I’d move tomorrow if I could and budget for flights back, my wife does not feel the same.
That calculation also likely assumes electricity prices stay the same for a decade. If electricity prices increase, your payback date arrives sooner.
True. Something I hadn’t taken into consideration. We’ve got a couple data centers coming up over the next couple years on my power grid. They’re for sure going to increase costs.
DCs are like roaches these days. If you see two going in, there are probably ten more than you don’t know about also going in.