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.
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.