On Mar 15, 8:56*am, Edge wrote:
The federal, state, and local governments are always looking for ways
to get more of your money. Deregulation of the electric utilities was
justified to promote competition and thereby lower your electric
bills. This resulted in separate supply and delivery charges. The
delivery charge is relatively fixed even if you use no kWh, like a
vacation home.

The delivery charge sure isn't fixed here in NJ. It's billed per
Kwh just like the charge for the energy itself. Don't have a bill
in front of me, but the total rate per Kwh is around 18 cents.
About half of that is delivery and half is generation. There is
also a monthly base charge of a couple bucks.

I also don't think you can attribute today's electric rates here
as being higher due to deregulation. Deregulation has allowed
us to choose alternate suppliers for generation that are a little
lower than the utility. Govt here has tacked on charges that
are being used to fund the socialist solar agenda. A few years
ago it turned out the state had $100mil that had accumulated
in that fund sitting in a bank account, with no clear authority of
who was authorized to release it, for what purpose, etc.
And they are forcing the utilities to buy an increasing share of
energy from renewable sources. Both of those have
contributed to raising prices, but those have nothing to do
with deregulation and competition.