• stoy@lemmy.zip
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    6 months ago

    When nuclear power was first adopted, it was championed as being “too cheap to meter”.

    That was never going to happen, and society will allways need people maintaining power infrastructure.

    So there should be two charges on your power bill, one for power usage and a static one for use of power infrastructure.

    • fayoh
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      6 months ago

      That split system is how it works where I live. Obviously it’s quite difficult to have competition for the infrastructure. So I can choose who delivers power (well, I mean it comes from the same grid. But different companies buying power from the same spot market charge you different amounts 🤷) but the infrastructure is a monopoly. Not only do we pay a fixed fee for the infrastructure, but also a transfer fee (and taxes, and also taxes on the taxes)

      So in the end I pay more for the infrastructure part than the power consumption.

    • freebee@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      The infrastructure one shouldn’t be static either. I’m not fast charging an electric car to ride my non-electric bicycle, I’m not the reason the grid needs expensive upgrades so much…

      It’s being metered too now. In Belgium it’s calculated on your max peak usage per month, averaged out over 12 months. You fastcharge 2 cars at once while running a washing machine, electric heater, vacuum, a bitcoinmine etc all at once: your infrastructure part of the bill rises. The only stupidness is that they put the “fictional minimum capacity used” too high, so you don’t benefit from practically 0 capacity usage.