Running a GameCube (23 watts) literally nonstop for a year would use a little over 200 kWh.
Assuming average USA electricity prices, in 2002 electricity cost ~$0.09 per kWh, so one year of that would cost an additional $18.00. That number only tends worse going forward.
Back in 2002? I don’t think they separated generation and delivery for most utilities, at least in the US. In 1996, federal regulators made it mandatory for utilities with delivery infrastructure to accept generators’ electricity on fair/nondiscriminatory terms, and gave them some time to implement policies. Then, the actual generators started negotiating deals, but the early days were a bit chaotic, with issues in California with rolling blackouts, then the Enron bankruptcy, and then generators actually entering long term contracts with some price stability in the early 2000’s.
For a typical residential customer who didn’t go out of their way to look for side deals with generators, they wouldn’t have needed to see their bills be segmented out into generation and delivery, since most of the utilities still already had long term contracts (or owned their own generation facilities) still in effect from before the regulatory reform.
Personally, I didn’t see those numbers separated out on my bill until around 2009. And I remember my electric bill in 2000-2005 being roughly 10 cents per kwh, flat rate.
I love when I idly wonder something about a post, click into the comments, and the top comment is exactly, specifically the answer to my idle curiosity. Cheers.
Running a GameCube (23 watts) literally nonstop for a year would use a little over 200 kWh.
Assuming average USA electricity prices, in 2002 electricity cost ~$0.09 per kWh, so one year of that would cost an additional $18.00. That number only tends worse going forward.
A GameCube memory card would cost about $11.
As usual, it’s more expensive to be poor.
9 cents is probably just generation. I’d expect to pay about the same for delivery.
Back in 2002? I don’t think they separated generation and delivery for most utilities, at least in the US. In 1996, federal regulators made it mandatory for utilities with delivery infrastructure to accept generators’ electricity on fair/nondiscriminatory terms, and gave them some time to implement policies. Then, the actual generators started negotiating deals, but the early days were a bit chaotic, with issues in California with rolling blackouts, then the Enron bankruptcy, and then generators actually entering long term contracts with some price stability in the early 2000’s.
For a typical residential customer who didn’t go out of their way to look for side deals with generators, they wouldn’t have needed to see their bills be segmented out into generation and delivery, since most of the utilities still already had long term contracts (or owned their own generation facilities) still in effect from before the regulatory reform.
Personally, I didn’t see those numbers separated out on my bill until around 2009. And I remember my electric bill in 2000-2005 being roughly 10 cents per kwh, flat rate.
I love when I idly wonder something about a post, click into the comments, and the top comment is exactly, specifically the answer to my idle curiosity. Cheers.
Sir Samuel Vimes Boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness