[SR2Z]

You get a $500 bill for using 1000 kWh/mo - that's just leaving a 5000W AC on for 200 hours. My apartment AC is probably 2000W, but similar principles apply.

Add in a fridge, cooking equipment, water heating, leaving a server on, etc., and it should be straightforward to get to that number.

[taeric]

None of this contends with my question? I get how an AC can lead to an expensive bill. I'm assuming your numbers are to intend running the AC for daytime hours and that it will get you there. How do you get there without an AC?

About the only other large power use thing I could think of would be a pool?

Searching also shows average power bills in CA are 160? If focused on LA, it would be 200ish? What is putting some folks here so far above average? Was that the quarterly bill? I know we get bills every few months.

[SR2Z]

I don't think you get there without an AC, but the point is that many people have AC and central air and use both of them.

My guess is that most people don't have AC or are sensitive to price increases and choose not to run it. There's also multiple electricity providers in the state; NorCal uses PG&E and SoCal uses Edison.

For a variety of complicated and corruption-related reasons, PG&E has jacked rates through the roof in an absolutely unconscionable way and Edison's rates have only increased by a lot.

[taeric]

So it sounds like we mostly agree? One of the starter posts was claiming 450 without AC. I'm curious how that happens. Even with AC, I was never seeing bills that big unless we were running it a lot.