Winter rates

Yes Winter rates from Consumers energy are here. mine went from .16 to .137 KWH

Holy frock..... Never knew they had different rates

yeah they charge less in the winter because of less power loss in the transmission,substation and distribution system. hot weather causes the transformers and lines to have more resistance. cold weather = less resistance in the system hence why they use open air wires with no insulation

It really doesn't have anything to do with transformers, wires, substations. It has to do with power useage in the nation. This is the time of year air conditioners are not being used in about all the nation. Natural gas, fuel oil, and propane use goes up for heating. Also with colder weather, most plants will produce more power based on lower air ambient temperatures as well as lower cooling water temperatures. With this lowering of electrical useage, all the 'peaker plants' which cost more to produce power will not be needed.

^^yes this is true but line loss is actually a big deal to the power company in the hotter months. When it costs them more the get the power to your house they have to charge more. When you are talking an 10% increase in loss on the system that's huge. one of my bestfriends is an engineer at the largest tansmission and sub transmission company's in the world and explained the whole thing to me.

If it were due to just the 10% less loss, the 'new' rate would be .144 kwh.

I don't know about you, but I'm on AEP and my line 'useage' is split out from my kwh useage. Almost all of of the transmission taking place in the US is now by Transcos. It is from substations to your house that is owned by a utility. Usually anything from a switchyard (first interconnection from a plant) out is owned by the Transco, so in reality any line losses are on the utility, they essentially are 'leasing' the large lines to push power to the customer.