Split electricity and network bills? - 5 BTC bounty

[PatrickHarnett]

This is part experiment, part business.

One of the parts of my job is working with different energy companies and recently I did a little piece of online research into places where the electricity bill comes in two parts - one the actual power and the second covering the network component.  Denmark does this, as do some companies in Rhode Island or Delaware.

I'm after a couple of examples from people who have separate bills and I thought a 5 BTC bounty for the first few (I'm thinking four or five) would be adequate to stimulate some interest.  I would need a scan of each, and a picture of the "happy" bill payer.  You can scrub the address part if you're paranoid, but being able to see and verify the charges from you local company would be important.

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[viboracecata]

I'm not very clear of your meaning. you need 5 btc bounty to support your research or you will donate 5 btc bounty to carry on your research?

[Elwar]

Who has electric and network bills on the same carrier?

[Littleshop]

When Patrick says 'network' he probably means what in the US is called distribution.  I have now a separate power company that provides the 'generation' and another (the main one) that provides the 'distribution'.  I can now pick the power generator from a choice of multiple vendors, and the price is about 10% less from some of them.  The only problem is it takes a good deal of time to change one, like two months. 

[PatrickHarnett]

I was offering BTC for the information - i.e. I would pay.  I thought $20 of coin would be reasonable yesterday, although it looks a little less today.

Yes, the terms change depending on country.  Network or distribution = the company that owns the poles and wires locally.  You might also have a national high-voltage network covering the major connections between power stations and the main demand centres, but usually that is included in the network bill.

I am based in New Zealand where we have a few major retailers (6) and lots of small network companies (20-30).  Fairly similar to Australia where I've also done a lot of work in this area.

The argument I am dealing with is basically as follows:
 - Retailers like to combine the network/distribution charges into the delivered price.
 - My client is a lines business that chooses to bill customers directly and the retailers can't then fudge the numbers (my cynical bias)
 - Some customers don't like paying their share of the network and are waging a campaign against the network company.
 - The local mindset is "no one else in the world does this, why do you?"

Now obviously other people around the world do actually charge separately for lines and energy.  Most are a per unit or kWh charge, some have a daily charge, but few charge a "demand charge" measured in kW to residential or small commercial.  Normally you would need a demand meter (or time-of-use/smart meter - a device that records consumption in half-hour or hour blocks, not just the total between meter reads.)