Here in northern CA, there's some ridiculous law passed so the state could recover the money they paid to Enron in 2000 (which they have no doubt long since recovered. So you get a monthly allotment of power (enough to power your electric toothbrush and maybe your cell phone charger) at the standard per-kwh rate of about 13 cents, and everything over that is 150 to 300% per kwh, depending on use.

My power bill for the summer ran as much as $900/month, and that's with no central air... I put a window unit in the office to save from cooling the whole house... during the winter it's more like $250. Some of that is the pool, but I don't know how much. (It isn't heated.)

In January, when we had 8 models at AJ's house and he heated the pool for 4-5 days, his combined electric/gas bill went from $200 the previous month to $2400.