is time of day metering of electricity right for me? (long)

[luckydriver]

the boiler only fires in the morning when i shower. Other than that it doesnt run all day. On weekends when i'm home i've comfirmed this. Plus i really dont think the water heater itself uses a dime of electricity, it's the oil and electric to run the boiler for 10 minutes per day to heat the water. And thats 100% off peak time.

of course i only do dishes and wash off peak so thats not an issue. And the spa is set on econo to only run off peak. Also I have my squid setup so that on my entertainment center only the tivos are on 24/7. Nothing else is on unless i'm watching it. But of course it's all turned on for about 25 peak hours a week.

im actually not joking about turning it all on to save more lol....i really cant compare electric use to my past because normally i had the spa up and all my lights plugged in. And as i enumerated above, i only recently knew how much juice those 2 items were really costing me. So to get a true cost savings i need to hook those things back up and resume a 'normal life'. But i cant do that until certain things are done with my outside project so thats at least a few weeks. Plus in a way it's foolish to turn them up just to test my theory out. I am looking into LED for my outside lights but havent gotten around to buying them.

The other way to look at this is if you extrapolate my 26 dollars for 2 weeks out to 52 dollars for 4 weeks, thats way less than the 100 per month i was paying before when the lights and spa was on! I'm half joking but it's serious and true with the calculations

here are last years numbers..date and amount of bill. Most of this of course is the spa and lights off but some is because of time of day i'm sure.

6/12/2008 101.2
7/15/2008 118.02
8/13/2008 119.92
9/12/2008 102.57

[ecman51`]

Originally Posted by luckydriver

im actually not joking about turning it all on to save more lol....i really cant compare electric use to my past because normally i had the spa up and all my lights plugged in. And as i enumerated above, i only recently knew how much juice those 2 items were really costing me. So to get a true cost savings i need to hook those things back up and resume a 'normal life'. But i cant do that until certain things are done with my outside project so thats at least a few weeks. Plus in a way it's foolish to turn them up just to test my theory out.

Ya. Waste money on electricity to compare with how you were wasting money then. But I do see what you mean.

The other way to look at this is if you extrapolate my 26 dollars for 2 weeks out to 52 dollars for 4 weeks, thats way less than the 100 per month i was paying before when the lights and spa was on! I'm half joking but it's serious and true with the calculations

Well. It sounds like you are really saving then. But if you had it on then, but off now, we would indeed have to know what it would cost you if you got to use the same stuff now, as you did.

How is the a/c useage? Or don't you need any anymore, like me? I need my furnace now - not a/c, LOL. Tomorrow we may shatter our high temp of the day for it being low. It may only be in the upper 50's. And this morning I had 49 on outdoor thermometer, and went out in a nearby field at 5:30 am (people who saw me would have thought I was nuts) and paced around taking infrared temp reads of the ground. And I hit 31.8F!!!!! It ranged from that to many spots at 33-35F about, in the lowest area. I got on my hands and knees and inspected blades of grass ("Honey I Shrunk the Kids", kookiness) for frost, but did not see any. Just heavy dew as if the frost had just melted and I missed it.

[luckydriver]

virtually no AC this year at all. And when i do it's just a window unit on the room i'm in. at 1000 watts i'm worth 14 cents an hour peak though when i get home from work And if i need it all night in the bedroom it's only 7.5 and of course the compressor never runs for the full hour so it's really cheaper than those numbers.

i have yet to use my infrared to measure ground but i did get a 50s reading of my crawlspace a few weeks ago. I'm waiting for a heatwave to go out and measure the inside and outside walls of the house for insulation purposes. ur lucky no one called the cops on you for inspecting the grass

part of me says why bother with lights around my house since i'm saving so much but i do feel they are a deterrent to criminals and though i'm not in a high crime area, i think some lights are a prudent use of juice to scare away the baddies. Plus i do need some lighting in the spa area at night or id kill myself getting out there.

[luckydriver]

new meter installed 6/30

7/22/2009 my own meter reading:

140 0.14 $19.60 new
260 0.075 $19.50 new
400 $39.10

400 0.12 $48.00 old rate
$8.90 savings for 22 days

------------------------------------------------
i got my bill today, it's usually read around the 15th so this is partial month with new meter and partial old:

old meter 276

peak actual 106 (37.1%)
offpeak actual 180 (62.9%)
total used 286

the payment portion of the bill is very confusing and there are 2 parts...of course each part has about 9 lines for various things

residential time of day

old 276 kwh 34.06 so 34.06/276 = .123

new (no idea how to figure this out)

distribution
cust charge 6.23
106 ON .055283 = 5.86
180 OFF .007222 = 1.30

total distribution 286 x .00011 = .03

transition
106 ON x .0153 =1.63
180 OFF x -.000850= -.15 (what is this?)
total transition - 1.48

generation 286x .046580 = 13.32
transmission 286x .023930 = 6.84


Standard residential

distribution 276x.027862 = 3.51
transition 276x .007760 = 2.14
generation 276 x .0465580 = 12.86
transmission 276 x .028330 = 7.82
--------------------------------

[ecman51`]

Originally Posted by luckydriver

old meter 276


old 276 kwh 34.06 so 34.06/276 = .123

----------------------------------------
Standard residential

distribution 276x.027862 = 3.51
transition 276x .007760 = 2.14
generation 276 x .0465580 = 12.86
transmission 276 x .028330 = 7.82

Why don't these figures equal?(above the dashed lines and below the dashed lines). For the $34.06 figure up top, is that charge just for kwh useage?

[luckydriver]

there's a 6 dollar and some change customer charge and i forget where thats added in..and she told me normal charge is 8 and id have to pay 11 but i dont see near that fee. I think will all be clearer next month when is all time of day bill..i may have been bugeyed while copying all those numbers..will have to check again what i missed..i didnt add in any taxes either so maybe thats the difference

[luckydriver]

since you cant edit here, here's the corrected bill...i'm not so sure i got any savings at all this month!

69.05 is total bill for 562 =.122 (which is about normal rate)

i have no idea why but it lists time of day 7.04 cents
standard residental 7.49..yet i dont see where i spent 7 cents anywhere

this makes no sense...standard should be about 12...and if you split the bill up and divide it out, it appears both were about 12 cents

34.02/276 =.123
35.03/286=.122
-----------------------

old meter 276

peak actual 106 (37.1%)
offpeak actual 180 (62.9%)
total used 286
---------------------------------------------

the payment portion of the bill is very confusing and there are 2 parts...of course each part has about 9 lines for various things



-------------------------------------
new (no idea how to figure this out)

distribution
cust charge 6.23
106 ON .055283 = 5.86
180 OFF .007222 = 1.30


consumer education 286 x .00011 = .03

transition
106 ON x .0153 =1.63
180 OFF x -.000850= -.15 (what is this?)

generation 286x .046580 = 13.32
transmission 286x .023930 = 6.84

tax -.03

Standard residential

customer charge 276x.027862 = 3.51
distribution 276x .027862= 7.69
cust education 276x .000110=.03
transition 276x .007760 = 2.14
generation 276 x .0465580 = 12.86
transmission 276 x .028330 = 7.82
tax -.03
--------------------------------

edit...spoke to them for a while to see how things were all calculated..the woman told me they shoot for 70% off peak for it to make sense to do this but my 62 wasnt too bad. She did calculate the bill at the 62% if it was for the entire month and i would have saved about 2 bucks. I told her how i calculate things and she said that may not be the exact way to do it but i feel it is and that she just was covering herself for the explanation. She said at 70% use last month would have been 65 bucks.

and i was trying to understand the above bill and she said just wait until next month to see if interpreting the bill gets any easier.

[ecman51`]

You saved $7.38, based on comparing old standard rate and new rate, using 286 kwh for both, to compare apples to apples.

According to all the figures you provided, the old standard rate works out to be 12.3¢ kwh. And the on peak/off peak avg., for this bill, worked out to be 9.75¢ kwh.

[luckydriver]

i still dont get why one rate was negative lol..but i wont complain...cant wait for next month..and it still stands true that i need to put my lights back on and crank up the spa..then ill achieve 70% off peak for sure

[ecman51`]

It's a 'credit'. Why exactly I do not know. I have them also on utility bills, gas and electric. They have to answer to energy commissions and there must be something legal about this. Otherwise I don't think they would credit you with squat, if they did not have to. For instance, when they get rate hike approvals by the commission, there are probably clauses in there.

Isn't it nice knowing that you could be able to go out and buy 2 -7 extra hamburgers, with your savings, this last month?

[luckydriver]

day 29 reading

7/29/2009
189 0.14 $26.46 new
357 0.075 $26.78 new
546 $53.24

546 0.12 $65.52 old rate
$12.29 savings

65.4% off peak
34.6% on peak

[ecman51`]

Almsot going at $150 a year clip. Nothing to make one rich. But hey, if you are not really putting yourself out much by doing this plan, then what the heck. Think if it this way: Water utility ad says you could save like $5 a quarter, or is it a year - like we are talking big money, or something - if you stop some real slow drip. Whoopdeedingdong; $5. But $12/mo. -$144/year, may get some people's attention anyway.

[luckydriver]

150 would be nice...today i'm home working on my living room so need AC on in that room..i have a feeling i'll be eating into that 12 bucks in savings lol..but it's a much needed thing so i gotta do what i gotta do.

[ecman51`]

I'm not sure of your home situation - but I went years without a/c out of fear for the expense. Now I can enjoy it after hours and on weekends and tell others what it costs me an hour in electric cost, while I watch their jaw drop.

[luckydriver]

i'm not so cheap that i wont turn it on peak to stay cool if i'm doing hard work...but for sitting watching tv on peak hours i wont have it cranked up, just will be under the ceiling fan and kick it on every once in a while..the 57 CRT really heats up the room unfortunately..but great for free heat in the winter

[luckydriver]

8/5/2009

248 0.14 $34.72 new
464 0.075 $34.80 new
712 $69.52

712 0.12 $85.44 old rate
$15.92 savings

65.2% off peak
34.8% on peak

[ecman51`]

Xcel Energy might be reading these posts and wising up!(Look at all the views!) I see now they raised my summer rate again from the previous summer rate by about a penny(on my latest bill) What?! The off-peak rate is still about the same at about 5¢ -but the on-peak is now up to about a whopping 19.5¢, from what I remember. I will try to find the bill and get more exact on the rates and what I saved, like you did!

I guess I should have kept my mouth shut about the free windfall I have been getting from them?

[ecman51`]

I saved about $8 last month on over 300-some Kwh's used. Off-peak is 5.01¢ and on-peak is 19.6¢. It was 18.1¢, but that was the winter rate that actually carried over into late spring. I forgot to look at my first 2 bills following right after I hooked up late last year, as I am certain it was 17-some cents for on-peak.

As I have said before - not big money. But based on what my total bill was (like $42) -percentage wise it is good (and better still when you only calculate the kwh's without including taxes and all that other stuff), and hey, what the heck. I'm saving - and without really going through any effort putting myself out. If say it got down to $3 savings and I had to really reschedule things to save that, I'd just forget this program. But - I am not doing anything differently than I used to. So it is all free money.

[luckydriver]

19 cents is insane..but in 2011 thats what ill be paying

talk about me and consistent percentages....

8/13/2009

308 0.14 $43.12 new
576 0.075 $43.20 new
884 $86.32

884 0.12 $106.08 old rate
$19.76 savings

65.2% off peak
34.8% on peak

[ecman51`]

Ya. And 19.6¢!!!

They maybe had a board meeting and said the likes of Ecman is costing them their profits, since a single a person like me, who works all day long, and is a night hawk to boot, will automatically rack up off-peak hours, whether on time-of-use or not.

And frankly, I can't figure why they are giving away their electric at the cheap rate on weekends, either.

I sit around running my a/c now more, on the weekends, laughing all the way to the bank. Ahhhhhhhh. It felt so good during breaks and after I mowed huge areas of lawns this weekend, and got to come in for a cool drink and sit on the couch with the a/c on and a pedestal fan blowing the a/c at me, for only 5¢ kwh!

Congrats on your success. Posts like yours are sure to get others here calling their power companies, asking to see if they offer this plan - and if it be worth it for them.

[furd]

It has been about thirty-five years since I worked at an electrical utility but I can assure you that they are not "giving away" the power when they charge lower prices for off peak.

Electricity cannot be stored, it must be used as it is generated and most utilities are involved in power buying and selling in addition to generation. Some utilities have NO generation of their own and must purchase all the power they subsequently sell to their end customers. Power purchasing contracts are
VERY complicated and most have provisions where the buying customer must purchase blocks of power. If the buying utility guesses incorrectly then their end customers could experience a brown out so the block purchases are made quite conservatively. This means that every day there are utilities with excess power that must be used or forfeited. Obviously if they forfeit the power the average cost of the power they deliver to end customers goes up.
To attempt to forestall such forfeits they sell the "excess" power at lower rates although still at a high enough rate that it covers all the costs involved.

Ideally, a utility wants to have an absolute flat-line amount of power drawn from its system but of course that is an impossibility. Offering off-peak pricing is a way to try to even out the total load.

[Concretemasonry]

I have had the equipment installed by the utility 3 years ago and have even noticed it is even there, except for the lower rates.

Our main electrical energy user is the 14 year old air conditioner (SEER 8-9?). We have 3 refrigerators, but our water heater is gas.

Have never noticed a performance issue.

Dick

[luckydriver]

I also think it's important to note i'm pretty sure it's a small number of folks that can even utilize off peak (assuming 9 to 9 or 8 to 8 is the time period). anyone with 'anyone' home during the day or even a few people with a heavy 4-9pm load will certainly not benefit from this. For example, i used have a 24 hour resident in my house so my 200 watt tv plus heater/AC going all day would never allow me to do this off peak thing.

and as furd stated it's pretty much a supply /demand thing. Many 'office' type businesses are closed weekends so theres a huge drop in demand then. from my econ 101 i recall lower demand = lower prices. Which makes me wonder, do businesses do the off peak thing or not? Just wondering if 2 days of cheap power makes up for 5 days of hi prices. My logic says no. but i went by a new strip mall the other day and noticed a meter exactly like mine on their building. I guess theres probably a whole different structure for businesses though.

recently i watched a How it's made episode about how power is made and having to guess your demand really is not a fun thing to do.

[ecman51`]

Originally Posted by furd

It has been about thirty-five years since I worked at an electrical utility but I can assure you that they are not "giving away" the power when they charge lower prices for off peak.

They are in my case, since my time-of-use pattern has not changed - yet my bill instantly became lower when I went onto that plan.

I win, they lose.

No, they are not losing from the sense of maybe how you explained it all. But they are losing based on what they could have gotten out of customers like me, who really never transfered anymore power to off-peak time, and simply now are being 'rewarded' for having so much electricity charged at the off-peak rate.

However I do have to concede that with the savings, I am using perhaps more electric, shifted to the off-peak, since I know it is cheaper. The big thing with me is the a/c. I used to not hardly use it. Now I do -off-peak.

And in the winter I have shifted energy use more to electric space heating of room I'm in, instead of heating the whole house to full (gas furnace)temperature. This strategy reduced their income even further (noting I was saving 30-37% on total energy costs last winter!, while maintaining acceptable comparable comfort level). In my case they are losing out compared to what they used to make off of me.

Think about it once: I was using actually more electric last winter than previous, yet their income from me was greatly reduced. To what is that advantageous to them? Different if I shifted on-peak useage to off-peak useage. But I wasn't. I used more electric and paid a heavily lower overall energy bill.

[ecman51`]

Originally Posted by Concretemasonry

I have had the equipment installed by the utility 3 years ago and have even noticed it is even there, except for the lower rates.

Our main electrical energy user is the 14 year old air conditioner (SEER 8-9?). We have 3 refrigerators, but our water heater is gas.

Have never noticed a performance issue.

Dick

So if you find out what the current standard rate is for others on your utility - what have you figured your savings are, about?

[Concretemasonry]

I worked for a utility and am familiar with the concept of evening out the demand around the clock. I even hunted for a site for a pump storage site to fill during the low demand periods. - Land was too expensive and the energy losses were to high for the distance to justify.

I have not gone on the with-hunt by calculating monthly cost difference, especially because of our highly variable weather.

Since I got a credit to put it an and could have it removed at any time, it was a no brainer to install it.

I looked at previous annual totals bills and adjusted them to rate changes and found decreases.

My main variable is my AC (old and inefficient) and the weather. This year it has only been on 4 times, each for a week or so (not to many days over 90 and low humidity). Other years, it has run steady for a month or two (high humidity). My savings will be lower this year.

I could have it removed at any time, but have not seen a negative in performance or comfort.

Dick

[luckydriver]

been running AC more in evening (peak) and of course all night off peak..also about 2-3 days a week i keep the dehumidifier on all night..so now my off peak is up to 67% told you the more i use the more i save lol. I dont have my paper bill yet but online i did find out my bill for past 30 days will be 10 bucks more than last month...but i cant wait to see the usage pattern to be sure this IS worth it..just hope i've been figuring this out correctly all along

8/20/2009

347 0.14 $48.58 new
703 0.075 $52.73 new
1050 $101.31

1050 0.12 $126.00 old rate
$24.70 savings
67.0% off peak
33.0% on peak

[luckydriver]

since we cant go back and edit old posts i have to repost this as i added kwh used per day from my last reading

for example used 39 peak in the past 7 days so thats 5.571 per day peak.


8/20/2009 kwh days kwh day
347 0.14 $48.58 new 39.000 7 5.571
703 0.075 $52.73 new 127.000 7 18.143
1050 $101.31

1050 0.12 $126.00 old rate
$24.70 savings
67.0% off peak
33.0% on peak


take a peek how much this differs from a month ago (no AC or dehumid running)

7/15/2009 kwh days kwh day
100 0.14 $14.00 new 53.000 8 6.625
172 0.075 $12.90 new 87.000 8 10.875
272 $26.90

272 0.12 $32.64 old rate
$5.74 savings
63.2% off peak
36.8% on peak

[Gunguy45]

I swear lucky...I think you are just so tickled pink at whats going on this thread may still be here in 2 yrs....lol.

But yeah really...a program that costs you nothing and saves you money..whats not to be happy about?

Would never work for me since we are home all day and I'm way more active and using energy from 6AM til 9PM...and wife sometimes is up late...but not really doing anything. Our A/C of course runs a lot during the 100 degree days and not so much when it gets to 67 at night...so again..don't think we would benefit..though they do offer it.

[luckydriver]

well i cant forget it's supposed to be 3 bucks extra in fees each month..i guess it's that much extra labor to read a 2nd number off the meter or something. But still once i past that 3 dollar threshold i'm golden. no mail yesterday but hoping for it today...cant wait to see how it's all calculated for my first full month like this.

and i do admit i no longer care about running stuff night/weekends anymore...put the dehumid. on all last night, got down to 54% in the house and since i have a severe humidity issue it's nice to know i can use this thing without going too broke..though my killawatt still says it's 4 cents an hour to run..pretty pricey.

[luckydriver]

this is cool...i saw a project on tv where they are using an electric car in this manner: they recharge it at night when it's cheap, then during the day if the car isnt used or there's excess, you sell it back at a higher price..you are selling their own power back to them and making a profit! amazing.

[chandler]

Does this post hold the world record for longevity, yet?

[ecman51`]

Originally Posted by luckydriver

, then during the day if the car isnt used or there's excess, you sell it back at a higher price..you are selling their own power back to them and making a profit! amazing.

This is flying over my head. Can you reword it? I don't get this.

[ecman51`]

Originally Posted by chandler

Does this post hold the world record for longevity, yet?

The number of views are phenonenal, also. Maybe other people reading this thread will give it ago, and get free money from their PoCos.

[luckydriver]

Originally Posted by ecman51`

This is flying over my head. Can you reword it? I don't get this.

(made up numbers)

overnight charge your car for 10 cents kwh...arent going anywhere that day? sell it back at peak time for 20 cents and profit

they actually showed a working station where this happens but i'm sure it's not widely used yet. Plus while i realize a car wont hold 'a lot of' juice, i still cant imagine utilities letting us do this on a regular basis...but yes i know this does happen with solar today..so who knows?

[ecman51`]

Like anything else - if they(any company) see that the numbers do not add up in their favor after say something catches on with more and more people, they will change things to roll in the houses favor. That's why I guess my utility felt they needed to raise on-peak charges to 19.6¢!(if they wanted to maintain a low 5.0¢ off-peak rate)

If you figure we have no $3(or whatever) service charge, like you do, for the program - and also figure that on-peak to off-peak weekly ratio is like 60 hours on-peak and 108 hours off-peak(counting weekends), they have to cause it so not every person out there can pocket gains at the utility's expense.

[luckydriver]

got my bill and still have no clue how they figure 14 cents vs 7.5 based on their individual numbers and when i called their line was busy..so ill post here to see if you can figure it out


distribution
cust charge 11.00
213 ON .055023 = 11.72
497 OFF .007404 = 3.68
total distrib charge = 26.40

cust education 710x .000110= .08

transition
213x.015340= 3.27
497x -.000850= -.42
total transition = 2.85

generation 710x .046580= 33.07
transmission 710x .023930= 16.99

tax -.06

total 79.33
-------------------------------
also, you can look back a few posts and see my 8/20 numbers which are the totals i think i've saved since my June 30 install. According to that i've saved 24.70 cumulatively

however now that i have a full time of day bill, i've done this calculation for this bill:

213 0.14 $29.82 new
497 0.075 $37.28 new
710 $67.10

710 0.12 $85.20 old rate
$18.11 savings

so if my calculation is sound, and the rates are correct, thats a 15 dollar after service charge savings for last month. Not bad considering i did have a few days off and ran AC during peak times.

if anyone can actually tell how to calculate that per the bill id be amazed.

[ecman51`]

Ask to see a friends or neighbor's bill to compare all those charges, to the charges on their standard bill.

[luckydriver]

or dig up my old bills lol

[furd]

distribution
cust charge 11.00 Fixed charge just for service and billing.
213 ON .055023 = 11.72 Delivery charge for 213 kWh of power during peak period billed at 5.5023 cents per kilowatt hour.
497 OFF .007404 = 3.68 Delivery charge for 497 kWh of power during off-peak period billed at 0.7404 cents per kilowatt hour.
total distrib charge = 26.40 Total of fixed service charge, peak power delivery charge and off-peak delivery charge.

cust education 710x .000110= .08 Charge for telling you how to use electricity. Charge based upon total kWh used.

transition
213x.015340= 3.27
497x -.000850= -.42
total transition = 2.85 I don't know what these charges are.

generation 710x .046580= 33.07
transmission 710x .023930= 16.99 Cost of total electricity used from point of generation. I don't know why there are two different rates unless maybe the lesser charge is a fuel surcharge or something.

tax -.06

total 79.33