Tiered electric rates...

[mattl]

Anyone have any experience with tiered electric rates?  Out utility put in new enhanced meters last year and started offering tiered rates based on time of day.  I signed up, but am somewhat leery.  My bills are high and anything I can do to reduce them is good.  My utility has 3 rates, 2 most of the time.  From 12Am to 7 AM is the lowest, then most days 7AM to midnight is a slightly higher rate but on peak days from 2Pm to 6PM the rates can be 2+ times higher than normal.  These peak days are limited to a total of 14 days from 6/1 to 9/30 during the summer.  They will notify customers when these peak day occur.   In the winter the rates are slightly different, there are only the 2 rates.  Under both season plans the weekends are all at the lowest rate.  Issue for me is I'm locked in for 1 year.

 

Rates are lower, enough to make me jump.  Off Peak is $.07 vs the $.11 now, and on peak is $.106 with the rates going to $.143 on those 14 possible days.

 

I'm a night person, so I have no issue doing things late-  you see my posts here at 1, 2 and 3AM.  So I can toss laundry in late and run the DW late.  I have a smart home and can control much of it remotely, including the heat and air  - when I use it, but I rarely use the air.  My one big expense right now is my dehumidifier, $25/mo.  I'm thinking of hard wiring it on, and using my smart home stuff to control it.  It will not restart after a power outage -stupid - but I could set it to run almost continuously at the lowest rate and shut off during the higher rate periods.  I just ordered a temp/humidity sensor for the system and simply use a smart plug on the dehumidifier.

 

Anyone using time of day?  Any real savings?

 

 

[petek]

We have them, no choice in the matter.. in fact the tier rates just changed the other day for the summer season.. peak between 11 a.m. and 7 PM..  Off  peak is 7pm to 7 a.m  I think.. mid peak 7am to 11 a.m.. don't quote me. I can never remember.. 

 

What I'm really pissed off about is that Ontario rates are the highest in N.America and the current Ont govt which isn't very popular announced 25% cuts starting this summer.. Well what did we get as of May 1st.. a 10% reduction off each tier.. big effin deal.. like 2 cents..  the average savings per customer will be about $10 a month if that.  It doesn't even touch the fixed charges like delivery etc.. which are about 1/2 of the bill.. You could use no electricity here and your bill is still going to be around $80-$100. 

 

[wayupnorth]

We do not have tiered rates in this state but because of deregulation of the electric companies, every Tom, Dick and Harry is trying to sell you electricity supposidly promising a real low kwh. But their extra fees and automatic renewals at a higher rate end up costing consumers much more than just taking the PUC Standard Offer. My Standard Offer Supply charge is 0.06 kwh. Depending on where you are in the state, you either buy from Bangor Hydro or Central Maine Power as they are the only ones that can get electricity to your home.[this post was last edited: 5/2/2017-14:38]

 

[DADoES]

 
No tiered rates with my provider.  It's a "non-profit" coop so the bottom-line rate changes slightly on every bill depending on the adjustment factors for maintaining operating margins.  As I've been told, they're the only coop in TX that opted-out of retail competition and their supply lines are private (other than a few areas in town that are dual-certified) so I cannot change providers.

 

[vacerator]

Detroit Edison

just had a 4% rate hike.
Water bill was low, but 2 of us were gone for over a month.
If we were building new, it'd be geo thermal heat, and a solar grid so we could sell power back, or at least break even.

 

[Marky_Mark]

They can be very good if your home tends to be unoccupied during the peak rate, especially if you can set timers to activate things during the off-peak rate e.g. electric hot water, pool pump, washer, electric dryer, dishwasher, the charging of an electric vehicle etc etc.  But careful not to get too obsessed lol.....you want to enjoy life and not rearrange your life around your electric rates!  Don't sit there in summer sweltering hot, hungry and in the dark waiting for the off-peak rate before switching on the lights, A/C and cooking ha ha.

 

At least your future bills will clearly show you how much electricity you have used during the different periods and you will be able to see how much it has saved you (or not). 

 

[mattl]

I had to laugh tonight.  I got home late and had picked up a steak, french fries and some corn for dinner.  It's too cold tonight to grill outside so I used my small George Foreman grill, my small oil fryer, my microwave and turned on my Kuereg.  Checked my energy monitor and I was using 6800Kw! Sure adds up fast.

 

[gusherb]

I would be very mad if we ever got put on a tiered rate plan as we do tend to use the most electricity during the peak hours! Gotta keep those A/C's running or they'd take hours to catch up.
When the range was electric that would really make the meter spin, was fun to watch that train take off when that was on, along with both the A/C's, and the pool pump.

 

[sudsmaster]

Here in California what we call tiered rates are usage based: the lowest rate is for about 300 kWH/month. Above that the rates shoot up, until the next tier, where they are even higher.

What you guys are calling tiered rates are really time of day or time of use rates. Different animal. I think all customers here will eventually be moved to time of use rates, but for the time being it's voluntary. I couldn't see any savings using time of use (most of my usage is for refrigeration and a couple of pond pumps that can't be set to run only when rates are low). But who knows, maybe there are other things I can do differently to take advantage of lower nighttime rates.

That said, when this place gets a new roof, it will incorporate photovoltaic solar power panels or shingles.

 

[askolover]

So far we aren't on tiered rates here.  TVA does a good job keeping the power rates pretty reasonable.  But in July and August with the AC and pool pump running my meter would fly like it was trying to achieve liftoff!

 

[petek]

I and a couple of neighbors compare our bills and ours is consistently the lowest, granted two of them have kids etc and we don't..  The bill breaks down the power used in each time period plus gives your avg daily kw usage.. Ours hovers around 19kw per day in the summer, while they are in the high 30's up to 60.. For one  thing next doors central air (old)  never cycles off, never when they run it. It runs 24/7 buzzing away, which I and the other neighbor pointed out,, but it doesn't seem to sink in with them. She won't replace her porch lights with leds because she likes clear bulbs in them etc.. like anyone is going to notice and so she has 3 60 watters burning from sundown to sun up. Oh well. 

 

[mattl]

Funny, I have a clear LED in the side door to my garage, runs 24/7--- 3 watts.  Not worth the cost to put a smart switch on it.

 

Yeah, I guess I should have said "Time of Day" vs. "Tiered" in the title.  We do have tiered rates now, first 600kw at a lower rate than the rest, but I use 2+ times that amount so I rarely think of it.

 

[ea56]

We have lived in the same 2 story, 1260 sq ft. townhouse since 94'. It was built in 1980 and is all electric, with Cadet Hydronic electric baseboard heaters. When we received the first PGE (our electric provider) bill I hit the ceiling. It was $197.00 for Sept. I called PGE and they told me of the TOU option avail for all electric homes. We signed up and the bill dropped dramatically. The TOU plan that we had up until one year ago this mo. was pretty easy to work with. Basically, any power used bwtn the hrs of 12pm and 6 pm Mon thru Fri. was billed at a much higher rate per KWH. Any usage not in this time frame and on Sat and Sun. was billed at much less. So we just adjusted our habits to not use the electric heat, washer, dryer or hot water during the off peak hrs. This was much easier while I was still working, but once I retired, during the winter mo. it became more difficult, especially with the Bay Area Air Quality No Burn Days when we couldn't use the pellet stove. Last year this program was phased put, and we were offered the option to grandfather this TOU plan for another 2 years I believe, or convert to the new TOU plan which was way too restrictive for us, with 3 different peak times, with 3 different rates. So we choose instead to go with the regular electric rate billing and just try to be as conservative as possible with our usage. Actually, this has worked out pretty well. Our bills have increased only about $10 to $25 per mo. And it is so nice to be able to use the heaters when we really need them as well as doing the laundry during the day, instead of waiting until 6pm or the weekends. We have a Smart Meter and with this we can go online to our PGE acct. 24/7 and monitor our usage to keep a handle on it. And I'm old school, there are never lights on in a room thats not being used and the thermostat goes down to 55 f when we go to bed. Our last bill was $103.42 for 568.55 KWH.
Eddie[this post was last edited: 5/3/2017-13:41]

 

[48bencix]

SMUD to go to TOU

Sacramento Municipal Utility District, my electricity provider, will go to TOU rates by 2018. Meters are already in. I can change some stuff but the Air Conditioning is the big user and also what you want to use when the rates are the highest. Many people will opt to set the thermostat to a pretty low setting and let it run until the higher rates kick in and then turn it off. Let the indoor temp. drift up until it is uncomfortable and then turn it back on. This will use more kilowatt hours and more energy but possibly save money.

 

[mattl]

Basically what I plan to do with my dehumidifier...

 

[48bencix]

Even lower wattage

I found some LED nightlight bulbs that look like the 4 watt bulbs and only use .75 watts. I have one in my living room in a table lamp and one in the kitchen. I leave them on all the time and at night you can see quite well in those rooms. Amazing amount of light for less than one watt. Not to read by but just as a night light. Small candelabra base so I have an adaptor in the lamps.

 

[sudsmaster]

I put small LED night light lamps in, well, nightlights around the home. Also in the Neptune washer/dryer. Not as bright as the incandescents they replaced, but sufficient for the job. Also put a higher output LED bulb in the KA fridge ice/water dispenser. It's on 24/7 and functions as a nightlight in the kitchen.

Just about all the lights here have been converted over to LED, except for some fluorescent ceiling and under-cabinet lights. They are great energy savers, but my only complaint is the higher output warm white "True Color" ones still emit too much RF not to disrupt FM radio reception. Bummer!

 

[mattl]

Well as I noted I signed up for the time of day rates, so we'll see.  Yesterday I got a mailer from my utility indicating they will give me a $25 gift card and reduced rates June-Sept. if I also sign up for their AC control unit - that cycles the AC at peak times, so I also signed up for that.  I'll take the lower rates, it's rare for me to use my AC.  I may have used it once or twice last summer, here in MI there is not telling what kind of summer we might have.