Time of use Electrical Rates

[verizonbear]

Has anyone opted to go to time of use electric rates ?  My heating , water heating , dryer and range/oven are natural gas.  I am considering signing up for this, the one year commitment is daunting though.  Any thoughts,  I am on BGE for all you Marylander's out there 

 

 

 

 

 

How Does it Work?

TOU rates are based on the amount of energy you use and when you use it. Your rate will vary according to the time of day or night, and day of the week, and season of the year. Under TOU pricing, there are three different prices for three different periods:

<ul style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: normal;">
<li style="margin-bottom: 6px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">On-Peak
</span>Summer: weekdays 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Winter: weekdays 7 a.m. - 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. - 9 p.m.</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 6px;"><strong style="font-size: 17px;">Intermediate-Peak
</strong>Summer: weekdays 7 a.m. - 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. - 11 p.m.
Winter: weekdays 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 6px;"><strong style="font-size: 17px;">Off-Peak
</strong>Summer: weekdays 11 p.m. - 7 a.m. 
Winter: weekdays 9 p.m. - 7 a.m., Saturday, Sunday, major holiday</li>
</ul>

 

[petek]

We had no choice in the matter here in Ontario after they installed the mandatory new smart meters. Yours looks pretty similar except your winter weekday peak in the afternoon/evening goes from 5pm to 9pm, our is 5pm to 7pm. We try and follow it but not religiously, you still have to cook in the peak hours. But with all the CFL lighting in the house now and running the dishwasher and dryer after 7pm most of the time our bill is pretty good. Every once in a while we compare bills with a couple of neighbors and ours is consistently a lot lower to the point they were amazed. It's not like we're sitting here in the dark either. Just re read.. with your gas stove and dryer maybe any savings won't make it that worthwhile.

 

[philr]

What I don't like with these is that you pay more when you're more likely to need to use more... Depending of the rate increases in the "on-peak" periods and savings on the "off peak" periods (and what about "intermediate peak" rates?), and how flexible you are in your energy use to avoid using electricity in the On-Peak times.

As I only have electric heating, cooking appliances, electric water heater and an electric dryer, I don't have any alternative energy to use in the On-Peak periods (the electricity provider here still doesn't offer variable rates like that anyway but they do offer a bi-energy program with dual rates based on the outside temperature for those who have electric and gas or oil heating). Very few have access to Natural Gas where I live so that's not an option for most of us...

If you had electric heat as an alternate source of energy and the off-peak rates would be low enough to allow some savings (compared to natural gas) when you heat at night and switch to gas during the day, there could be an advantage. But during the summer time, the a/c cost would likely increase.

As for the other uses of electricity, I don't see how someone could be flexible enough in it's use of it for lighting, a/c, heat pumps, and the other appliances which require some electricity (mainly the fridge!) to get any advantage. Unless you aren't at home in the evening during weekdays and don't mind using your laundry appliances and dishwasher at night or if you like to keep all the lights on from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.!

 

[philr]

Pete, everybody has to get this variable rates in Ontario? Here, they are also installing smart meters but you can refuse to get them (and pay a premium on your bill) and as far as I know, they haven't started to offer or force anybody to use variable rates so far (but I can see it coming!). What are the rates in Ontario?

 

[ea56]

We have had TOU service with PGE for 20 yrs. Our home is all elec. and it really saves us a lot. We have an older TOU schedule that is no longer offered. From 12pm to 6pm Mon.-Fri. we are billed at the higher rate for each KWH, any use outside this time frame is billed at the lower rate. Consequently, we just don't use the elec. heat, dryer, oven or dishwasher. and limit hot water usage during the peak use period. It has been really easy for the most part. During the winter it is the most challenging. We have a pellet stove insert that we use for heat during the peak use periods. However, we now have no burn days several days during the winter due to increased air pollution. So on the no burn days sometimes we have to stay cold from 12pm until 6pm as I refuse to pay the higher rate if I can help it. We live in a 20 unit HOA and all the units are exactly the same sq. footage. We consistantly have lower PGE bills than all our neighbors because of our TOU plan. The rest of them just couldn't be bothered to sign up for it. And I'm talking where our bill might be around $150.00 and the other neighbors will be $225.00 to $300.00. To me thats a big savings.[this post was last edited: 1/2/2015-00:47]

 

[petek]

Here's our rates and times

unless you have a contract with a reseller Phil I'm pretty sure it's the same for everyone but don't quote me lol

http://www.bluewaterpower.com/index.php/residential-top/smart-meters/time-of-use-rates

 

[philr]

Thanks Pete!

 

[polkanut]

We've been on TOU rates since 1998, and we're under our budget amount every month.  You learn to do laundry during off-peak times, and you'll find that it's really not that hard to adjust to it.  We also use the delay start feature on our dishwasher quite a bit too.  Saves electricity, and your hot water for when you need it during the daytime.  Our furnace, water heater, and stove are gas.  Everything else is electric.

 

[moparguy]

It would seem to me to depend on your activities... if you work outside the home days, it might work for you. But if you work off hours or if you work from home/ telecommute, then you would need the home to be cool during the day and you would be running appliances and computers during the day. Even if you work outside the home during the day, you would presumably want to set the ac temperature up so as not to use the more expensive cooling rate during the day, which of course may mean extra power to bring the temp back down to a more comfortable temperature in the evening/night. I don't have time of day pricing with my provider, but they do offer their optional plan where they throttle back electricity depending on their demand load... and I have never opted into that because I don't want to have no control or knowledge when my power will be cut back on the ac, etc.

 

[verizonbear]

Thanks for all the feedback

I am going to do some analysis on this before June and decide. I live by myself and all my other appliances are energy star, both the washer and dishwasher have delay start functions so I can easily manage those off peaks. Having the weekends as off peak would work perfect for me.

I used 625 KWH of electricity last month. I have been a nazi about lights and have all CFLs now. I have a heated floor in the bathroom I use maybe 1 hour per day.

 

[tomturbomatic]

PEPCO, one part of the electrical crime family here, sends me these stupid reports each month telling me that I use most of my electricity between 4 and 7 PM. Well, guess what, shit for brains, I get home from work about 4 and I go to bed between 7 and 8 so I can get up before 4 and start the rat race all over again. You are not telling me anything I don't know and wasting money to do it.

 

[polkanut]

Here are the Time-Of-Use rates for WI Public Service.  We're on Option 1.  WPS Time-Of-Use is no longer open to new enrollments. And if you decide to leave the plan, you can't get back in.

Residential Two-Tier Time-of-Use | Wisconsin Public Service

Save on your electric bill by using high-demand appliances when there's a low demand for electricity.

www.wisconsinpublicservice.com

 

[passatdoc]

We have smart meters here, but so far the local utility SDGE (San Diego Gas & Electric) has not yet instituted TOU. When I go online, I can see the amts of electricity used by day, but not (yet) by time of day.

Heating: gas furnace w/electric can

 

Water Heater: gas

 

Dryer: gas

 

Oven/cooktop: freestanding gas range

 

Dishwasher: plumbed to hot water line, receives hot water from gas water heater

 

Both clothes washer and dishwasher have boost heaters that may go into action, depending on cycle selected (generally the washer heater works on "Sanitize" cycles; the Bosch DW heater will operate on "Normal" and "PowerScrub Plus" cycles, since the final rinses are hotter than the hot water line---only "Quick Wash" uses a final rinse lower than incoming hot water)

 

To some degree, I suppose I use electricity during off-peak hours, but more as a matter of convenience than of purpose. For example, if I have only one load of laundry (with my new large capacity Electrolux 60, multiple load days are less common, I can just about wash twice as much as with the old Frig 2140), I used to wash when I came home and then did the drying, which I found interrupted my evening (either doing work around the house or computer work or vegging in front of tv). Now I am more likely to set up the load in the evening to run at 04:00-05:00, so that the load is just finished washing when I wake up at 6 am. Then it's ready for the dryer, and ready to hang (perm press clothing) by the time breakfast is over. Likewise, I am most likely to finish filling the dishwasher after dinner, in the evening. Although the Bosch is quiet, I often run the DW just before bed, out of habit (the previous DW was a noisy GE Potscrubber). So at least these two activities would take place in off-peak hours.

However, certain electricity use (blower fan for FAU furnace) can't be helped, if it's cold at 7 am then the furnace is going to fire up and pull power. I have a four cycle thermostat and allow the home temp to fall to 54 F (never gets that cold, but can get to mid to upper 50s) while I'm gone during the day, heats up to 60 F in the evening (6-10 pm) and 61 F when I wake up (5:30 to 8 am). 

 

[passatdoc]

the other energy hog in the house

I have a 100 gallon saltwater aquarium which I keep heated to 75 F, which means the heater sometimes is overcoming a 15-20 F gradient vs house temperature. The heater is 150 W which is adequate. There are also three pumps in the tank: one circulates water, two run devices known as "protein skimmers" which remove pollutants from the tank via foam fractionation. The pumps are 20 W each and do release heat into the water, which eases the load on the heater. The LED light fixture is 72W (previous fixture was 4 x 32W flourescents = 128W), though there are two sets of lights and more than half are only running 10am-5pm---about a third of them run 7 am-10:30 pm.

When the heater is firing (only in winter, basically; the other three seasons are warm enough that the residual heat from the pumps heats the water), that's 150W plus 60 W (pumps) plus 72W (LED fixture at full blast---for six hours a day) for 282W. This may be the biggest energy user in the house. My tank does not have live coral, and for good coral growth in a large tank one needs to use 100s of watts, even with LED lamps.

Two of the fish are 8-9" long and are 26 years old, having been purchased in 1988. I occasionally have to replace invertebrates (cleaner shrimp, snails, hermit crabs) in the tank, but have not purchased any fish since 2001.

 

[petek]

Tim.. Why do they not allow new enrolments in TOU ? Do new customers only get flat rates? It all seems the opposite of how most power companies are going getting rid of flat rates and forcing people eventually onto TOU.

 

[rockland1]

TOU

We have had time of use with Wisconsin Public Service for more than 25 years. It's never a problem. Most washers and dishwashers have timers and like Ron Popeil says: set it and forget it. On the bill we got today it says we saved $36.43 for the last billing period. In the summer our dehumidifier and pool pump are on timers to operate at the lower rate.

 

[jerrod6]

Smart meters are being installed in the Philadelphia area also.  I have had mine since last November 2013.  You can log on to your account on the web and see your usage by day and by hour. You can also see the cost per hour.

 

In Pennsylvania we can  choose our energy generation supplier.  It's complicated.  The supplier can bill you for electric generation and transmission to the grid, or just the generation.

 

Our local default company then bills us for distribution(poles wires, transformers) and if our suppler doesn't provide the transmission then out local company will bill us for that.  So our bills are divided into Generation charge per Kwh, Transmission charge per Kwh, Distribution charge per Kwh and then the flat customer charge.

 

Nothing like the OP suggested has been implemented yet, but I think it might be. The other thing is that my local default suppler says that they have to purchase energy based on time of day, which means that the rate will vary by day and by hour, so I think this is why our meters are recording usage by hour.   I am not sure we will get an off peak period, or a demand period.  It just may be  - here is the rate for this hour, and the rate for the next hour, and the rate for hour 3 and so on.  Not sure about it, but our local default utility charges the highest rates in the state so I don't put it past them to charge different rates by hour and not by day period.

 

I have an alternative supplier so my rate is lower than with the local default utility , but I will still pay whatever the local utility decides to charge for distribution.  Right now the local default utility charges higher rates per kwh in the summer after you use over 500 Kwh..no time slot needed...if the month is between june and September and you use over 500 Kwh, the remaining gets billed at a higher rate. 

 

Will be interesting to see what happens.

 

I am home all day so this idea of turning something down or up when you are not at home doesn't apply.   But I have been preparing myself by turning up the tstat to 80 during the day in the summer to reduce the amount of run time by the CA, I heat my house by natural gas but an electric motor is involved too. My water is heated by natural gas tankless and my dryer is gas also. 

 

Thanks for creating this thread.  I am interested to read others comments on this and to see what eventually happens in different areas of the country.

 

 

 

 

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Over here it's awhile since those electronic meters came by that they promoted tariffs for low demand hours such as night past 9 working week, or  the whole  weekends starting  Friday at 9 and finishing Sunday at 12PM, .your choice.
I did choose weekends at the time (2002) since I had an  electric dryer and it was mainly for that since my laundry was done mainly in weekends, so is now...it was an habit i always had to wait to do it all at once so the weekend one  came just right, now with a gas dryer I am switching it to nights, for dishwashing .... and this is also since I don't  need  to iron much anymore  always thanks to the gas dryer. 
I didn't save much anyway....it was matter of a few dickers...

But here is here...

 

[polkanut]

Pete,

I can't find any explanations as to why TOU is no longer open to new enrollees.