What Is Your Cost Per Kilowatt Hour For Electricity?

[DADoES]

Local electric cooperative. Last billing for period of 3/24 thru 4/23, aggregate rate of $0.1603/KWH. $112.22.

10/23/2007 it was $0.0723

11/26/2007 $0.0857

12/25/2007 $0.0957

2/25/2008 $0.1311

1/24/2009 $0.1445

3/24/2009 $0.1603

 

[toggleswitch2]

LIPA- Long Island Power Authority formerly
LILCO- Long Island Lighting Company

Power___________ supply: $0.109845
Delivery & system charges $0.085700
----------------------------------------------------
TOTAL:......................$0.195545
========================================

That's 20 cents per KWH!

I was paying about $375 per month for electricty and heating oil for a small 1,300 s.f. house.

 

[toggleswitch2]

So ladies, don't you cry to me about energy costs! LOL

Some of the reasons it's so high here:

Demand during peak times in nearby NYC causes very expensive backup and reserve generators to have to be fired-up.

Long Island finally got a cable to trade power with nearby Connecticut going around NYC. Should L.I. Need extra power NYC is not about (to be able) to provide it. Guess we are now paying for that cable as well as a nuclear plant that was never allowed to open. Something aobut an evacuation plan that could not get approved. UHM We are on an island and can't get off unless we go through NYC. And what would happen if everyone wanted to leave simultaneously? Brilliant prior planning on the part of the gum-ment.

 

[ronhic]

We are all electric...and it does get rather expensive, but with a flat roof house with no loft access and built on a concrete slab, staying electric is easier than investing at least $10000 to sort it out....

Our hot water is off peak @ AUD$0.0885 per kWh (US$0.07 ish)

Everything else is AUD$0.1290 kWh (US$0.10 ish)

Our bill normally sits between AUD $160.00 (US$126) and $220.00 (US$173) per month depending on the time of year

 

[seamusuk]

Over here.....

Scottish Power Keymeter

£1.17 week standing charge

11.22p KWH day

5.01p KWH 12.00-7.00AM

Seamus

 

[parunner58]

ours is

6.6 per kwh

 

[ronhic]

I really do hate keymeters....

When we lived in the UK it was the first thing I did when we moved into the rental house was change from a key meter to a normal one...and the same when we bought the flat....

For those of you in the ROTW that don't know what they are, they are an electicity meter that you have to insert a 'charged key' into. You go to a charge point...newsagent, local shop etc, and pay 'x' amount....(5, 10 20 pounds etc) to have the key topped up. You may be able to do this online now, but you couldn't 7yrs ago. You then insert the key into your electric meter and bingo, power flows. You can go into 'debit' by a small amount, but not much, and the meter will keep working when you pull the key out for a short period too...but from my point of view, they are a pain in the butt.

Basically, you pay for the power before you use it and it does help moderate how much you use and can stop you getting massive bills....

 

[toggleswitch2]

*WOW* live and learn. Never heard of that before.

The R-E-A-L-L-Y old timers speak of gas meters in NYC(normally, then, in the kitchen or bathroom) where one would insert a "quarter" (of a dollar, coin) and the gas would flow until the vlaue of the coin was consumed.

They speak of a similar thing, being that the gas flames of the lights would quiver, and they knew the coin was running out.

 

[passatdoc]

south Orange County, California

The southernmost towns in OC are served by San Diego Gas & Electric. My consumption always runs below the baseline allowance, so I am charged at the lowest tier. If you exceed baseline usage allowances, your excess KWH are charged at higher Tiers 2 and 3 rates.

Tier 1 rates for the latest bill:

Baseline - 295 kWh @ $.10684 4/ 32 Days 3.94
Baseline - 295 kWh @ $.08013 28/ 32 Days 20.68

(evidently the rate differed for the first four days of the billing period)

There is also a distribution charge
Baseline 295 kWh @ $.01692 4/ 32 Days
Baseline 295 kWh @ $.04363 28/ 32 Days

After taxes and fees, I paid $37.95 for 295 KWH or $0.128 (12.8 cents) per KWH.

 

[passatdoc]

ps

Gas water heater, dryer and range. No 240 V appliances.

Because electrical generating capacity is limited and gas supply lines are abundant, some municipalities here ban 240V outlets in laundry areas, forcing residents to use gas dryers (or pay an electrician beaucoup bucks to rewire). When I moved to my house 20 years ago, I remember receiving a memo from SDG&E stating that it cost 25 cents per load to dry with gas vs $1 per load with electricity. Not sure if the math still holds (i.e. 4:1 savings) today, but because of the difficulty finding new places to build new electric plants, the cities would prefer that we use natural gas in lieu of electricity when there is a choice.

 

[gadgetgary]

Connecticut

$0.17851 KWh

 

[spirit]

Here is mine:
Energy charge - $.05257/kWh
Fuel charge:
First 1,000 kWh - .06416/kWh
Above 1,000 kWh - .07416/kwh

 

[autowasherfreak]

0.08691 & 0.04512

 

[sudsmaster]

Too depressing

Here in sunny California, we pay according to how much we use:

The bare minimum (which I always exceed): $.12/kwh

For the next 50%, about $.16/kwh

For twice the bare minimum, about $.22/kwh.

Above that, I think it's about $.30/kwh.

Generally I get tagged for a $10 or more at the $.22 rate. Two fridges, one 15 cu ft chest freezer, and a pond pump that runs 7x24 will do that.

Solar panels would be nice.

 

[toggleswitch2]

~Because electrical generating capacity is limited and gas supply lines are abundant, some municipalities here ban 240V outlets in laundry areas, forcing residents to use gas dryers.

I must say a gas dryer is a bit "greener" in most cases and pretty "transparent" to the user. (i.e. and ostensibly no different than an electric one).

Perhaps this is a good thing!

 

[toggleswitch2]

~This is what you get with electrical deregulation. I do NOT recommend it to anyone!

There is a reason utitles were orginally set up as oligopolies (few vendors, sources) and monopolies (one vendor,source); it was the most efficient and cost-efficient way to do it.

 

[cadman]

Where's my All-Electric-Home badge??

We're in the unique position of having our own local utility serving primarily our modestly sized city and surrounding area, while the adjacent cities are served by the more traditional coops and state-wide conglomerates owned by parent companies. That said, our local rarely bring their coal-fired boilers online and buy most of the power we use from out of state.

First 800kwH $0.07
All over 800kwH is $0.07 summer; 0.054 winter

The 0.054 drops to 0.037 if you're "all electric". But even that qualification allows for gas water heating, fireplaces, clothes drying and cooking.

Where they get you is new service, especially if you're some distance from their lines. Not that long ago, planting a few poles and running a primary out to a farm house was pretty negligible in terms of cost (and they were gaining a customer). Now, every bit of labor and material is on the customer, and the utility contracts out ALL the work. Don't like it? Who ya gonna go to?

 

[ptcruiser51]

Northern New Jersey

Served by Jersey Central P&L, currently $.145/kwh plus some other use tax that varies by month. I pay about $22/mo. for my 4-room apartment. In summer with 240V a/c running it's maybe $35 or so. 20 years ago I paid $4.00/mo. for cooking gas (NJ Natural Gas), now it's up to about $9.00-$11.00/mo. I feel sorry for anyone heating with it!

 

[earthling177]

Toggles said:

I must say a gas dryer is a bit "greener" in most cases and pretty "transparent" to the user. (i.e. and ostensibly no different than an electric one).

Perhaps this is a good thing!

Ah... no, sorry. The newer dryers may look "transparent" because of the ignitor (older ones often made you deal with pilot lights that could extinguish etc). But that's where all the good ends. Gas dryers are more likely to break than electric dryers, and the breakdown is on the gas works, which is more dangerous than electric.

The combustion products of gas dryers pass thru the drum and clothes -- contrary to what people say ("It's just water and CO2"), the combustion products have nasty stuff in them even if in minute quantities; I know a few people who are allergic to the combustion products of gas, and they had to get rid of their gas stoves/ovens and they break in hives every time something dried in a gas dryer touches their skin. We're not gonna touch the "gas dryers have a reducing atmosphere in the drum that is detrimental to the clothes" thing (electric dryers have a neutral atmosphere) because a properly designed/functioning dryer should introduce enough air to make that moot, but many are not properly designed or are not properly functioning.

I will say that after owning several gas dryers, I got fed up enough with them (and, in particular, every once in a blue moon the gas from the main line had something nasty in it that would get my clothes yellow and foul smelling, not that that is is the fault of the dryer, but I've never had that problem with electric dryers) that I went electric and do not intend to switch back if I can possibly avoid it. Thanks, but no thanks.

If we ignore all that, I've recently found out on the web ("So it must be true...[tm]") that the true transmission losses for pumping gas are over 6%, which, when added to the poor efficiency of burners for stoves, put the efficiency of a gas stove at around 30-something percent, which is slightly lower than for an induction stove even after considering the losses in electric transmission lines and the poor efficiency of the average electric generation process. So I do not expect that gas dryers are much more efficient than electric dryers either.

Oh, and to top it off, gas dryers used to be much faster than electric dryers because they used to have high-powered burners in the 60's and 70's. Now, probably because of the auto-dry feature, gas and electric dryers are about the same speed. Not worth the bother to own one over an electric machine.

Cheers,
-- Paulo.

 

[sudsmaster]

It would be a mistake to compare the efficiency of a gas stove with a gas dryer.

On a gas stove, most of the heat escapes around the pot or pan. This is generally not a concern because the amount of energy used in cooking is quite minor when compared to that used to heat a dwelling or dry clothes.

In a clothes dryer, close to 100% of the heat generated is funneled through the laundry. Therefore by design a gas dryer is far more energy efficient than a gas range, and in general costs at least 50% LESS to run than an electric dryer.

I have NEVER found a gas dryer to leave bad odors on my laundry, nor has it ever discolored fabrics.

I wonder how many people who hyperventilate about the dangers of methane combustion (natural gas is predominantly methane plus some propane) are smokers, either of tobacco or that other stuff?

Here in California most electricity is generated using natural gas fired generators. This is at best 50% efficient, often and usually much less (like 30%). So it is obvious that taking that using that electricity to dry clothes is inherently less energy efficient than using natural gas directly to produce heat to dry clothes.

In any case, the most energy efficient way to dry clothes is with a clothesline. Those who can but don't and prefer electric dryers over gas dryers really don't have much of a conservation case to make.