What Is Your Cost Per Kilowatt Hour For Electricity?

[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.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Pretty transparent does not mean 100% or totally transparent.

You and I know what clean clothes are about. The average conmsumer, on the other hand, who uses a stinky detergent, a waxy liquid softener in the washer and then dryer sheets has no idea how to do laundry, believes fake scents equal clean, and would never even notice any differece between a gas and an electric dryer.

Besides wouldn't a 10 minute cool-down with no heat pull enough clean air through the clothes to "decontaminate" them?

I also agree that an unvented gas cooker is just nasty in terms of pollutants it releases into the indoor air. It horribly degrades the quality and cleanliness of indoor air.

I'm just saying this, give the masses a gas dryer rather than an electic one. The fussy will pay to pull a new electrical line and convert.

A gas dryer is still a VAST improvement over hanging clothes in a NYC alley filled with street pollution, oil-burners burning heavy industrial-grade (sooty)fuels and the ranmdom barbeque, factories and other sources of air-borne dirt.

I won't easily give up incadescent lighting for CFL's, but I will have a gas dryer instead of electric to save 2.5 kwh per cycle and not use the 5,600w an electric dryer consumes as it heats. I guess everyone gives back to the enviroment in the ways they can. So using a gas dryer is the approximate equivalent of converting 112 lamps to CFLs if we consider a 50w savings per lamp.

 

[toggleswitch2]

~So I do not expect that gas dryers are much more efficient than electric dryers either.

In the dryer itself both energy sources are, or are nearly, 100% efficient as all the gas heat goes through the clothes.

And I do agree that propane stinks in a dryer; natural gas much less so.

In terms of "the big picture".....

Actually three units of gas must be burned at the electrical plant when one unit of gas can be burned in the dyrer to produce the same needed heat in the dryer. This is why an elecrtic dryer is more expensive to operate in many areas.

Again, to me it is a huge sin and horrble waste when a builder puts in an electric hot water heater when gas or oil is available 2 yards/meters away in that such fuel is being used by an existing furnace/boiler.

Make BUILDERS do what is greener / better but let consumers do what they feel is best for them.

 

[petek]

Oh I remember those meters back in the UK of the 1960's. My aunt had one except you had to plug it with actually money (coins) pennies or sixpences or something at that time.

My rate is something like 12 cents kWh after all the additional charges and tax are added. The base rate is 5 cents then 7 cents, last time I looked anyways.

 

[toggleswitch2]

~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).

Electric dryers carbonize/burn dust while gas dryers tend to give off smells when even the slightest bit of VOCs are in the air.

 

[earthling177]

Rich and Toggles:

I think we're mostly agreeing with each other, so I will only touch the points I want to make a bit more clear.

I am intentionally leaving the similarities on both dryer designs untouched. For example, both designs burn dust (which is clearly undesirable). Some electric designs (the ones that use an electric resistor that glows [nichrome wire, usually], as opposed to something like a long Calrod element) will also give off smells when there are VOCs around in the laundry room area. I was talking about the times when the utility (hopefully inadvertently) pumped gas with minute amounts of contaminants into people's homes -- neighbors with gas stoves were complaining too.

Anything that burns inside the dryer can (and often will) deposit on the fibers of the clothes and probably not just air out with the cool down -- that's what causes the yellowing or nasty smells on the clothes. I also used to think that people who claimed burning gas was a health hazard were a bit weird, but lately have been meeting a bunch of them (including non-smokers, non-tree huggers etc). A lot of them have asthma attacks when exposed, the ones that really surprised me were the ones with skin rashes.

I think that the "one unit of electric energy for every 3 units of gas" is a little out of touch. It was once true and it's true even for a very large amount of the population. But I would like to see people acknowledging (or even becoming aware) of the amount of losses one has pumping and transmitting gas -- there is an awful lot of leaking pipelines and the amount of energy to simply pump it (even if the pipelines are brand new and leak-free) is not nil. We can do better to make those losses lower for gas. But it's also true that the losses for generating electricity can be much, much lower -- the old-standby was to burn fuel, make steam and then run the electric generator. The power plants that are using turbofan engines (burn the fuel directly and the turbines run the generators) are doing much better -- enough so that if we're talking a gas stove, it's more efficient to burn the fuel and run an electric stove, even with electric transmission losses). We need to stop just repeating old phrases and push the industry to adopt more efficient and less polluting equipment -- and that goes for both electric and gas.

I will try and steer clear of the line about fabric softener (dryer sheets or liquid). We have all here read about how that is essential for many different types of laundry, including hospital laundry. I will agree that people using too much softener or in a wrong way can produce nasty results. Properly used, it has its places. I will not judge people experts or dumb based on the use or lack of use of something that when properly used has a good effect.

Rich: yes, I will strongly agree that line drying is the most efficient. Toggles: yes, I will also strongly agree that line drying is sometimes undesirable or even impossible. What I would like to see is getting people out of each other's throats -- I am against a ban on tumble dryers and I am also against a ban on electric dryers -- I will agree with the government giving people some sort of tax break for using a gas dryer, but not with banning them or surcharging. I'd hate for it to get to the point where a person with a kid that has allergic reactions to either a gas stove or clothes dried in a gas dryer to have to obtain special permissions just to come and put electric stoves or dryers in their home.

We've all seen how ludicrous it gets when a city prohibits garbage disposers (another dumb thing, from my perspective) and people you know come visit your town, take special pains to visit your hardware store and then, full of shame, try to hide it in the trunk as if they were smuggling nuclear weapons back home. This is supposed to be a free country, we're supposed to have at least some choice.

Cheers,
-- Paulo.

PS: I would also like to apologize for highjacking the thread, sorry.

 

[toggleswitch2]

It's great to hear your thoughts! I was annoyed at myself for being offensive and upsetting you!

But I think it was great to get a good healthy debate going.

Like a good dump, it stinks while happening but one does feel better afterwards after purging built-up "toxins"!

Best regards
Paulo!

 

[kenmoreforever]

right at about.96 per KWH. I think it's to pay for our new power plant. Goes up a bit in the summer. that sucks.

 

[earthling177]

Toggles said:

Like a good dump, [...]

LOL!

I wasn't offended or upset by any statements here, yours or otherwise. But I'm afraid that my state of mind may be interfering with my postings, I've been going "wait a second here, we can't all force other people to..." a lot on the net when I see people saying we should pass laws to do whatever. I expect it will pass and I will get over it, but I've been like that since the Prop. 8 and now it got a bit worse with the decision. I don't live in CA, but I have friends who do and I feel for them. Who knows, if they let gay people marry there, maybe something they were waiting for for a long time will happen -- here the Red Sox finally won. ;-)

Cheers!

 

[sudsmaster]

Maybe I missed something, but I'm not aware of any locality actually banning electric clothes dryers. I'd be against that kind of regulation. Some homes without natural gas service have little choice but electric if they can't line dry everything. Even I wind up using the gas dryer a fair amount - mainly for small items, perm press, or to finish off stuff that doesn't get dry on the line by nightfall.

The "ban" on 220 volt laundry room outlets is a bit backwards as well. It manages also to filter out some of the most energy efficient washers on the planet: the 220 volt european design models. Go figure.

 

[toggleswitch2]

The beauty of it is, a standard 110v 20a outlet North American can be converted to a 220v 20a outlet in mere minutes at a very low cost. (Even if you have only two wires/conductors + ground/earth). Tou need a new double circuit-breaker and a new outlet (power-point=> UK).

So we have the washer taken care of.
The dryer however will still have to be gas.

 

[toggleswitch2]

I'm acutally very impressed with saving the heat and humdity from an electric dryer in winter.

Pantyhose over the exhaust and the lint issue is solved. As long as one does a load every few days, not multiples in a day, (eyes roll) the humidity is not a problem.

Actually the humidity indoors when line or rack drying versus an electric dryer is the same, only the dryer releases it quicker.

 

[sudsmaster]

Toggs,

To be up to code, wouldn't that "new" 220 outlet need four wires? Hot1, Hot2, Neutral, and Ground?

 

[toggleswitch2]

In my area you don't need the neutral for things such as an A/C. These don't normally have have any 110v components.

Ditto "true" Euro washer; no 110v components, IIRC.

 

[sudsmaster]

Toggs,

It might not be "necessary" for the appliance, but I'm pretty sure that modern electrical code stipulates a separate ground and neutral for 220 volt circuits.

And even a ten year old Miele 220 volt washer comes wired with separate neutral and ground. It's common practice to re-wire the machine (all my used Mieles came altered that way) to just two hots and a neutral, but it's not code.

 

[toggleswitch2]

The NEC National Electric code is the MINIMUM standard. My city and large cities in the USA like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago have local ordinances that are stricter.

~It might not be "necessary" for the appliance, but I'm pretty sure that modern electrical code stipulates a separate ground and neutral for 220 volt circuits.

As pointed out above, your code and my code may differ. I 100% agree with you. But certain 220v appliance and/or circuits here don't have or need a neutral-- either in the cabling to the outlet or in the power-cord itself.

If your statement were true in all scenarios, we's see 220V air-condtioners with 4 prongs and their power cords with 4 conductors. However this is not the case, to the best of my knowlege.. still 3 prongs and 3 conductors.

The law requires that WHEN THERE IS A NEUTRAL in a 220v appliance that it may not be combined (in the appliance) with the ground, and the two may not share a prong or a conductor.

The pictured outlet is a 220v 20a unit by Leviton that is typically for used for 2220v USA air-conditioners. Please note the two hots and the ground. NO PROVISION FOR NEUTRAL.

 

[toggleswitch2]

~And even a ten year old Miele 220 volt washer comes wired with separate neutral and ground. It's common practice to re-wire the machine (all my used Mieles came altered that way) to just two hots and a neutral, but it's not code.

So are you saying the power cord is three conductors or four?

Why would a true Euro machine need a neutral, does it have any 110v components?

 

[toggleswitch2]

Why would a true Euro machine need a neutral (WHEN CONNECTED TO A NORTH AMERICAN POWER SUPPLY), does it have any 110v components?

 

[sudsmaster]

I have four Miele washers, all about 10 years or older. They all have four wire power cords, with two black (hot) conductors, one white (neutral) conductor, and one green (ground) conductor. They were all re-wired before my acquisition to 3 prong plugs, with the green ground wire disconnected and just the two hots and a neutral wired up. They work fine that way, although I'm sure they'd be safer with a ground wire as well.

I don't know if there are any 110 volt components inside the washer. I suspect the control panel is 110 volts, but I couldn't say for sure. I didn't bother to check the voltages when I was operating on the door switch relay on one of them.

But the fact that they all have neutral wires tends to indicate that they do indeed have some 110 volt components inside.

And, I believe that Launderess has mentioned that some of the older Mieles - like the W1065 - could be run on 110 volts only. There's a wiring change you do, so the heating elements run at only 110 volts. This would also tend to indicate that the machines are made to run mostly at 110 volts, with the heating elements the only parts that run at 220. And if they are to be run at 110 volts, they most certainly would need a neutral wire.

 

[dogboy44]

In Los Angeles

Energy Charge - per kWh $ 0.07288

 

[toggleswitch2]

I'm a bit concerned that whoever is tampering with those machines does not know enough to realize that grounding/earthing is imperative--especially when 220v is involved.

Modern code requres a neutral with 110/220 volt circuits.
On a strict 220v line (no 110v), there is no need for a neutral whose only purpose is to provde 110v.

My 220v 20a A/C line in a NYC apt years ago was porfessionally installed and inspected and did/does not have a neutral. So it was code, fer shure! There were only two conductors(both hot) and a ground.

 

[sudsmaster]

Well, I suppose an A/C circuit has different requirements than a laundry circuit.

LOTS of people have hooked up euro 220 volt washers to older standard North American 3 wire outlets over the years. These outlets are for American electric dryers, and had two hots and a neutral. No ground, or the ground was supposed to be the conduit and manually added to the appliance.

I agree that a ground wire is important but in practice many people have "gotten away" with just the neutral and the two hots. If one is really concerned, a separate ground wire can be added to the conduit (provided there is a metal conduit with a good ground path). I might just do that for my machines. I've also heard (and seen) people use the cold water pipe as a ground. Which can work as long as there are no dielectric unions in the path that don't have ground bypass wires/clamps added. And I imagine most plumbers would rather that people didn't use the cold water piping for electrical grounding.

I have heard it said (here, I think) that grounding's main purpose is to protect the equipment. Protecting people requires a GFCI device. Makes sense to me. But perhaps a grounded washer also protects people because if there is a current leak to chassis perhaps it will trip the breaker if there is a ground - instead of making the chassis hot for the next unwary individual to come in contact with it when there is no separate ground.