Do you have "peak demand" electricity pricing?

[KYErik]

I have a friend that works for the power company. He told me that TVA (main electricity supplier in much of the Kentucky/Tennessee area) mandated that customers should be charged based on their usage during peak demand/off peak hours. It seems that since they pay more during the hours when usage is high, they want to pass the cost on to consumers.

The new digital self-reading electric meters that were installed on all houses/businesses in this area was initially thought of as a good thing- saving us from having to read our own meters. I guess now we know the real reason that they were installed... to track our power usage so we can be charged on an hour by hour basis

How many of you are paying more for your electricity during peak demand hours? If so, what part of the country are you in and what are your rates?



On another website, one guy posted this info- but I never found out where he lives:

On Peak Period Energy Charge per kWh
June - September $0.150180
Other Months $0.119850

Off Peak Period Energy Charge per kWh
June - September $0.016040
Other Months $0.019560

 

[RobS]

A buddy of mine in the power industry explained peak demand to me years ago. At that time, it was for large industrial installations. The logic is that if you need XXX KVA and have to have special lines run to your plant, then you should pay for the capacity, not just what you use. Sounded good from a selling point of view.

I guess this peak demand is different, it too makes some sense, at least from a selling perspective. As far as I know, I do not have it.

 

[ToadHill]

Our power is supplied by the local government, Little Valley Electric, they get a power allotment from the Niagara Power Authority in Niagara Falls. Once they use their allotment and have to purchase power on the open market we are charged a surcharge to make up the difference between the 2 prices.
As the area builds up, the amount purchased has increased dramatically. When we first got the property 25 years ago we would get a surchage in only a couple months each year, now we see one every month.

 

[Bird]

I have a friend that works for the power company. He told me that TVA (main electricity supplier in much of the Kentucky/Tennessee area) mandated that customers should be charged based on their usage during peak demand/off peak hours. It seems that since they pay more during the hours when usage is high, they want to pass the cost on to consumers.

The new digital self-reading electric meters that were installed on all houses/businesses in this area was initially thought of as a good thing- saving us from having to read our own meters. I guess now we know the real reason that they were installed... to track our power usage so we can be charged on an hour by hour basis

How many of you are paying more for your electricity during peak demand hours? If so, what part of the country are you in and what are your rates?



On another website, one guy posted this info- but I never found out where he lives:

On Peak Period Energy Charge per kWh
June - September $0.150180
Other Months $0.119850

Off Peak Period Energy Charge per kWh
June - September $0.016040
Other Months $0.019560

Assuming the decimal point is in the right place, that would mean his electricity cost was less than 2 cents per kWh is off peak hours and up to more than 15 cents per kWh during peak hours. That's sure a big difference. I've read some things in the news and understand the peak/off peak thing applies to large industrial businesses, but I don't know what the cutoff size or usage is. I know a person still comes around on foot reading the meters in my neighborhood so I don't think we have that sort of thing here, although the rates do vary a little bit month to month, but not drastically. I just looked at my bills for the past year and found my rates were:
Jan. - 12.54 cents per kWh
Feb. - 12.48
Mar. - 12.85
Apr. - 13.08
May. - 13.00
Jun. - 13.70
Jul. - 13.67
Aug. - 13.61
Sep. - 13.64
Oct. - 13.70
Nov. - 13.09
Dec. - 12.69
So a low of 12.48 to a high of 13.70 isn't even close to the variation mentioned above.

 

[KYErik]

Our power in this area is roughly 8-9 cents per KWH and hasn't yet gone to the new demand pricing scheme. The date I heard mentioned was October of this year. I would guess that the peak demand hours will likely be late afternoon for the summer months, but I'm not sure.

The new digital meters were installed in this area about a year ago on every house and business. They are read electronically, either through radio waves or somehow through the power lines themselves. The old analog meters were read once a month either by paid meter readers (for the city folk) or read by the customer (for those of us that live out in the country).

I suppose we may all eventually be talking about doing our arc welding projects late at night (during off peak hours) to save money HA!

 

[Bird]

Well, after I said I didn't think we had that peak/off peak business, I got to thinking about it and went back to my file cabinet. The costs I listed before are supposedly the Average cost for that month. But I also have a sheet of paper from the electric company, dated July 2006, that shows:

Off-Peak (Nov-May) 0-600 kWh 13.058 cents
Off-Peak (Nov-May) 601 + kWh 11.636 cents
On-Peak (June-Oct) All kWh 13.355 cents

It appears that, instead of peak/off peak hours, we have peak/off peak months.

 

[dmccarty]

We just pay a flat rate which is abou 10 cents per KWH. That is all based on all charges on the bill and the number of KWH we used during the period.

The digital meters replaced the old ones a year or so ago and we no longer have a meter reader driving up to the house which was a pain. Now we, aka the dogs, don't get bothered by the meter reader.

The cities around us are moving to different rates on water usage, the more gallons of water used, the higher price per gallon. Some cities have been doing this for a few years, others are getting on the bandwagon due to the drought. The cities/Govenor are telling people to use less water but that means the utilities are loosing revenue and their costs are not declining at the same rate as lost dollars. So they will have to charge more per gallon to make up the difference. People might very well use less water but pay more for it.

Thank you Mr. Well. I found a G'ment website that tracks well depths around the state. The wells are not deep, one hand dug well was only 60 feet, the other monitored wells near me are around 100 feet. They all have lost depth due to the drought but its only about 10%.

I use to pay $50-125 a month for water. Hate to see the bill if we where still in the city.

Later,
Dan

 

[ToadHill]

One advantage to being on the shore of Lake Erie, water bills run about $60 every 3 months.

 

[AlanB]

I was watching Dirty Jobs last night, and they were smelting steel. They were doing it late at night, you guessed it, because the electricity was considerably cheaper.

I think it is much like Cell phone plans. Peak times cost more, idle times cost less, I see it as an incentive for folks to help steady out usage and demand.

 

[the_sandman_454]

Seems like with some discipline, you could stand to save a fair amount on your electric bill. Run the dish washer, washing machine, dryer and all that crap at night/off peak, and so forth. For electric water heaters, I have heard of people putting at least one heating element on a timer and turning the other one down quite a bit so it only kicks in during off peak hours.

I still have standard electric pricing though, so I can't comment on how it actually works.

 

[KYErik]

Good points:

If peak pricing does happen, it seems like a strategy for summer would be to run the AC early in the morning to get the house down to 60 degrees or so and then turn it off during the peak hours.

Maybe the opposite for winter for those with heat pumps- heat that house to 80 during off peak and then turn the heat pump off during peak hours.

I am a very light sleeper, so I think the dishwasher/clothes washer starting up at 2am wouldn't work very well for me.

 

[Tig]

Coming soon to my area, which is south of Ottawa. We got a fancy new meter last year but they have not implemented the pricing yet.

 

[Ductape]

Call me crazy, but isn't forcing everyone to run dryers, a/c, dishwashers, etc @ night going to increase demand at night...... causing the price to go up?? With no reduction on cost during the day?

 

[jdbower]

You're crazy!

The premise is that things that can be moved (laundry, vacuuming, etc.) will be moved to low usage hours. However quite a few things can't/won't be moved like climate control. Ultimately this may mean some tweaking of the definition of "peak" but I think you'll still see cycles and this will help to smooth them out. More importantly, it's causing a few people to think about energy usage and may mean a few more light switches get flipped off when not needed.

Amusingly this is identical to issues I run into with telecom. You have to design a network for peak usage, but the average usage is much slower. Like building a 4 lane highway through a small town so you never run into traffic. Smoothing out the peaks by doing things like moving off-site backups to early in the morning can save a bundle.

 

[Tom_H]

We pay one rate for the first 1800 or so kwh, it goes to a higher rate after that.

We used to be on a peak/off rate plan tied to the heat/ac/hot H20 unit we had. It was a heat pump hooked up to an 80 gal tank and another 120 gal tank. In summer, it would run at night and turn 90% of that 120 gal tank into ice. The waste heat went into the 80 gal tank for domestic hot H2O. During the day, cold water from the big tank was run to a heat exchange air handler to provide the ac.

In winter, the heat pump made only hot water for both tanks, the big one for hot air and the 80 gal for domestic hot H2O.

The heat pump would run all night at the lower rate. The heat pump was locked out at peak hours which were M-F, 7-10 am and 5-8 pm in winter, and 4-10 pm in summer, the times when the demand was greatest. All other hours of the week were lower rate. The air handler and fluid circulating pumps could run at any time. Initially, the utility gave a $6k rebate on the $14k cost. It saved $ on elec., but the electronics were endlessly needing to be reset/repaired. Early on, the installer was able to reset the electronics remotely via modem, but they quit that after 5 yrs. This thing was made locally and a few thousand were sold over about an 8 yr. period. Then they stopped. All in all, everything was a wash for us $wise, but it did allow the utility to produce less total energy. It went kaput at 12 y.o in 2006.

Coal plants can run continuously, but aren't fired up and down very quickly. Oil plants and hydro can be turned on and off quickly so they are the things that are added as needed during the day. Schools, stores, even houses power down at night, so there will never be as much demand at night as during the day, even with things like the unit I used to have and with dishwashers and clothes washers & dryers that are preset to come on and run in the middle of the night.

I think that 20 years from now, new construction buildings will have all south facing roof surfaces covered with these new photovoltaic shingles. Their prices keep dropping while fossil fuel prices keep going up. I think 4th gen. nuclear will be accepted within 10 years too. It is far safer than previous reactor types.

 

[KYErik]

The "secret" is now out in the media- I just heard a news story about it on the radio today. TVA is calling it "time of day" pricing and its designed to reduce consumption. I didn't catch an implementation date though.

 

[Luremaker]

Coming soon to my area, which is south of Ottawa. We got a fancy new meter last year but they have not implemented the pricing yet.

Tig, take a look in your most recent hydro bill. Mine had a brochure on how they plan on charging us more for electicty starting some time in the fall. It lists rates of 3.2 cents (off peak), 7.2 cents (Mid Peak) and 9.2 cents (peak). The hours for each "peak" will change with the season. Of course they forgot to mention all of the other charges such as delivery (100%), line loss (10%), debt retirement etc. that we pay each month but I assume they will still be based on the peak rates. Either way we will be paying more in the fall.

The "secret" is now out in the media- I just heard a news story about it on the radio today. TVA is calling it "time of day" pricing and its designed to reduce consumption. I didn't catch an implementation date though.

Here in Ontario, the land of Canada's most expensive electricity they are calling it TOU or Time of Use pricing. TOU pricing will begin kick in sometime this fall depending on where you live in the province.

 

[heehaw]

way back when?? the power company would install off peak meters on homes with electric water heaters: this is a separate meter from the normal one on the house, an can be set to come on only during certain times: then they stopped doing that: i had several relatives that worked for the power co. back then, and have a couple of the old off peak meters: i have used them to hook up to things for people to log how many kwh they use over a period of time: like dryers, or water heater etc etc: so people could figure out what the biggest electricity user was. then for years the power co would install a device on your compressor, so it wouldn't come on during peak usage, and they gave us a little rebate for using that device: then they stopped that: it sounds like they are kinda going back to the old ways again..
heehaw

 

[caver]

I work for a large REA coop utility and the power market has become more volatile during peak demand. We've had to build several small natural gas peaking plants to meet peak demand. Our CEO at the last big company powwow hinted at looking into incentives to encourage energy conservation vs having to build another large coal plant for increasing base load,,, at about a billion dollars+.