Anyone else notice that the economics of the ComEd Hourly plan seem to disappearing? Daily rates have been going up continuously this year getting very close to and exceeding the fixed rates on many days. Almost every 90+ degree day is met with excessive rate warnings. Meanwhile the overnight rates used to be in the penny range per kwh, and are now almost always sitting in the 2-3 cent range, not to mention the disappearance of negative rates completely.
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Comed Hourly Plan for Northern IL, still worth it?
- Thread starter j5555
- Start date
hi hi, newbie here, trying to understand energy economics.
will install solar panels and potentially powerwalls [or may go with non Tesla if batteries were not essential]
what is your current setup?
i just found out that it is
6.7c flat rate
16.2c at 5pm today
3.3c at 2am this morning
do you have hourly pricing?
do you have batteries pumping back electricity during peak hours?
will install solar panels and potentially powerwalls [or may go with non Tesla if batteries were not essential]
what is your current setup?
i just found out that it is
6.7c flat rate
16.2c at 5pm today
3.3c at 2am this morning
do you have hourly pricing?
do you have batteries pumping back electricity during peak hours?
Yep, I just noticed the same thing. Crazy jumps in price and not just on very hot days. Good thing I'm getting solar installed in a few weeks.
I don't know who your energy supplier is, but according to ComEd, you cannot be on hourly pricing with grid tied solar system. Makes sense to me that a kWh of energy used from the grid would be worth the same as a kWh sent back to the grid.
I'm getting LG panels with SolarEdge optimizers and inverter installed by GRNE, no batteries.
i guess this is where home solar batteries are useful, despite not being able to sell back...
in peak hours you can just a chunk of electric stored.
PwrOutage
Member
This makes sense. The prices for the last few months have been quite unstable. 14.5 cents at 2am. I don't know how to code but I'm at the point where I'd like to try and code the Tesla unofficial API to the Com-Ed pricing. Have a little raspberry pi server check the pricing every 15min and if the if it goes over a price threshold then stop charging. Later on we can get more fancy with starting to charge when prices are lower than usual, etc. When do you guys usually charge? For me it's set to start at 1am.
I opted out of program 4 weeks ago. But will take two billing cycles. I note from Comed online stats average hourly payer lost 30% last month. Energy prices look to be elevated for the foreseeable future.
I’m on the Comed hourly plan and have grid-tied solar, but no batteries.
It’s very rare for me to do worse on the hourly plan than I would on the flat-rate plan. The only months that has happened in my 6+ years on the hourly plan has been when my net energy consumption fora billing cycle is negative, which doesn’t happen often.
But prices spiked crazy high around Christmas 2022, so it’ll be interesting to see what my next bill looks like. But I think I should be fine since I didn’t use any heavy loads during the highest price hours.
It’s very rare for me to do worse on the hourly plan than I would on the flat-rate plan. The only months that has happened in my 6+ years on the hourly plan has been when my net energy consumption fora billing cycle is negative, which doesn’t happen often.
But prices spiked crazy high around Christmas 2022, so it’ll be interesting to see what my next bill looks like. But I think I should be fine since I didn’t use any heavy loads during the highest price hours.
Bikeman
Member
I read on the Next Door app that for several hours the price was $2.50/ kW, or 22x the normal pricing. That's nuts! I hope no one was charging up those few hours on the 21st and the 22nd. We're awaiting out next bill covering those days but it won't arrive until mid-January.
It actually hit $3.64/kWh (!) on Dec 23rd 4-5pm. (You can see historical prices here: Live Prices - ComEd’s Hourly Pricing )
The absolute max it can go is $3.70/kWh, so it practically maxed out during that hour.
But, again, it should be emphasized that this is very very rare. It has literally never gone that high before.
It's not exactly apples to apples, but the "price to compare" listed in the notes on the ComEd Hourly bill for last month was $0.09765 / kWh. This includes the Energy Supply Charge and the Transmission Services Charge, whereas the prices shown on the Hourly Pricing website only include the Supply Charge. But the Transmission Services Charge is fairly small -- most recently it is $0.00887 / kWh.
Hourly customers also have a separate "Capacity Charge" based on how much energy you used during the 5 highest-demand hours during the previous summer. This year mine is actually negative (-$2.03 / month) since I had net negative energy consumption during those hours due to my solar. (It used to be that the best you could do with the Capacity Charge was $0/mo, but this year it can be negative for the first time.)
And then there are other "distribution" charges, taxes, and fees. But I believe those are all the same between the flat rate and hourly plans.
Lots more details can be found in the FAQ: Frequently Ask Questions - ComEd’s Hourly Pricing
Bikeman
Member
We're paying 11 cents per kW on ComEd's flat rate plan. Previously, our town worked an aggregate deal with Com Ed at 6.2 cents per kW, and that lasted for 4 years. Those good 'ol days are long gone. Still out is our next bill, which, flat rate or not, might contain some surprises following the December crap.
Sounds similar to what we have. We're under 12¢ here. There is no variable rate available, except for a special EV tariff. Unfortunately their EV tariff can. ONLY be used for your EV and nothing else, and requires a separate service entrance and meter. Even with two EVs, it is not particularly compelling. The ComEd plan you described seems difficult to manage with surprises under the covers.
I am thinking about an installing whole home battery backup system, with no solar to start. I have too many trees for solid solar. Power outages here are frequent, two or three times per year for 24 hours or more. I have a standby backup generator connected to the public natural gas service, which works fine. But the costs to run the generator are about five times the cost of electricity.
Oh well, way off-topic for this group. Sorry
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