No more TOU electricity in ON! Charge whenever you want

[Struja]

I don't understand the necessity for temporarily abandoning TOU. I presume this is supposed to be helping out people who are using more energy during the day as they are working from home. But those of us that are working from home are saving quite a bit of money in doing so. I personally save $11 a day in not paying GO train fares. I probably save at least $10/day in lunch and coffee breaks. I save $2/day by not taking my shirts to the cleaners. I probably save more because I am not wearing and depreciating business casual or business clothes, I am wearing casual clothes like T-shirts, golf shirts, jeans and shorts that are much cheaper. I save a couple of dollars a day in not having to charge my car. So I save at least $25/day. People that drive long distances and spend $$$ on gas will be saving even more.

For those of us that can WFH without seeing a big hit to our incomes the increase in our electrical bill is minor compared to these savings described above. Let's help out the people who need help because they lost their jobs or have their income significantly curtailed. Let's not f%^&k up electricity policy in Ontario once again.

But if there is one thing that Ontario politicians have shown in the last 114 years is that they will not pass up a good opportunity to screw around with electricity pricing in the province for the sake of (supposed) political gains.

Glad it has worked out for you but many of us aren’t as fortunate.

My 60 billion dollar landlord (Manulife) has not given me 1 penny off of my commercial rent, even though my office is closed and our building is closed. I continue to fully pay all of my staff 100% (and have applied for the wage subsidy) because my revenues are down almost 70%, I continue to pay 100% for our monthly parking spots. I continue to pay 50% of our collateral benefits because our provider cut us a break. Add to that, we are using a lot more peak hour energy because I am using my PC to work from home and I have two kids doing school work. I pack a lunch everyday while at work, so no savings there (except that I have been eating more since Covid), I wear wrinkle-free wash and wear dress shirts so, no dry cleaning to speak of...all in all, Covid has been a costly mess for me.

When all is said and done, my guess is Covid will cost me over $300k when factoring lost revenue.

 

[wayner]

I am saying that we should be helping out people like you who have been adversely affected. Not changing the entire pricing regime for the province's electrical system.

My business is affected as I have a new company that is just ramping up. Our trajectory for attracting clients has definitely slowed. And we are paying rent for a building in the heart of the Toronto financial district that we are not using as everyone is working from home.

IANAL but if you can't access your building you should stop paying rent and sue Manulife if necessary. How can you be forced to pay for something that you can't use?

But for many individuals the increase in electricity usage is more than offset by other savings. Are you saving any money from driving? PCs don't use a lot of power, especially if they are laptops. A modern powerful desktop PC plus two 24" monitors shouldn't use more than 200W. So running that 10 hours more will add 2kWh to your electrical bill.

 

[Duckjybe]

I get doubly hit with this latest increase to fixed 12.8 cent price. I have 3 EV's (one's a plug-in hybrid) that normally charge at night AND a net metered solar installation. I offset some of my use of the grid with solar and I get credits back at current rates any electricity I put back on the grid. I just did a quick calculation on my March bill and tallying just the cost of the electricity commodity, under the fixed 10.1 cent pricing it was $105. Under the previous TOU pricing it was to be $110 and under the new 12.8 cent pricing it would be $134. Ford has just used Covid response to sneak in electricity changes that increase my bill by 20% even though I am all in on clean energy. It will be interesting to see what they propose in the fall for TOU pricing and what will happen to the daily usage distribution in the meantime.

 

[wayner]

How do you have both TOU and net metering in Ontario? I thought that if you were on net metering that you were forced off of TOU.

I have 10kW of panels and I am on the microFIT program where I get $0.384/kWh

 

[Duckjybe]

How do you have both TOU and net metering in Ontario? I thought that if you were on net metering that you were forced off of TOU.

I have 10kW of panels and I am on the microFIT program where I get $0.384/kWh

Oakville Hydro still provides TOU net metering.

 

[Struja]

IANAL but if you can't access your building you should stop paying rent and sue Manulife if necessary. How can you be forced to pay for something that you can't use?

Until yesterday, the right of a commercial landlord to evict a tenant was almost automatic. New legislation was passed yesterday IIRC, not permitting certain commercial evictions. Unfortunately, I’ve fully paid March, April, May and June, even though we were closed as of March 16. The fight now will be to see what, if anything Manulife gives back. I am not holding my breath.

 

[sakimano]

Personally i dont see this as a positive. All my charging was off-peak. So essentially my bill will increase now..

thats the only electricity you use? neat.

 

[McFlurri]

thats the only electricity you use? neat.

Read past that post. I explain my electricity breakdown.

Neat.

 

[wayner]

Oakville Hydro still provides TOU net metering.

That's awesome - I wish all jurisdictions were like that. It makes the economics of a solar system much better, at least as long as pricing is higher during the day. Presumably I will switch to net metering in 2035 when my microFIT contract expires

 

[Falkirk]

So it seems the time has come to decide and make a change if we want to use Tiered pricing. I was surprised by the results of this calculator (Bill calculator | Ontario Energy Board) for my own specifics and it looks like I'll go to tiered pricing.

From the site we can switch over tomorrow:

On November 1, 2020, new winter TOU and Tiered prices will be set, and TOU customers will resume paying TOU prices that are different at different times of the day. If you’re a residential or small business customer that pays TOU prices, you can choose to switch to Tiered prices as of October 13, 2020.

 

[Bluewish]

I would pay less with TOU, so I can't wait to go back to TOU on Nov 1. With all the laundry and dishwashing done during the day, my monthly TOU cost is still less then monthly cost using covid fix rate. If I done those housework @ off peak hours, I am sure the saving will be a lot more.

 

[martind3]

I'm surprised by the results - calculate my last 3 bills and I would save $2 to $5 a month on tiered rates - that's will 70% of my usage off-peak (I still only charge in off peak hours today).

I would have thought TOU would be cheaper.

 

[McFlurri]

yea... definitely going back to TOU pricing as I suspected...

 

[SmartElectric]

I'm surprised by the results - calculate my last 3 bills and I would save $2 to $5 a month on tiered rates - that's will 70% of my usage off-peak (I still only charge in off peak hours today).

I would have thought TOU would be cheaper.

Electricity is amazingly cheap to fuel an EV. Our usage is 90% off peak (two EV's) and our TOU savings would be only $10. But then you must realize that is 200 kWh shifted from the standard rate to off peak that drives this savings, which equates to 800 km of driving for that month. Math checks out.

For $5 savings, you're not driving much or you need to schedule charging for midnight.

 

[darkenergy]

Like others, our main usage is very much off peak, at least 75% now, and it was more when work involved the daily commute. Even now TOU is cheaper, with the possible exception of summer AC. I see a solar installation in our future...

TOU favours the EV owner who uses their vehicle.

 

[eevee-fan]

Even better when the utility made too much money and has to refund the excess to ratepayers... and then, reduce power prices again in Jan 2021!

NV Energy

 

[McFlurri]

Even better when the utility made too much money and has to refund the excess to ratepayers... and then, reduce power prices again in Jan 2021!

NV Energy

i don't think that's a thing in Ontario... could be wrong but...

 

[TheRFMan]

Have new rates been published? I'm being asked to select between TOU and Tiered, but without knowing what the rates are for both (HydroOttawa in my case), I can't really make a decision. I think Tiered may be better for now since both my wife and I work from home and barely need to drive the car, but without knowing the rates, I can't make the decision.

 

[McFlurri]

Have new rates been published? I'm being asked to select between TOU and Tiered, but without knowing what the rates are for both (HydroOttawa in my case), I can't really make a decision. I think Tiered may be better for now since both my wife and I work from home and barely need to drive the car, but without knowing the rates, I can't make the decision.

i hope they dont use COVID to increase the rates.... They better go back to what they were at a minimum.

 

[TheRFMan]

i hope they dont use COVID to increase the rates.... They better go back to what they were at a minimum.

New rates just released here: Ontario Energy Board sets new electricity prices for households and small businesses | Ontario Energy Board

I'm struggling to fins a scenario where Time of Use would be more advantageous than the Tiered rates. Perhaps if your home is unoccupied during the day, or you need to do A LOT of EV charging at night.

I'm switching to Tiered rates for sure. With working from home and virtually no driving, half price daytime prices far outweigh paying a few extra cents at night.

If yours less than 1000 kWh per month, you'll actually pay less than the locked COVID rates.