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No more TOU electricity in ON! Charge whenever you want

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wayner

Active Member
Oct 29, 2014
4,294
1,787
Toronto
I only charge my car in off-peak hours, which is probably the case with most other EV owners in Ontario with TOU pricing. The Government of Ontario is moving to a fixed rate for electricity of $0.128/kWh - no more TOU pricing. The price over the winter for non-peak (at least in Toronto) was $0.101 - so the price we pay to charge is going up by 27% if you charge in off-peak.

The good news is that On-peak electricty will also be priced at $0.128 so you will spend less during the day when your AC is running.

I did some analysis a few years ago and my electricity consumption ranged from 72% off-peak (in the winter) to 58% off-peak (in the summer). I have a large house with two ACs, lots of electronics, a hot tub and a swimming pool so people with smaller homes may see even a higher percentage of usage in off-peak. For my historical usage from 2014-2017 using the most recent TOU pricing vs fixed rates I would pay an additional $3 per month on average. That is less than a 1% increase as my bills average over $500.

Note that these rates are all the variable rate - there are various other surcharges and fees that increase your total fee for electricity.
 
The charging portion will increase, but the overall bill should still be lower, especially if you're running A/C during the day or cooking / running the dryer before 7pm.
I am guessing that most folks will see a bit of an increase in their bill. As you can see from my data above I paid slightly more without TOU. But I only drive about 1km/month and I have much higher than average consumption as I have a large house and lots of energy intensive appliances.
 
I am guessing that most folks will see a bit of an increase in their bill. As you can see from my data above I paid slightly more without TOU. But I only drive about 1km/month and I have much higher than average consumption as I have a large house and lots of energy intensive appliances.

Definitely situation-dependant.

For me, I started working from home in March, which means A/C on all day, more cooking at home. Is my bill higher than it was a few months ago? Yes, but I'm also using more energy, and it would be even higher with TOU.
 
This is a very bad decision. Ontario invested huge sums on smart meters and without plans like TOU to take advantage of them, they are useless. Plus, so much behaviour change has happened already with this that will now be thrown out the window and we will all end up paying more.
It's not only bad because of the sunk cost of smart meters. It's bad because power generation costs more during peak hours, when expensive speaker plants need to come online.

TOW pricing currently (in the recent past) only partially reflects the cost of generation. The difference in cost of generation is much larger than the TOU pricing, and environmental and economic good sense would indicate that TOU pricing should have a much higher (not lower!) differential to adequately reflect that. The decision to allow abandonment of TOU pricing is environmentally and economically unsound, and is, I fear, largely driven by the spite of the PC government holds for all previous Liberal government policies, good or bad. This government is not being driven by the science.
 
I only charge my car in off-peak hours, which is probably the case with most other EV owners in Ontario with TOU pricing. The Government of Ontario is moving to a fixed rate for electricity of $0.128/kWh - no more TOU pricing. The price over the winter for non-peak (at least in Toronto) was $0.101 - so the price we pay to charge is going up by 27% if you charge in off-peak.

The good news is that On-peak electricty will also be priced at $0.128 so you will spend less during the day when your AC is running.

I did some analysis a few years ago and my electricity consumption ranged from 72% off-peak (in the winter) to 58% off-peak (in the summer). I have a large house with two ACs, lots of electronics, a hot tub and a swimming pool so people with smaller homes may see even a higher percentage of usage in off-peak. For my historical usage from 2014-2017 using the most recent TOU pricing vs fixed rates I would pay an additional $3 per month on average. That is less than a 1% increase as my bills average over $500.

Note that these rates are all the variable rate - there are various other surcharges and fees that increase your total fee for electricity.
I love when people do the thinking for me.
 
It's not only bad because of the sunk cost of smart meters. It's bad because power generation costs more during peak hours, when expensive speaker plants need to come online.

TOW pricing currently (in the recent past) only partially reflects the cost of generation. The difference in cost of generation is much larger than the TOU pricing, and environmental and economic good sense would indicate that TOU pricing should have a much higher (not lower!) differential to adequately reflect that. The decision to allow abandonment of TOU pricing is environmentally and economically unsound, and is, I fear, largely driven by the spite of the PC government holds for all previous Liberal government policies, good or bad. This government is not being driven by the science.
I am willing to give the current government the benefit of the doubt given our current pandemic and I am NO Ford supporter. I use TOU pricing. I charge at 3am, my wife never runs laundry until after 7pm and the AC is set at 25 during the day, even though she is a stay at home mom (she doesn’t mind the heat). Having said that, right now with Covid lots of people are home during traditional working hours (my office has been closed for 15 weeks) and peak use at home is going way up. Maybe this doesn’t work for EV car owners but we haven’t adjusted our methods and come October we will opt back in for TOU pricing.

Keep in mind, none of this is meant to suggest the current government is somehow pro-environment, they’re not, but I am still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
 
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Reading the article above I noticed:

Rickford said that starting Nov. 1, hydro ratepayers will be able to either to return to time-of-use pricing or opt for a new tiered plan that “will provide a set rate for electricity up to a certain level of consumption.”

Sounds like none of this is going to incentivize EVs - we're bound to have higher consumption so would be the bad-boys of a consumption model and it seems like they don't like TOU so I'm guessing those rates won't be as good as they were.

Seems to me the Cons plan for energy is to reduce demand. Not good for EVs, at all.
 
Reading the article above I noticed:

Rickford said that starting Nov. 1, hydro ratepayers will be able to either to return to time-of-use pricing or opt for a new tiered plan that “will provide a set rate for electricity up to a certain level of consumption.”

Sounds like none of this is going to incentivize EVs - we're bound to have higher consumption so would be the bad-boys of a consumption model and it seems like they don't like TOU so I'm guessing those rates won't be as good as they were.

Seems to me the Cons plan for energy is to reduce demand. Not good for EVs, at all.
Doesn’t that suggest that a “return to TOU pricing” is a return to what we were paying? It seems like from what you quoted, the consumption based plan is the second option.
 
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.