Sanity Check on Electricity Bill

[Dbox95]

I'd love some input on my electricity bill. Based upon other numbers I've seen - it appears extremely high. I'm not even sure where to start on fixing, but figured determining if it is indeed a problem might be a good first step. I've found a new supplier for the electric which should reduce our rate from 0.17 to 0.10 per kWh, but it feels like the amount of electric being used is oddly high. I'd love any and all opinions. Thanks!

Last four months of bills:
Month Amount kWh kWh / Day Comment
11/17 $450.65 1,693 56.4 No EV charging
12/17 $446.70 1,678 62.1 No EV charging
01/18 $753.52 2,785 79.6 First full month of Model S - charging via 110v 15a circuit
02/18 $694.54 2,491 77.8 Second full month of Model S - charging via 220v 50a circuit

Rates:
-Total: 0.27605 / kWh
-Supply (NRG Retail Solutions): 0.16900 / kWh
-Delivery (Eversource): 0.10705 / kWh

Some context is needed:
-Located in suburb outside Boston, MA
-Provider is Eversource
-House is around 4,000 Sqft of finished space
-Rate of usage for past 12 months has varied from 56 - 62 kWh/Day in the winter and 75 - 80 kWh/Day in the summer due to AC
-Natural gas forced Hot Water / Radiant heating
-Three bathrooms have electric floor heating
-Three computers running
-1/2 of ceiling lights are LED other half are old school
-Electric Dryer
-Gas range
-Double electric ovens (not heavily used)

 

[emlombardo]

Well the rate reduction should help quite a bit. I think your usage is on the high side but 4k square feet is a large space to heat / cool.

I just bought a Sense meter to get an idea of my usage before having some solar panels installed later this year. It might be worth a look to get a handle on what's using your energy.

 

[Dbox95]

Auto-formatting made the table above hard to read. Here's a pic of it in case it's easier.

 

[Dbox95]

Pic attached

 

[SSonnentag]

Assuming a 1,000 kWh increase in power usage, that's $107 of extra power. Your bills went up by $250-$300 though. I don't know why that would be unless it put you into another pricing tier that is more like $.25/kWh. Do you have any demand charges? Some power companies charge more based upon the maximum current draw during the month.

 

[ba2002]

For me:
11/21/17 - $257.78 for 1951 kwh average daily temp 35 degrees
12/22/17 - $289.14 for 2099 kwh temp 30
1/25/18 - $377.66 for 2734 kwh temp 12
2/26/18 - $315.35 for 2246 kwh temp 16


4k sq ft house.
dont drive that much, maybe 9k miles per year.
Gas furnace, dryer, water heater
Electric range, double oven (used a lot)
3 desktop computers running 24/7
bunch of tv's, but pretty light usage
bulbs half led, half old
1 bathroom with radiant floor heat that runs 24/7 from fall to spring
2 full size fridges, 1 beverage fridge

I'm the only one in my family of 5 that will turn off a light when I leave a room, shut off TVs, etc. The little flyer that comes from the power company every couple months says I'm not efficient compared to my neighbors. Most of them dont drive BEVs, but I was "not efficient" even before getting the Tesla.

 

[idealsol]

You should compute the actual amount of energy you used just for the car. Your mileage and WH/m over the period in question should give you a good idea of how much energy the car used
If that doesn’t justify the seemingly very high cost rise, then you’re using the energy somewhere else
Even at .27 kWh it seems to imply you drive a lot of miles?
At about half the cost of your energy, I estimate my annual cost for 11k miles at $400-500

 

[Bridor]

Do yourself a favor and change all of your lighting to LED. My house has been all LED since I started driving electric cars and my bill is the same as it was before the change over. In December 2016, driving four electric vehicles (Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X, two Nissan Leafs) in Orange, California, my bill was $503.59. Here in Arizona, during the AC heavy summer months, my largest bill was only $547.94. In my upstairs master bathroom, there were 12 75 Watt bulbs alone - replaced with 11.5 Watt LED bulbs (900 Watts down to 138 Watts).

Brent

 

[morrisdl]

I just started home charging this month and installed one of these on the 220v outlet for only $17: Link: http://a.co/71DXvRi
I am at 400KWh in 2.5 weeks = $46 @ $0.115/kwh. I also started mining Crypto-coins this month, so wanted to be clear on true costs of each.

 

[emlombardo]

My average monthly usage is 1,100 kWh.
House is 2k square feet.
I charge a Leaf about 7kWh / work day.
Electric dryer / dishwasher / heat pump + gas furnace.

All of my lighting is LED. I have timers on fans and smart switches on most of my lights.

Waiting for my dryer / AC / furnace / dishwasher to break to replace with higher efficiency models.

 

[Bebop]

Jeez that’s high. Then again I’ve heard stories of being like .40+ per kwh in portions of California.

I have a flat rate of .119 cents

 

[HX_Guy]

I dont mean to brag but...



Used 1181kWh last month, but it was offset by 1590kWh of solar production.

 

[YauKwan]

Im also at 2000 square ft.

average is 300kw before the Tesla
now its 900kw, charge 20kw per day. 80 mile rt commute.

 

[SSedan]

Do you understand how cold weather greatly increases Tesla energy usage?

 

[sakimano]

I

Last four months of bills:
Month Amount kWh kWh / Day Comment
11/17 $450.65 1,693 56.4 No EV charging
12/17 $446.70 1,678 62.1 No EV charging
01/18 $753.52 2,785 79.6 First full month of Model S - charging via 110v 15a circuit
02/18 $694.54 2,491 77.8 Second full month of Model S - charging via 220v 50a circuit

the rates could be timing etc. that are causing problems. Let's ignore them as they introduce a bunch of variables.

Looking at consumption, you're consuming an additional (approximately) 20 kwh a day. That's as simple as it gets.
If you have a model S 90D or something and are consuming 20 kwh a day that means assuming a Mass. winter average consumption of 480 wh/mile you're driving about 40 miles a day or thereabouts.

Is that right? if so your bill is right.

 

[boaterva]

Also, charging on 120V means you get virtually nothing net to the car..... especially in winter! Rich Rebuilds (Car Guru) had a vlog recently about the energy being negative to the battery when charging a car outside over 120 V since it costs so much to warm the battery that the battery needs to contribute to the 'equation'. (He's outside Boston, with their wonderful recent weather...)

 

[Big Earl]

Also, charging on 120V means you get virtually nothing net to the car..... especially in winter! Rich Rebuilds (Car Guru) had a vlog recently about the energy being negative to the battery when charging a car outside over 120 V since it costs so much to warm the battery that the battery needs to contribute to the 'equation'. (He's outside Boston, with their wonderful recent weather...)

I’m not 100% on board with Rich’s recent video about winter performance. On my January trip to New Hampshire in a 2017 Model S 100D, I charged on 120 volts at -5F and I actually gained a useful amount of range on an overnight charge. I was careful to use range mode when running short errands since heating the battery for a three mile trip is just wasteful.

But I certainly agree with the premise that 120 volt charging is not a good plan, especially in the cold.

 

[Nick B]

I don't have any numbers to back this up but charging with 110v will probably imply a higher loss of energy than charging with 240v?

 

[Big Earl]

I don't have any numbers to back this up but charging with 110v will probably imply a higher loss of energy than charging with 240v?

For sure. Several people in other threads have worked out the difference in charging efficiency between 120 volt and 240 volt charging.

 

[ModelNforNerd]

Assuming a 1,000 kWh increase in power usage, that's $107 of extra power. Your bills went up by $250-$300 though. I don't know why that would be unless it put you into another pricing tier that is more like $.25/kWh. Do you have any demand charges? Some power companies charge more based upon the maximum current draw during the month.

Being in another suburb of Boston....it was COLD here in the early half of January. That likely had as much to do with it than anything else.