Time of Use a good deal?

[CSFTN]

There have been recent posts outlining many utilities removing the inducement to use TOU metering. I don't use it; I live in western TN where electricity is relatively cheap. Interestingly (to me at least), I just discovered my local utility does support TOU charging, but it doesn’t look very inviting.Here’s the comparison ——
Standard Residential rates, not TOU, per kWh
First 2000 kWh, remnant:
Summer: $0.06771, $0.07625
Winter: $ 0.06480, $0.07334
Transitional period: $0.06309, $0.07163


So, basically 7 cents per kWh




Time Of Use:
On peak, off peak
Summer: $0.11784, $0.05652
Winter: $ 0.08092, $0.05637
Transitional period: $0.005518


Essentially, we grant them the ability to nearly double our charge to 12 cents per kWh summer on peak in exchange for them giving us a discount for everything us of roughly 1 cent per kWh.


Anyone think this is a good deal?

 

[lphe]

That is not much of a discount of off peak rates. For me, the EV rates for off peak hours are as low as $0.04 / kWh. The normal electric rates are $0.11 / kWh. Peak hour rates are $0.38 / kWh. So it makes sense to use TOU metering. I just make sure that I don't charge the car during peak rate hours. The electricity for the car is metered separately from the rest of my home.

 

[Saghost]

We can't really tell without knowing about your usage...

What is most of your electric consumption from? Air conditioning? an Electric car? electric heat?

If most of your electric load can be shifted out of the peak period, it might be worth it for you.

From the summary you gave, you'd need to use ~5x as much power off peak as on for it to work out if there aren't other factors.
Walter

 

[CSFTN]

We can't really tell without knowing about your usage...

What is most of your electric consumption from? Air conditioning? an Electric car? electric heat?

If most of your electric load can be shifted out of the peak period, it might be worth it for you.

From the summary you gave, you'd need to use ~5x as much power off peak as on for it to work out if there aren't other factors.
Walter

Thank you for the response. Essentially what I thought. To answer your question: AC, lights, pool, normal stuff. Heat, hot water are gas. So, the substantive users are the AC, the pool, and the car.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Thank you for the response. Essentially what I thought. To answer your question: AC, lights, pool, normal stuff. Heat, hot water are gas. So, the substantive users are the AC, the pool, and the car.

Doesn't sound like you're a good candidate for TOU. TOU rates are beneficial primarily if your usage pattern doesn't look like a typical household's, in particular with a lower mid-day usage. Given the small benefit in off-peak, you'd have to manage your peak usage very aggressively to make this pay off. (BTW, I think there's an extra "0" in your TOU transitional rate.)

 

[CSFTN]

I should rename this "a bad deal?"

 

[James Anders]

Any announcement regarding stationary battery storage products from Tesla will bring T.O.U. squarely into the forefront of discussion. I live in the Philadelphia area and can't tell from PECO's website if they have a T.O.U. policy or plan.

 

[Robert.Boston]

Any announcement regarding stationary battery storage products from Tesla will bring T.O.U. squarely into the forefront of discussion. I live in the Philadelphia area and can't tell from PECO's website if they have a T.O.U. policy or plan.

According to the PECO tariff, you do not have the option of a residential TOU rate. You do have a very interesting net metering program, though, that allows "virtual meter aggregation" within a 2-mile radius of the renewable energy source. So, e.g., if you lived next to someone with a big roof while yours is shaded, the two of you could reach an arrangement to share a solar array on his roof.

 

[ThosEM]

The name of the game played by the utilities seems always to offer something that sounds like a deal, without any net effect on their net income, or our total cost of electricity, or our total use of electricity.

So they raise the daytime rates; in the case of Baltimore Gas and Electric, by 100%; and offer 50% lower night time rates. That certainly would motivate moving electric use to the night hours! But I heat with electric heat pumps, so I need the heat in the daytime when I'm not snuggled in bed letting the house cool down. So what else could reasonably be done in the middle of the night? Laundry, cooking? Not so much. Just charging my car, which costs peanuts compared with heating a house, in kWh terms. It won't save $ to charge at night under those terms, so I stay with flat rate instead of moving to TOU.

I'm waiting them out to see if it ever dawns on BGE that night time use represents *additional* demand when someone decides to switch from ICE to EV. They seem to be afraid that they will lose money by offering a TOU rate reduction while maintaining their existing rate structure, instead of focusing on the increased demand that might be attracted.

 

[jgs]

In DTE country the TOU rate per se is not very interesting for most residential users -- its per-month fee is $19 compared to $6 for residential, and only nets you less than three cents per kWh discount in a fairly narrow band of time. The EV rate is another story, though -- 7.695 cents/kWh inclusive of distribution charges off-peak (11 p.m. to 9 a.m. M-F and all day weekends) vs. 18.195 cents on-peak, compared to 13.26 cents for the normal residential rate. The math works out well for virtually anyone with a Tesla since you can easily shift your charging into the off-peak times and all you have to recoup is the $1.95/month EV meter fee, which at the 5.565 cent per kWh discount is just 35 kWh or at my current average of 350 Wh/mile, 100 miles/month of driving. (Longer if you're going to worry about amortizing your cost to put the meter in, but for me it wasn't an issue since I had to have the NEMA 14-50 installed and wired anyway, and the incremental cost to do it with an EV meter was nil.)