i posted a few days ago regarding my fridaire refrigerator seemed to be running all the time and one of the replies i got suggested buying a kill a watt meter so i got one today and the instructions for calculating costs wants me to input my kilowatt charges so after looking at my latest electric bill i have 3 different charges...power supply energy 457 kwh @0.06726, distribution 457 kwh @0.04195 and energy optimization 457 kwh @0.01081. i am not sure which of these numbers to input into my kill a watt meter...any suggestions? thanks, cj
Call the electric company and have them tell you how much you are ACTUALLY paying per KWH. Be sure to waste their time for at least an hour, having them explain what all these charges mean, and why they cant just give it to you straight. (of course we all know that making it too hard to understand is how many companies rob people). Anyhow, stay on the phone as long as you can, and be sure to cus, whine, be rude, and complain as much as you can. That hour you spend on the phone with them will lilely be the only hour they actually EARNED that week. The rest of the time they sit at their desks playing solitare and trying to devise means to rip off the comsumers even more.
You want the total cost. They split it out so they can jack up the rates in a way you won't notice.
If your fridge is running all the time, you already have all the info you need. You need to fix it. The kill a watt won't tell you any more than that you need to fix it.
Fridge designs vary considerably.
First thing to do is check that it's defrosted. You can usually see the coils in the freezer thru a grille somewhere. The motor that runs the defrost timer can freeze up (pun intended) so the defrost cycle never runs. The evaporator coil gets covered with ice and the efficiency heads for zero. If that's the case, you need to defrost it manually. Even if you fix the timer, the defrost cycle wasn't intended to melt a solid block of ice.
I've had chunks of ice get caught in the inside circulation fan and stop it from turning.
Then that's NOT the straight cost. I dont care if it's taxes or any other added shit. You're paying for it. It's part of the total. You might be paying 14 cents / KWH, but if the other crap adds another 5 cents, your paying 19 cents / KWH. ALL utility companies are CROOKS. They know we must have their services, so they know they can get away with it. Same for gasoline.
My local electric co has spent close to $20 million in the past 2 years, building new office buildings. Now the old buildings sit vacant, and there was nothing wrong with those buildings that a coat of paint could not fix. On top of that, they bitch and moan that we are supposed to conserve energy. Well, if you drive past their office at night the whole buillding is lit up, as well as the parking lot and the whole exterior of the building has flood lights on it, so we can all "admire" their waste of money. And I should note that there is not even one car in their parking lot. No one is there.
I called them on this matter, and was told it's for security. I told them flat out "BULLSHIT". Put a security camera by the entrances and a sensor light. Or hire a guard, which would likely cost much less than the amount of power they are wasting, plus give someone a job.
If I can ever afford it, I'm going to setup solar panels and wind generators, and tell the elec co to shove it.
And even if they did, the cost to generate the power is negligible compared to the cost to distribute, maintain, and account for the power.
We've got an aluminum plant nearby that uses enough power to serve 10,000 homes. But it only takes one wire (well, three) to get it there. Contrast that with 7,000 poles, 5,000 transformers, 10,000 meters (and the reading of them), 10,000 bills sent each month, etc.
In the state I live an aluminum company took over a river and put up dams to produce the power to make the aluminum. About 10 years or so ago they quit making aluminum and just sold the power they were generating. Seems the power was making more profit than the aluminum product.
Not if you insist on using electricity as the only way of storing and moving energy. For people who want to live 'off the grid', the answer is to minimize how much electricity you need, and do as much as possible via other means. Passive solar, ground thermal, big south windows and Sola tubes for as much 'free' lighting as possible, windmill and water tower to minimize the need for well pump and water heater, etc, etc. Once you get over the front-end costs and the effort to recreate 1930s tech, you can get by with very little 110/220.
It does take a lot more work on a daily basis to exist that way. All that low-tech stuff takes a lot of upkeep. That is the reason electricity caught on so fast- it is so damn convenient.
Presuming no carry over charges from the previous month or "equal billing" plans, the cost per kWh is the total bill divided by the number of kWh listed for the billing period. It makes absolutely no difference what parts are attributable to generation, transmission, taxes, etc., the total bill divided by kWh is the amount you paid per kWh. Also, do the math yourself, as the "cost per kWh" listed on some utility bills is fraudulently calculated, excluding taxes and fees.
And it's not just taxes or a fed/state screw job. Just like the OP, my bill has a seperation of the cost of the energy itself from the distribution. At least here in NJ, the PUC has decreed they be seperate. I could choose to buy my electricity from several suppliers and still have the same local electric company deliver it. Both components are substantial. The first pays for the generation of the electricity and the other for the wires, poles, transformers, meters, servicing, etc that delivers it.
Still, it's easy to figure out. In the case of the OP I would add all
3 charges and use that for the killawatt meter. I would not just divide the total bill or add any monthly base fee, ie the $25 or whatever that you pay in some cases no matter how much you use. You want the incremental cost attributed to the refrigerator.
You may be able to do it though with fed and state subsidies kicked in. I'm going to a seminar this week at HD to find out what the current deal is here in NJ. Of course, the problem with the subsidy approach is that to get to any significant replacement of the cheaper conventional energy sources would require a lot of money that even the govts don't have. And the subsidy is coming out of everyone elses pocket, including low income families that are paying for guys like actor Ed Begly to feel good about themselves.
You dont need to know what you pay to use a kill a watt meter, it stores Watts used over time for at least 100 hours on my old unit, you then find the Gov energy rating to see if you are near in total Kwh used. I bought a sears 19,5 cu ft fring years ago because it had the lowest printed consumption I could find, my testing with a Kill a watt meter showed my usage a bit higher but still it cost me only about $4.50- 4.70 a month from the KAW meter vs $4.30 with the Energy Guide ticket, that I adjusted to my KWH cost.
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has all friges listed by KWH consumed. If your frige is way over in consumption of the rating somethiong is probably wrong, unless everyone keeps the doors open looking for food. The gov rating can be nearly achieved, but you need minimal door opening, a 70 degree room, and not settings on coldest to get that consumption rating. What you KWH cost is is not what they say, it is what you PAY divided by KWH, that will give you how many cents a Killowatt hour costs.
Well, no. You'll still pay $25 or so per month if you used no electricity. Then there's tax, universal access fee, Spanish American War tax, exise taxes, sales taxes, 911 fee, sewer charges, mosquito control district, and other taxes and fees (I may have some mixed in here that don't really belong, but that's probably just a temporary thing).
It does however make a difference if there is a monthly connection fee of say $25. I don't think most people would include this in determining the cost of running a fridge, since you're paying it even if the fridge is turned off and using 0 energy. If you wanted to apportion that $25, it should be apportioned to everything in the house that could use electric, including the jig saw that is only used once a year.
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