We used to have a seperate meter for off peak and another for on peak. This was a good deal, I had the electric water heater on the off peak meter and enjoyed the savings. The off peak was about 1/2 the normal rate.
Now we have progressed.
PECO replaced the analog meters with one digital smart meter but they have NOT yet offered time of use billing. Now all energy is billed at the same higher rate. Hopefully PECO will get into the 21th century and offer off TOU billing soon.
So I am curious. Who has time of use metering avaialble now? How much discount is the off peak and how much premium is the on peak? What are the hours for off peak and on peak?
his was a good deal, I had the electric water heater on the off peak meter and enjoyed the savings. The off peak was about 1/2 the normal rate.
e NOT yet offered time of use billing. Now all energy is billed at the same higher rate.
*Mark, I have Time of Day service from JCP&L in New Jersey. I have had it for at least 18 years. Below are the readings from my October bill which I do not fully comprehend:
On peak KWH used (38%) was 235 Off peak KWH used(62%) was 384
Charges as follows: Customer Charge $5.28 Basic Generation Service 619 KWH x -0.003328 -$2.06 384 OFFKWH x 0.065156 $25.02 235 ONKWH x 0.153702 $36.12 Delivery Service Charges 121 KWH x 0.007273 $0.88 498 KWH x 0.007711 $3.84 619 KWH x 0.000178 $0.11 235 ONKWH x 0.038809 $9.12 384 OFFKWH x 0.025807 $9.91
Current Consumption Bill Charges $88.22 (What I paid)
Note: I did not use any heat or air conditioning during this period.
I think that this is my winter rate. The numbers above change during the s ummer which is higher. As an electrician I have learned to conserve and it reflects in my bills. Many years ago my bills were much higher. Increased insulation was the most significant energy saving move I made which also i ncluded caulking every little hole that I could find in the attic with fire stop caulk. Whenever I open an interior wall to do some work I caulk any h oles and install insulation. Bigger holes for ducts and pipes I either dr ywall around them and caulk or use mineral wool and caulk. I can't tell yo u how many times I have opened an outlet or switch box in a customer's hous e and felt a breeze coming through the wall opening. It was not just exter ior walls that had air movement, but interior walls as well. This is what l ed me to caulk every opening.
Winter hours for peak are from 8:am until 8:pm Summer peak hours are 9:am until 9:pm.
Alliant Energy in Iowa has Time-of-Day pricing and we actually are enrolled in it. There is a small monthly charge (around $3) but we have saved money each and every month with the plan. We probably could save substantially more if we put a timer on our electric water heater. We pay 40% more during on-peak time and 50% less during off-peak time. If you have an electric clothes dryer as we do you learn to dry you clothes at night or on weekends. Following are the details of the plan which I cut and pasted from their website.
-------------------------------------------------------- All the electric energy you use during off-peak hours ? times when the demands for electricity are lowest ? is billed at a 50 percent discount.
When is off-peak? Between the hours of 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. weekdays and all weekend, Central Standard Time. That?s
11 hours every weekday ? and all day Saturday and Sunday ? for a total of 103 hours out of every 168 hours a week that you can save 50 percent.
During daylight saving time, the off-peak hours are
9 p.m. to 8 a.m., Monday ? Friday. Although you earn a discount for the off-peak electricity you use, you also pay a 40 percent premium for the electricity you use during weekday on-peak periods.
TXU deployed smart meters a few years ago. They have been offering a "Free nights" plan for a while now, where power from something like
8pm-6am is "free". I haven't looked into it in much detail yet, I suspect the "free" only applies to the generation charge and not the transmission charge, but either way it offers some potentially big savings if you can do some load management to shift as much load as possible to those "free" hours.
We are the opposite so it gives us about 5 hours at night and none in the morning. Like I previously said we have saved money each and every month...not much, but some.
We had an analog day/night meter some 25+ years ago from NYSEG. It had two sets of dials that were activated by an electric timer in the meter. It was only available to folks who used electricity as their primary heat source.
As I recall, the price for electricity during the heating season was something like .10/kWh during the day and .025 at night, which I think was 10pm - 8am. We had a timer on the water heater and used kerosene during the day for heat. Our usage was about 50/50 day/night, so I think we did pretty well in that respect.
Here's the fun part. Since it was an analog meter, a power failure would stop the timer. This meant, for example, that a two hour outage would cause the night rate to kick in at midnight instead of 10pm. It stayed that way until the power company came out and reset the clock to the correct time. During a particularly bad spring, we had enough outages that were timed just right, so we had cheap rates from around noon to 8pm for a few years until we moved out of that house. I assume it's been fixed by now.
We had similar for WH back in the 60s/70s here in NJ. IDK if they still have it or not. With a WH, we never experienced any unusual behavior due to power outages upsetting the timer in the meter, but I did wonder about it. I assumed that it would get reset next time they read the meter. Assuming the meter reader remembered to check.
I just checked JCPL website and they still have the lower rates for WH off-peak. Looks like it's ~.02 per kwh instead of about .05. I guess you still have to pay the delivery charges, which are separate. So, looks like it might lower the rate from ~.13 to about .10.
I have JCP&L time of day service in NJ. The hours for off peak electricity are 8PM-8AM (or 9PM -9AM) but from Friday night to Monday morning is off peak.
At the time, kerosene was selling for around $.70/gal. It had the side benefit of boosting the humidity in the house - a good thing in the northeast - and the resulting lack of oxygen made you feel warmer than you really were ;)
It is not PECO that just changed things, the PA PUC forced them to end the OP and RH discount rates.
At some point the PA PUC will force TOU billing on us, as that is the whole point of forcing smart meters on us (that we are forced to pay for in higher electric distribution rates).
The majority of PECO customers can't even comprehend or properly use competitive electric generation pricing so they sure are going to love TOU pricing with competing deals.
Will TOU pricing be fixed fixed rate, fixed variable rate, variable variable rate, random number variable rate or random number random number rate?
When TOU pricing comes down the pike the PA PUC better supply a spreadsheet app to make sense of it.
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