Cost of electricity

[Holladay]

I was wondering how come the electricity in my office was not lower after I made some serious improvements/changes.

I compared 12/21 bill vs 6/22. I about floored me.

kw/h

12/21 $0.0161
6/22 $0.0289

Holy crap that is a jump.

The company is Evergy.

This will probably end up in DC. But there are a number of posts related to money in the lounge.

[Holladay]

Got my bill:

Basic svr fee: $22.73
Energy use: 46.86
Demand: 12.37
Fuel used in power generation: 20.58
Property tax surcharge: 1.16
Transmission:12.69
Cost of BJ's (includes bent over): 48.50
Energy efficiency: .16
______________________________
$116.55
Sales tax: 10.80 (of course)

Total: $130.85

A couple of notable thoughts:
Energy use kw/h: 711.53 (I don't know if that is a lot?)
Average cost/day: $3.89

Keep in mind, this is for my office and no solar.

[lawrenceRaider]

Originally Posted by Holladay

Got my bill:

Basic svr fee: $22.73
Energy use: 46.86
Demand: 12.37
Fuel used in power generation: 20.58
Property tax surcharge: 1.16
Transmission:12.69
Cost of BJ's (includes bent over): 48.50
Energy efficiency: .16
______________________________
$116.55
Sales tax: 10.80 (of course)

Total: $130.85

A couple of notable thoughts:
Energy use kw/h: 711.53 (I don't know if that is a lot?)
Average cost/day: $3.89

Keep in mind, this is for my office and no solar.

For Kansas that is pretty damn high. $.1839/kWh.

[Rain Man]

I got curious and looked at my last bill. My electric rate is 12.256 cents per kwH plus a base rate of $20.72, and my gas rate is 72.614 cents per therm plus a base rate of $21.54.

So if I use no energy at all, my bill will be $42.26, and then it goes up from there. (This may not be exactly right because part of the base charges are sales taxes, which are probably related to use.)

[Lzen]

Originally Posted by neech

How much did it cost you and how many panels did you have put on?

Did you buy solar battery's also? How much did that cost?

I am having solar panels put on next week. They are enough to replace my existing electricity usage. There will be 27 panels and they are guaranteed to produce 92% of original efficiency after 25 years. These will easily pay for themselves, especially since electricity rates always go up.

[Chief Pagan]

The ROI on solar depends on a lot of factors obviously.

In parts of CA, there has been a lot of solar installed so at noon there is frequently a surplus of electricity but at 5pm there isn't. This is one reason why they want to go to tiered pricing and it is going to make it harder to get the solar panels to pay for themselves. Since you have electricity when it is cheap to buy and you don't have electricity when it us expensive to buy.

Yes you can do batteries, but they are expensive. Where there is already a lot of solar, the utility isn't going to want to store a home owner's excess power at noon and give it back at 5 for free, but obviously they could be required to do so by regulation.

But solar with batteries might be the way to go.

And then people think that means they will have power when the power goes out. But that is not true by default. You usually have to pay for additional electrical work to be able to take your house off the grid to do that and that can cost thousands of dollars more.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

This is why I'm putting in an 18kWh solar system with an ability to decouple myself from the grid.

[Holladay]

I have 24 panels at the house, ground mount out in the pasture. It was expensive. I can't sell back to the company and build up credits i.e. store on the grid. A friend in CO can store. She has a bizzillion energy credits.

A storage battery is ~15k. It would be quite expensive to re-wire my system, as mentioned before.

So, instead of paying the electric company $200-300 during the summer, I am paying a low interest payment of $300/month all year long, But my bill for last month was $48.

I have learned that you use energy hogs during the day. Manage usage and it works well.

It will take me 10 years to pay off the loan. Not really smart on my side. The salesman was good. Gvt rebates, electric co storage (grid) ability's, "you can get the price reduced by 1/3 in the first year". NOT in my case.

Before you sign up for solar, talk to your electric utility first.

In the end, the main thing is the it "possibly" add value to the property.

[scho63]

The cost of electricity is SHOCKING.

[crayzkirk]

The new rate plans have gone into effect for summer. Basically, the rates from 4pm to 8pm during the week are doubled. I got an email stating that to save money, I should bump my thermostat down a couple of degrees several hours before 4pm, then several degrees above where I would normally keep it at 4pm and then back down at 8pm.

Sounds like a bad idea, so being an idiot, I tried it. My results...

2pm set thermostat to 76 degrees. 4pm set thermostat to 81 degrees. 6pm the house is muggy and uncomfortable at 81 degrees. AC comes on, house is muggy still at 7pm.

So, I made the AC work harder than normal before 4pm, then try to play catch up during the most expensive time of day.

New HVAC system is about $12,000 as mine is a 1998 system with a leak and an old furnace. At least none of the people giving me bids tried to tell me it would pay for itself like the window replacement guy and $30,000 for 15 standard size windows.

[WilliamTheIrish]

I am waiting to see what my bill will be with the new kwH increase. They are actually almost quadrupled during the 4p/8p segment.

I've followed their suggestions much like Kirk posted above. 4p/8p we turn the thermostat to 78 and hit the basement where it's still 68. No dishwasher/oven/stove/showers/washer/dryer usage during that time period.


My projected bill?



$360.




That's double what my normal bill is in June.

**** YOU Missouri Public Service Commission and **** YOU EVERGY.

[Megatron96]

Don't live in MO anymore, but here in PHX they've been doing the 'double rates between 4p-8p' for awhile now, so I can feel yourall's pain.


On a sidenote, I just had new ACs installed a couple- three years ago, and while I can't say when they'll 'pay for themselves,' I will say that they are much, much more efficient. It used to take over two hours to cool the house from 81 degrees down to 76 degrees. With the new ACs it now takes slightly more than half an hour. The house is 5,100 sq. feet with 12-foot ceilings.

[Dunerdr]

I’ll wreck the whole grid and put us all back to caveman status before I set my thermostat at 78.

[T-post Tom]

Originally Posted by crayzkirk

The new rate plans have gone into effect for summer. Basically, the rates from 4pm to 8pm during the week are doubled. I got an email stating that to save money, I should bump my thermostat down a couple of degrees several hours before 4pm, then several degrees above where I would normally keep it at 4pm and then back down at 8pm.

Sounds like a bad idea, so being an idiot, I tried it. My results...

2pm set thermostat to 76 degrees. 4pm set thermostat to 81 degrees. 6pm the house is muggy and uncomfortable at 81 degrees. AC comes on, house is muggy still at 7pm.

So, I made the AC work harder than normal before 4pm, then try to play catch up during the most expensive time of day.

New HVAC system is about $12,000 as mine is a 1998 system with a leak and an old furnace. At least none of the people giving me bids tried to tell me it would pay for itself like the window replacement guy and $30,000 for 15 standard size windows.

The new "time-based rates" was a lobbyists' coup. The Missouri Public Service Commission (MPSC) was a coconspirator. 4X price differential is highest in the U.S. This is more about investor profits & new business demands than customer savings. Then again, I'm just an idiot with a keyboard. (But still not in my parents' basement. At least not yet.)


https://newsroom.evergy.com/2023-09-...20the%20non%2D

[Chief Roundup]

Damn, thank goodness they don't do that stupid rate increase during that 4-8 window here.

[Chief Roundup]

Guess what was in my memory for today on Facebook.

From Entergy of Arkansas: The ECR will increase from $0.00959 per kilowatt hour to $0.01785 per kWh, or from the current rate of just under 1 cent per kWh to 1.8 cents beginning with April 2022 billing.