[Oeva-list] Time of Use

[Myles Twete]

Great writeup Pat, and congrats on your limited success with the TOU
program.

We've been TOU customers now for several years now---since first that PGE
offered it.

The program is only marginally fair in my opinion.

 

Hidden costs: When I put the numbers into the calculator before we joined,
it appeared we would save some $15/month or more.  This was based on the
On/Mid/Off peak rates they quoted & comparing with the Basic rate.  But the
story wasn't made clear.  The advertised rates didn't include "T&D charges",
nor did it mention that there'd be an additional $10/month "meter fee" to
participate in the plan.  Together, these made our first month results
nearly a wash as compared to the Basic plan---and that was AFTER putting
OFF-peak timers on BOTH our hot water heater and our hot tub!  So while I
figured these timers would pay for themselves within a few months,
ultimately, we saved only about $2-4 month as I figure.  Now, since most or
all customers now have "smart" meters, why do we still have to pay $10/month
for this fee?  Does everyone pay this now?  

 

TOU Calculator: The calculator may also not tell the whole story.  But how
could you know?  Once you've switched from Basic, you no longer have a way
to directly compare apples to apples since fees & other costs change.

 

PGE knows what the T&D (transmission and distribution) rates are.  Yet in
advertising TOU's low rates, PGE does not include the T&D amounts even
though they know what they are.  This obfuscation is intentional in order to
make the TOU OFF-peak power rate seem incredibly low and attractive.

 

The reality: Look at the bottom line cost.  Through the year, our TOU bill,
when divided by actual KWH delivered ends up running between a low of
9cents/kwh to a high of 26cents/kwh.  Why so high?  Go on vacation during
the month, using little electricity.  You'll still have that $10/month plus
a host of other fees that will weigh against you.

 

On average, we're looking at an average of about 12-cents/kwh counting all.
And that's with 82.5% OFF, 7.1% MID, and 10.3%ON peak average annual usage.
This also with an average of 152kwh/mo SOLAR to PGE and 537kwh/mo from PGE.

 

So we meet that 80% shift that PGE talks about, yet we pay on average
12-cents/kwh total cost.  Would we pay less or more with Basic?

 

Still with TOU, but it should be so much more fair I think.

 

-Myles

 

From: oeva-list-bounces at oeva.org [mailto:oeva-list-bounces at oeva.org] On
Behalf Of patrick0101 at gmail.com
Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2013 10:32 PM
To: OEVA
Subject: [Oeva-list] Time of Use

 

I have been on time-of-use with PGE for just over a year now. Today I
crunched the numbers and calculated that I saved $65 during our 12 months on
TOU. 

 

Most months we saved just a couple bucks. The best two months we saved over
$11. There was one month (Feb) where TOU cost $1.76 more than standard
service would have, but this was more than made up for by the other months. 

 

For more gory details, you can read about here: 

http://carswithcords.blogspot.com/2013/04/time-for-gallons-of-sunshine-time-
of.html




Regards,
Pat
Sunlight will never cost $4/gallon

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