NY Times has an article about how consumers in Chicago can actually check a website that tells them what they’re paying for electricity. Zowie!
Just as cellphone customers delay personal calls until they become free at night and on weekends, and just as millions of people fly at less popular times because air fares are lower, people who know the price of electricity at any given moment can cut back when prices are high and use more when prices are low. Participants in the Community Energy Cooperative program, for example, can check a Web site that tells them, hour by hour, how much their electricity costs; they get e-mail alerts when the price is set to rise above 20 cents a kilowatt-hour.
If just a fraction of all Americans had this information and could adjust their power use accordingly, the savings would be huge. Consumers would save nearly $23 billion a year if they shifted just 7 percent of their usage during peak periods to less costly times, research at Carnegie Mellon University indicates. That is the equivalent of the entire nation getting a free month of power every year.
Is it just me, or is this absolutely the most rock-headed, simplistic, low-hanging-fruit way to address the strain on the New England grid? How many folks have any clue this is the case? Has it been in the op-eds written by the grid managers?
No? Says the Times:
… [C]ompanies that generate and distribute power have little or no incentive to supply customers with hourly meters, which can cut into their profits.
Now, this should not be seen as undercutting support for Cape Wind or other clean energy projects. A conversion to clean energy is desirable regardless of anticipated demand. But come on, shouldn’t consumers be sensibly informed on how to work the grid to their own advantage?
(Oh, yeah, this is an environmental justice issue, too.)
(1) the “absolutely the most rock-headed, simplistic, low-hanging-fruit way to address the strain on the New England grid” is energy effiency that saves more than it costs. Price signals help, obviously, but they are very blunt instruments.
<
p>
(2) The economic costs of real-time pricing, without some complex remediation, are disproportionately born by poor residential consumers, who (a) have less ability to shift their load off-peak and (b) will feel even small price increases most keenly. Add that to your environmental-justice equation.
<
p>
Peak-shifting has been around for a long time. I think the Times piece overstates the case.
… is that people don’t even know about peak demand hours and whatnot. You flip a switch, power’s there, that’s it.
<
p>
I would also think that residential customers would be more likely to do things like laundry and dishes at night than during the day, if they were encouraged.
My electric company doesn’t offer peak/offpeak rates. Does yours?
eom
they don’t have R-1 time-of-use, but they do have T-0, T-2, and T-4 time-of-use, which admittedly doesn’t help you much.
and plenty of structural market barriers that make it perfectly rational, in an economic sense, for people to waste energy.
<
p>
Example: If your utilities are included in your rent, you won’t benefit (directly, or much) from saving energy.
<
p>
Complementary example: If your tenants pay their own energy bills, you won’t benefit (as above) from energy-efficiency design or retrofits.
<
p>
Et cetera example: If you rent, you will be dissuaded from making efficiency improvements to your landlord’s property that you may not be around to benefit from (if you move). Such as insulation, installation of energy-efficient lighting fixtures, etc. (Of course if you rent you probably wouldn’t be allowed to make these kinds of improvements at all.)
<
p>
That’s why price signals, though sometimes helpful, are a very blunt instrument.
This problem with rental units is a big one, particularly in the Boston metro area (and other areas with high population density).
<
p>
You spelled it out clearly: landlords have no incentive to install energy efficient insulation, heating & cooling devices, appliances, or windows. Renters have little incentive either, since their expected time residing in the unit is small, making the energy saving investments poor financial investments.
<
p>
So, now what? Invite government to the free market.
<
p> * Use zoning laws to encourage good use of space. * Use building laws to require high quality materials and construction processes, resulting in a more energy efficient rental unil. * Use government efficiency requirements that prohibit energy hogging appliances from being sold. Energy star, and what not.
<
p>
Incidentally, the conversion of many apartment buildings into condos provides great opportunity to reduce this dilemma with landlord/tenant energy inefficiencies over time.
<
p>
Second best, maybe. The idea of shifting demand to off-peak hours is both economically and environmentally sound. But this is not the lowest hanging fruits — cuz I got one better.
<
p>
I’m an NSTAR customer, residential, non-electric heating. Pretty standard stuff, known as A1. As an A1 customer, I pay a flat rate for electrical usage (delivery charge, production charge, yadda yadda) of $0.069 per kWh plus a customer charge of $6.43. (source)
<
p>
But there’s another system, known within NSTAR as A5. The premise is simple: electricity demand is highest * during workdays (M-F non US holidays) * during waking hours without sunlight
As a result, they offer a double fare: – during M-F non-holidays 9am-6pm summer, 8am-9pm else there is a high rate: $0.102 per kWh – during the rest of the time, there is a low rate, $0.037.
So, if you use most of your electricity off-peak, this is a good deal. Except, the customer charge: $9.99. (source)
<
p>
Why in the name of God’s green Earth is the customer charge $42.72 more than “regular” A1 rates per year? There’s simply no excuse for it. In either case, you get sent a bill once a month, you’re just as likely to call up with service problems, just as likely to move, etc. Customers switching to A5 would have a financial incentive to run their dishwashers and washing machines later in the evening or very early in the morning. If they have electric heat, they’d also have an incentive to install digital thermostats to keep their house cooler during peak hours, also offsetting peak demand.
<
p>
So all other things being equal, A5 customers will behave themselves with greater social welfare (less social cost) than A1 customers… yet they have to pay a higher monthly fee, which effectively scares them away from joining.
<
p>
Three step solution:
1. Make the fees the same, even if that means you have to hike the $6.43 fare up a few cents.
2. Advertise the heck out of this program. Most folks don’t know about it, and therefore don’t become demand-shifting customers. Encourage folks to do it.
3. Work with the gov’t energy conservation programs to encourage A5 customers to install digital thermostats to reduce their bills even further. Send ’em the Top 10 “stealth” electricity hogs list or somesuch so they know how to reduce their daytime demand. Etc.
<
p>
Bottom line: the system has done the “hard work” of setting up the demand shifting capabilities in a simple (read: crude) manner. The trouble is, they don’t make these options attractive, well known, or well supported. The fix is pretty danged easy, and could reduce peak demand by a few percent — enough to stave off blackouts for another few years, and enough to keep extra pollution out of the air because peaking plants (those only run when demand is very high) tend to be natural gas (not so bad a polluter) or diesel fuel (really really bad polluter).
<
p>
The solution is easy. Get ‘er done.
reflects the higher cost of (1) a meter that can differentiate by time and (2) the labor to read them (or write the software to do so, etc.).
<
p>
Though the cost differences should be less now than they once were, and these rates might (maybe) be based on old costs.
The cost differential of the meter is a one time fee, not a monthly fee. Furthermore, it’s not (technically) that much harder. Chipsets with clocks have negligible cost, and so all you’re really doing is putting two meters in the space of one with a 1-0 switch that selects whether you’re on “high rate” or “low rate”. Furthermore, since the meters are electronic anyway, the difference between the two meters is really slight.
<
p>
Cost differential? Very small, and a one time fee. As I suggested, just yank up the cost of the A1 monthly fee a few cents to cover the difference.
<
p>
As for (2), meter reading is meter reading. It’s got to be done if you’re A1 or A5. Sure, you’ve got to read “two” meters since you’ve got a high rate and a low rate, but the cost is in the physical space — being close enough to the meters to actually read them. The cost of actually reading the meters (as opposed to being close enough to them to actually read them) is negligible, and must be borne for A1 and A5 customers.
<
p>
So, any other ideas?
There is an economic theory, and for the life of me I can’t remember the name of it, that Utilities will add capital (i.e. plants, gizmos, residential cost saving gadgets) at the expense of labor. That is, they’ll fire a meter reader and install a remote control device, even if the PV cost of either is the same.
<
p>
The hypothesis has something to do with the rate reimbursement mechanism. Maybe the Utilities are reimbursed for labor, but are reimbursed for capital at some cost plus formula.
<
p>
Anybody remember that? Can’t find it on web search.
I’m not saying it shouldn’t be changed, stormv. I’m just answering your question.
<
p>
There is an historical basis for the current design of electric rates, which is what I’ve described. Maybe Martha Coakley will take up reforming this in the next rate case.
which doesn’t respond (within reason, that being mine) to the question.
<
p>
Reason (1) offered doesn’t pass muster for electronic meters, and reason (2) doesn’t make any sense at all, since they need to be read equally often.
<
p>
That’s why I suggest that perhaps there are other reasons…
The rate differential is much higher in Somerville. The total delivery cost of peak load during the summer is about $.30/kWH and the off peak rate is about $.02/kWH The standard rate is about $.07/kWH. There are generation charges on top of that, but those are currently the same for both rate systems. You have to be able to shift 82% of your usage to off-peak hours (after 9pm or before 8am) during the summer just to get the same average rate. When you add in the extra monthly cost, you have to be using a lot of electricity to have any possibility of being charged less using the time-of-day metering. If you are going to have even just one window air conditioner that you want to turn on before 9pm during the summer, you are going to be charged more for your electricity. Just leaving your fridge on during the day (so your food won’t spoil) is probably going to make it not worth having the time-of-day metering.
<
p>
If you want people to start using the time-of-day metering, you have to make it something that will allow people to save money by paying attention to when they use electrity. That means you have to set the price-structure up so that most people will be charged the same for using time-of-day metering or normal metering. If someone with a typical load profile would be charged twice as much for time-of-day metering, most people will not be able to shift enough usage to save money. For me personally, it is impossible because I only use about 120kWH/month during the summer, so if I use more than 9kWH during peak time (which is a very low estimate for even a good refridgerator during the summer) my bill would be higher.
<
p>
If you really want to get people to use the time-of-day metering, you should set the standard rate and the peak-time rate to be the same. Then everyone would save money by switching to time-of-day metering. Once you get people to switch, they will put in effort to shift usage when they can.
What you folks need is a power cost monitor. They have them for either the old spinning disk or the new digital meters. See:
Power Cost Monitor Wisely, some Canadian utilities are giving them away to customers as it costs less to save energy than to generate energy.
$150 CDN for what? An indoor device that simply multiplies your cost per kWh by the number of kWhs you’ve used since the last time you pressed the button.
<
p>
That’s more than a bit steep.
They say: “householders who use real-time feedback can reduce electricity use by as much as five to 20 per cent.”
<
p>
Well, how do you do it now – monitor the useage that is?
<
p>
I monitor my electricity use pretty closely. Each weekend I go outside to write down the numbers on the meter. Obviously, this gives me a weekly useage with 4X the detail of the electric bill. By itself, this has provided me with some useful information for someone who is trying to cut back by 10% all electricity and energy use.
<
p>
The biggest factor is number of people at home (there is quite a difference when the kids are home from college). I also have a distinct summer peak (de-humidifiers and fans) and holidays have a huge surge (using the oven for the turkey, lots of visitors, Xmas lights etc.)
<
p>
As it is now if I want to look at specific large appliances I need go outside to figure the rate of useage, wait for the meter to turn over a few times (I have a digtal meter), come back in to turn off the appliance and go outside to figure the rate. As I use 9 to 27 kwh per day waiting for the meter to move 1 kwh can take some time.
<
p>
With the Power Monitor Meter would do this just by walking around the house and turning on and off the applicance with the meter in your hand. The Killawatt Meter is great for small applicances and only costs $40 US.
<
p>
<
p>
For the former (you):
<
p>
I don’t. I live in a small 1 bedroom condominium with my wife. We have efficient lighting (including CFs and a motion sensor in the hall) and turn off lights when not in use, a super efficient 18″ dishwasher, a relatively inefficient small fridge (10 cu feet), and an efficient 24″ electric stove. All appliances are brand new.
<
p>
No stereo, a tube television that is on for perhaps 10 hours per week, a DVD player that doesn’t use power when off (rare actually), no cable television or stereo components, and a Mac Mini that’s on 24/7 with a flat screen monitor that goes into power save mode. I also have a MacBook Pro plugged in many hours per day.
<
p>
We have “electric” heat in the sense that we have heat/AC Whalen units which use an electric fan to blow air past hot or cold pipes. Since its a condo, we have no control over the heating or cooling systems, just how often we run our fans — which is infrequent, since I like the place cool in winter (socks and a sweatshirt all the time) and don’t like AC in general. We replace the high quality filters in the unit frequently. Washer/dryer are in the common areas.
<
p>
Frankly, the only place for us to reduce our electricity consumption is to improve the efficiency of our refrigerator. After that, there’s not much room. As for time shifting, we do tend to run the dishwasher 7-9pm or 7-9am, which we would timeshift to off-peak if we were A5 customers. Similarly, I could shell out about $150 to buy three 5+1+1 electronic thermostats so that I could fine-tune the heating and cooling to be off-peak, but again, I’m only paying for the fans to blow, which is fairly minor. As it is, I only heat the bedroom (150 sq ft) from 10pm – 6am by manually turning the heat off in the morning and closing the door.
<
p>
For the latter (royal you):
Killawatt gets good reviews from many folks, and can be really instructive about just how much power different appliances use.
<
p>
I’m not so sure that it’s really important to closely monitor how much power a household is using. Rather, it’s important to take short term (turn off lights!), medium term (adjust thermostats appropriately!), and long term (choose appliances and home systems with efficiency in mind!) steps to reduce energy consumption. Consider energy usage in decision making, and your energy usage will be reduced, regardless of what it actually is at any particular moment. Sort of a “zen” approach to reducing the bills.