PSA: Home Energy Costs? Where does the money go...

[NW-Bound]

Chicago western suburb, .046 cents/kwhr for electric starting this fall w/ community pricing, 3 year guaranteed.

I am pricing out the cost for a long extension cord...

 

[imoldernu]

Quote:
Originally Posted by imoldernu
........ I thought it would be a simple project to set up a switch over to the house circuit... Hah!.... forgetaboutit!... It's still in the original carton... Those who paid for a switchover panel, know what I'm talking about...
I'm not sure what issues you encountered installing a transfer switch, but the Gentran I linked to is easy to install . It has color coded and numbered wire pairs and you just remove the wire off the circuit breaker, then replace with one wire off the Gentran and wire nut the wire you took off the breaker to the second wire of the numbered pair. Repeat for each circuit. Then you plug the generator into the Gentran box or install a plug in outlet outside and run a heavy gauge wire to the Gentran box.
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Hmmm... been a while so I'm not sure I remember the problem, except, as I recall the switch cost about $400, and required permanent wiring... Also remember some worry about backfeed into the utility lines... Either way, a little bit of and expense and aggravation to hook up a $249.00 generator.

Extension cords ok for my use. BTW... that little thing is heavy.. and no wheels.

 

[imoldernu]

Chicago western suburb, .046 cents/kwhr for electric starting this fall w/ community pricing, 3 year guaranteed.
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I'm interested in this aggregate billing savings... Is the .046 cents for the total cost ie. the total Bill divided by the KWH.?.. or is it for electricity supply only. As I recall my kids, who live in Naperville had the offer, which dropped the supply price by about .017 kwh but that the total bill including delivery charges and taxes dropped to a little over $.10/kwh.

In Florida, we have had smart meters installed, which send the usage amount direct to the city for billing. Our community had a big presentation of the program, which is supposed to save us money, but from the amount of enthusiasm displayed by the promoters, my guess it that somewhere along the way it's going to cost us more... Something about off-peak savings for the city...

Dunno, my feeling is trust, but verify... Seems like every good deal ends up costing...

 

[NW-Bound]

We switched to the smartmeter and the time-of-use price plan quite a few years ago (7 or 8?). It was free of charge, and they promised that if we did not save money compared to the fixed rate schedule, they would switch us back. Initially, we were skeptical, but were soon convinced.

Even now, they still show in the invoice how much we save each month, and we save money every month. For example, it was $56 last Aug, out of a bill of $375 (would have been $431 for the fixed rate). Over 12 months, the savings were around $300.

The only lifestyle change we have to make is for me to set the pool pump timer to run off-peak, and to avoid electricity usage during the on-peak period. The latter effort mainly includes avoiding taking showers and running laundry loads. Cooking, TV watching, computer usage, etc... are done as usual.

 

[meierlde]

Today in the Texas Hill Country it is about .091 per kwh. At that rate solar has a 30 year payout since there is no state subsidy, so it is not economic.

Note that that is the total rate power to the local utility is .074 and the distribution charge is about.015 /kwh. It is a municipal utility so not a participant in the wild and wooly free market in Texas.

 

[Nikita]

Electric water heaters are real energy hogs. I have a natural gas water heater and it runs on about $1 day.

$1 a day? My entire gas bill outside the winter heating season is less than that, including clothes dryer, stove and bbq. When we had an electric dryer, at SCE rates it cost almost a dollar a load.

 

[Walt34]

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Hmmm... been a while so I'm not sure I remember the problem, except, as I recall the switch cost about $400, and required permanent wiring... Also remember some worry about backfeed into the utility lines... Either way, a little bit of and expense and aggravation to hook up a $249.00 generator.

Extension cords ok for my use. BTW... that little thing is heavy.. and no wheels.

The transfer switch is kind of expensive but it is a limited-market thing. It isolates your generator from the power lines which prevents two things:

1. It prevents backfeeding to a power line that the power company's linemen believe are dead (yeah, they're supposed to check, but...) and electrocuting someone.

2. Without being isolated from the power lines when the power does come back on your generator and the power company's generators are going to get into an argument about phase control. The power company will win. If you're lucky this will result in merely tripping the breaker on your generator. If you're not lucky your generator will explode, rupture the fuel tank, and the gasoline will start a fire.

That's one reason why the instructions say don't plug the generator into a wall outlet and expect to power the house. Only bad things will happen.

 

[travelover]

The transfer switch is kind of expensive but it is a limited-market thing. It isolates your generator from the power lines which prevents two things:.......

One clever alternative is a sliding lockout switch for the breaker box. You basically have the generator wired into one 220 volt circuit and a mechanical slide prevents this generator breaker and the main breaker from both being in the on position - thus making it foolproof to the extent of engaging both grid and generator at the same time. You do have to constrain consumption to match generator output.

Some new panels come with this as an option, older ones can be converted.

Generator InterLock Kit

 

[NW-Bound]

That interlock is a clever and inexpensive way to achieve the separation of the two powers. I did not know about this.

The only drawback is that one loses the ability to have the electric grid staying connected to at least one lighting circuit, so that one can tell when power is restored.