Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

how to make use of the lower night rates best?

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.

David99

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
Jan 31, 2014
5,508
9,333
Nomad (mostly US)
We are moving into a house where we get a lower electricity rate based on time. off peak is after 6 pm and before 10 am. and then there is an even lower rate between midnight and 6 am.

I'm trying to come up with ideas how I can shift as much as possible to the night. The pool that has a solar heater obviously needs to run during the day to work. I was thinking, maybe dishwasher and washer/dryer could run at night, but it's not a big consumption. AC and pool pump are the biggest and both can't be shifted to run at night. Of course I will only charge the Tesla at night. Any ideas other are appreciated.
 
I'm on a ToU rate. Heat and stove/oven are gas, but the dryer is electric. For the dish washer, there's a delay option on it, so we just set that in the evening and it auto runs at night. For drying laundry, doing that after 10pm is not ideal. Fortunately all day Saturday is mid-peak rates and all day Sunday is off-peak rates. So now Sundays are our laundry days! :smile: Just be aware that some of these shifts may have a low WAF "Wife Acceptance Factor". So make sure the whole family is aware of this and understands the new rules. My fiancee was good with this at first but became a bit frustrated with doing her laundry after 10pm or Sundays, so now I have to agree to a few loads during mid-peak times (our compromise to not having her doing it doing the expensive on-peak time).

Not much you can do about the AC other then trying to cool the house down at night to keep daytime use to a minimum (good policy regardless of rate plan). I have PV solar so it pretty much offsets all on/mid-peak usage during the summer months leaving me to just pay off-peak rates for all the night use. Depending on how the utility handles the net metering with ToU, solar can actually pay for itself even faster! If the usage numbers just don't add up, hopefully you can switch to a fixed rate plan.
 
Thanks! Yes a solar system would offset the prime peak time just perfectly where the one kWh is 49 ct. I did the number roughly, if I'd get a solar system that just covers the peak time (which it would perfectly) it would pay for itself after only 2 years.
 
Like ChrisPDX (who lives in the same area as me and has the same plan), I shifted what was easily shiftable to the cheapest rates, such as the delay on the dishwasher. I also bumped my thermostat 1 degree so I was burning a little less energy keeping the house cool.

I didn't go wild with it though. What I mostly did was shift to avoid the peak rates, which is much less of a burden. Trying to dry clothes at 10pm or on Sundays sucks, but just avoiding using the dryer at peak times wasn't a big change.
 
Hi Guys,
I am working for WattTime. We develop tools to automatically shift charging to cleaner (lower carbon impact) times. This generally coincides with time of use pricing. If you are interested, please PM me.
 
My fiancee was good with this at first but became a bit frustrated with doing her laundry after 10pm or Sundays, so now I have to agree to a few loads during mid-peak times (our compromise to not having her doing it doing the expensive on-peak time).

A lot of washers (like dishwashers) have a delayed start setting, so during the week I typically put a load in at night & set it to start during the lowest rate time. When I get up in the morning, I throw everything in the dryer - and avoid the peak or partial-peak times of day for laundry.
 
Hi Guys,
I am working for WattTime. We develop tools to automatically shift charging to cleaner (lower carbon impact) times. This generally coincides with time of use pricing. If you are interested, please PM me.
In some parts of the country, "cheaper" and "cleaner" don't line up. E.g., in most of the South and Midwest prices are lowest overnight but all the incremental power comes from coal-fired plants. During the day prices are higher because they're using the gas-fired plants. (At least, that's how it used to run before the price of natural gas fell dramatically; today it's incredibly hard to tell whether gas or coal is on the margin.)
 
We are moving into a house where we get a lower electricity rate based on time. off peak is after 6 pm and before 10 am. and then there is an even lower rate between midnight and 6 am.

I'm trying to come up with ideas how I can shift as much as possible to the night. The pool that has a solar heater obviously needs to run during the day to work. I was thinking, maybe dishwasher and washer/dryer could run at night, but it's not a big consumption. AC and pool pump are the biggest and both can't be shifted to run at night. Of course I will only charge the Tesla at night. Any ideas other are appreciated.

In Northern California, the solar heat on the pool is only relevant for half the year. yeah, I need to totally rejigger the schedule twice a year, but it should save me money. You might be able to do the same thing if you don't swim all year long. Filtering at night should also prevent me from burning more electricity to keep the pipes from freezing.
 
today it's incredibly hard to tell whether gas or coal is on the margin.)

It is hard, but we have built a model that covers most of the population (not area) of the US. There are some regions that have the data we need but don't publish it, or don't publish it within our budget.

And yes, it is absolutely true that cheaper and cleaner don't always line up, but they do often enough that in most parts of the country a carbon-optomized schedule will lower your energy bill. This is particularly true if you can delay your load a few days (rather than a few hours) to wait for wind events in places like Texas and some parts of the Midwest with lots of wind power.

- - - Updated - - -

In Northern California, the solar heat on the pool is only relevant for half the year. yeah, I need to totally rejigger the schedule twice a year, but it should save me money. You might be able to do the same thing if you don't swim all year long. Filtering at night should also prevent me from burning more electricity to keep the pipes from freezing.

Preheating the pool, or heating it a degree or two higher than usual at night (and mid-day), so you can turn off the heater during the morning peak (evening peak) can sometimes help as well. Depends on how granular your TOU pricing is. Just curious, do you get two 'peak' prices during the day? Or just a day and night rate? Or something else entirely?
 
My car lives in a car port not a garage. I assume that night charging requires some pre-heat in colder weather. Since I only pay $.081/KWH, and don't have a lower rate at night, I have been charging as soon as I get home rather than at night now that the weather is colder. Does that sound like a proper strategy to thread readers?
 
My car lives in a car port not a garage. I assume that night charging requires some pre-heat in colder weather. Since I only pay $.081/KWH, and don't have a lower rate at night, I have been charging as soon as I get home rather than at night now that the weather is colder. Does that sound like a proper strategy to thread readers?

I think it will be better to use the time delay function in the car. This accomplishes two things. First, it moves most of the charging into low demand hours of the early morning. Second, you will have a nice warm battery when you start off your morning commute, which will give you full regeneration and much better watt-hours per mile battery usage.
 
We are moving into a house where we get a lower electricity rate based on time. off peak is after 6 pm and before 10 am. and then there is an even lower rate between midnight and 6 am.

I'm trying to come up with ideas how I can shift as much as possible to the night. The pool that has a solar heater obviously needs to run during the day to work. I was thinking, maybe dishwasher and washer/dryer could run at night, but it's not a big consumption. AC and pool pump are the biggest and both can't be shifted to run at night. Of course I will only charge the Tesla at night. Any ideas other are appreciated.

The only thing we shift to superoffpeak (midnight-5am), is the cars and the dishwasher (since it has a timer built in). At our hours the Tesla and Volt use about as much electricity as everything else combined (we don't have a pool or AC)

We do try to use big appliances (like washing/drying and the oven/microwave) during offpeak (5am-noon and 6pm to midnight) with is about 1/2 peak here in San Diego (but not as low as superoffpeak).

Here is a sample day from our house. You can see the Tesla charging starting at 12am, followed by the dishwasher kicking in at 1am, then the Volt at 2:14am, etc.

Capture.JPG
 
Last edited: