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Disappointing TOU Rates?

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I have had MS for less than one month and received my first electric bill which has 2.5 weeks of charging the MS. The bill was close to what I expected using rough math but I have been looking at reducing the bill. Below are the rates (excluding taxes and fees) associated with standard and TOU plans from the electric company. I'm currently on standard plan.

Standard Rate:
Service charge: $10.25
$.126 / kWh

TOU Rate:
Service charge: $16.50
On-Peak: $.169 / kWh
Off-Peak: $.101 / kWh

Since the standard rate is $.126 / kWh, I thought it was strange that TOU off peak rate is not much lower. This is from a CO-OP electric provider in Arizona. Is the TOU rate plan typical in other areas?
 
I have had MS for less than one month and received my first electric bill which has 2.5 weeks of charging the MS. The bill was close to what I expected using rough math but I have been looking at reducing the bill. Below are the rates (excluding taxes and fees) associated with standard and TOU plans from the electric company. I'm currently on standard plan.

Standard Rate:
Service charge: $10.25
$.126 / kWh

TOU Rate:
Service charge: $16.50
On-Peak: $.169 / kWh
Off-Peak: $.101 / kWh

Since the standard rate is $.126 / kWh, I thought it was strange that TOU off peak rate is not much lower. This is from a CO-OP electric provider in Arizona. Is the TOU rate plan typical in other areas?

Are your AZ TOU rates the same all year or are your winter rates similar, but summer vastly different like mine are here in San Diego? (My off-peak winter rate is only slightly less like you see, whereas in summer for the 5-hours super-off-peak I have my HPWC charge my MS, it's close to 1/3 of similar peak afternoon rate. I also have two different TOU plans I could select from, one using a common single meter, the other requiring a separate meter for the cars... I didn't go to the additional trouble and expense installing the 2nd meter.
 
I have had MS for less than one month and received my first electric bill which has 2.5 weeks of charging the MS. The bill was close to what I expected using rough math but I have been looking at reducing the bill. Below are the rates (excluding taxes and fees) associated with standard and TOU plans from the electric company. I'm currently on standard plan.

Standard Rate:
Service charge: $10.25
$.126 / kWh

TOU Rate:
Service charge: $16.50
On-Peak: $.169 / kWh
Off-Peak: $.101 / kWh

Since the standard rate is $.126 / kWh, I thought it was strange that TOU off peak rate is not much lower. This is from a CO-OP electric provider in Arizona. Is the TOU rate plan typical in other areas?

I am across the 4-corners from you in Pagosa Spings, SW Colorado. Here are the rates from La Plata Electric Association, LPEA Rates. It looks like I have a higher service charge and lower off-peak rates. The standard and on-peak rates are remarkably close.

Standard Rate:
Service charge: $21.50
$0.1256 / kWh

TOU Rate:
Service charge: $21.50
On-Peak: $0.168 / kWh
Off-Peak: $0.065 / kWh
 
I have had MS for less than one month and received my first electric bill which has 2.5 weeks of charging the MS. The bill was close to what I expected using rough math but I have been looking at reducing the bill. Below are the rates (excluding taxes and fees) associated with standard and TOU plans from the electric company. I'm currently on standard plan.

Standard Rate:
Service charge: $10.25
$.126 / kWh

TOU Rate:
Service charge: $16.50
On-Peak: $.169 / kWh
Off-Peak: $.101 / kWh

Since the standard rate is $.126 / kWh, I thought it was strange that TOU off peak rate is not much lower. This is from a CO-OP electric provider in Arizona. Is the TOU rate plan typical in other areas?

Don't overlook the service charge difference.
 
Are your AZ TOU rates the same all year or are your winter rates similar, but summer vastly different like mine are here in San Diego? (My off-peak winter rate is only slightly less like you see, whereas in summer for the 5-hours super-off-peak I have my HPWC charge my MS, it's close to 1/3 of similar peak afternoon rate. I also have two different TOU plans I could select from, one using a common single meter, the other requiring a separate meter for the cars... I didn't go to the additional trouble and expense installing the 2nd meter.

TOU rates are the same all year. The times are different during summer.

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I am across the 4-corners from you in Pagosa Spings, SW Colorado. Here are the rates from La Plata Electric Association, LPEA Rates. It looks like I have a higher service charge and lower off-peak rates. The standard and on-peak rates are remarkably close.

Standard Rate:
Service charge: $21.50
$0.1256 / kWh

TOU Rate:
Service charge: $21.50
On-Peak: $0.168 / kWh
Off-Peak: $0.065 / kWh

Your TOU rate makes more sense to me as the off-peak is half of standard rate and service charge is the same.
 
Yep, not sure why service charge is more for TOU...

Probably related to needing more expensive meters to track usage based on time-of-day and systems necessary to monitor them.

My co-op eliminated TOU long ago and has no plans to reintroduce. Flat rate 9 cents, all day, every day for small commercial and residential.
 
Probably related to needing more expensive meters to track usage based on time-of-day and systems necessary to monitor them.

My co-op eliminated TOU long ago and has no plans to reintroduce. Flat rate 9 cents, all day, every day for small commercial and residential.

I remember someone from Florida asking about TOU rates once, and I noted that their utility had an option where you could pay up front for the new meter, which I think worked out cheaper after 3 to 4 years (depending on opportunity cost).

As long as TOU/real-time is an option with pricing that assumes only a small proportion of customers will adopt it, only a small proportion of customers will adopt it. I wish there were universal real-time pricing, but I can't see it happening.

Here in Maine, my TOU costs $1.64 more than regular service per month. It was $2.51 more, but a pricing change narrowed the gap on the service cost but narrowed the gains on the supply. All meters are now smart meters unless you want to pay a premium. But TOU only on the delivery as they abandoned TOU supply after a couple of years (sadly, since I had), probably because the ability to switch back made it pointless.

Anyway, based on the OP's numbers they'd:
1) First need to cover the additional service charge with savings on the off-peak electricity
2) For the remaining use need a minimum proportion of off-peak electricity to make their average rate less than the standard rate.

On-Peak extra: $0.169/kWh - $0.126/kWh = $0.043/kWh
Off-Peak reduction: $0.126/kWh - $0.101/kWh = $0.025/kWh
Service charge extra: $16.50/mo - $10.25/mo = $6.25/mo.

(1) Minimum off-peak use: $6.25/mo / $0.025/kWh = 250kWh/mo
(2) Let O = minimum proportion of off-peak use excluding minimum off-peak use in (1) above to break-even with standard rate. Then

O x 0.025 = (1-O) x 0.043 = 0.043 - O x 0.043
... then a miracle occurs ...
O = 0.6323529411764706

How easy it is to hit that target would depend on the definitions of off-peak and on-peak and pattern of use.
 
Last edited:
Rochester Gas & Electric (Rochester, NY).

SC1 Residential
Delivery 0.035730 + Supply 0.0482025 = 0.0839325

SC4 (TOU1) (plus meter charge 3.98)
Delivery (all times) 0.038630 + Supply (off-peak) 0.0359492 = 0.0745892
Delivery (all times) 0.038630 + Supply (on-peak) 0.0614822 = 0.1001122

SC4 (TOU2) (plus meter charge 3.98) (customer charge for this one is 24.86)
Delivery (all times) 0.048790 + Supply (off-peak) 0.0359492 = 0.0847392
Delivery (all times) 0.048790 + Supply (on-peak) 0.0614822 = 0.1102722

All schedules except TOU2 also have a "customer charge" of 21.38, bill issuance charge of 0.95.

I see nothing to tell me when TOU2 is used instead of TOU1.

TOU wasn't going to be beneficial to me unless I could shift the vast majority of my load to off-peak, which wasn't going to happen. (Model S is significantly less than 50% of my usage)