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Let's Talk FPL Rate Options

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I've spent some time looking carefully at my FPL bill, and thought it would be a good idea to have a discussion about options, as some of us come close to having to charge our vehicles at our home.

It seems that currently I am paying 8.52 cents per Kw/h for the first 1000 Kw/h, and then 10.52 center per Kw/h for the balance. This actually isn't as bad as I thought.

There is this mysterious "Time of Use" option for FPL where you pay MORE during peak hours of the day and LESS during non-peak hours of the day. It is very complicated to figure out what the actual rates are, especially for different months of the year. I *think* it may be as follows:

13.74 cents per Kw/h during peak (which is defined as Noon to 9pm during April-October and 6am to 10am + 6pm to 10pm during the rest of the year)
7.31 cents per Kw/h during off-peak (which is defined as the rest of the hours)

I can't figure out if this is for the first 1,000 or for all of it. I may be reading that it is LESS for the rest of it, but that doesn't make much sense to me.

I'd love to hear how other people are reading the rates page at http://www.fpl.com/rates/pdf/2012RateSummary.pdf and what the correct rates actually are.
I'd also love to have a discussion on whether it makes sense to switch to the Time of Use billing, especially considering the addition of an EV.
 
That sounds too low. I think FP&L averages about 16c/KWH when you add in all the fuel charges etc (assuming you are well over 1ooo/mo). But I'll take a look at the last couple of bills...

I can tell you for sure that those are my current rates (looking at my online bill right now). I am using over 5000 Kw/h per 28 days. I am not including the monthly charges.
 
It's the slash

I've spent some time looking carefully at my FPL bill, and thought it would be a good idea to have a discussion about options, as some of us come close to having to charge our vehicles at our home.

It seems that currently I am paying 8.52 cents per Kw/h for the first 1000 Kw/h, and then 10.52 center per Kw/h for the balance. This actually isn't as bad as I thought.

There is this mysterious "Time of Use" option for FPL where you pay MORE during peak hours of the day and LESS during non-peak hours of the day. It is very complicated to figure out what the actual rates are, especially for different months of the year. I *think* it may be as follows:

13.74 cents per Kw/h during peak (which is defined as Noon to 9pm during April-October and 6am to 10am + 6pm to 10pm during the rest of the year)
7.31 cents per Kw/h during off-peak (which is defined as the rest of the hours)

I can't figure out if this is for the first 1,000 or for all of it. I may be reading that it is LESS for the rest of it, but that doesn't make much sense to me.

Where the headings say <1000 or >1000 rates there's a slash (/) indicating the rate applies to <1000 or >1000 on the standard tariff and then something else on the TOU tariff.

I think you've give the summer totals and the winter fuel usages apply to the TOU rates, giving winter
9.270+5.830=15.100 on peak and 3.927+2.603=6.530

Oh you didn't mention it, but also off-peak are:
- weekends
- the holidays mentioned on page 2: New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day,
Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day
They help to tip things further towards TOU.

Plus there's a storm surcharge of 0.118c to add.
Plus taxes. (It only mentions a 2.5% tax, others mention that there are other high taxes on top).

There's also the monthly charge
Residential: $5.90
TOU: $16.04
So you pay $10.14 more each month up front that you need to make back.


I'd love to hear how other people are reading the rates page at http://www.fpl.com/rates/pdf/2012RateSummary.pdf and what the correct rates actually are.
I'd also love to have a discussion on whether it makes sense to switch to the Time of Use billing, especially considering the addition of an EV.

An EV with a large battery may be the only way to make it pay, especially in a climate with high A/C use.

However, I guess you heat with electricity, so if you have to do any heating in winter that could be done with off-peak storage heating.

In order to know, you could really do with data for a year's use of electricity. Our electricity company in Maine is going to provide online data from our smart-meters, but I don't have access yet.*

* Well, maybe I'll have it in a day. Depends on how good their computer system is.
 
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I was assuming the Time Of Use option doesn't require any special equipment supplied by the consumer?

You would need a meter capable of handling time of use. If you already have a smartmeter or other modern electronic meter I'd expect it to do that already. From searching I know FPL has a usage portal for people with a smartmeter.

I couldn't find a handy FAQ on it, so I guess you'd need to contact them to find out:
 
I was assuming the Time Of Use option doesn't require any special equipment supplied by the consumer?

10 days ago I emailed FPL asking them if they needed to do anything to my electric service to accommodate an electric car with a 20 kW charger. I have yet to hear back from them. Perhaps when I get an opportunity I'll call them to try to get an answer to my question as well as other EV related questions.


Nigel and I have been somewhat critical of FPL in their lackluster support of electric vehicles. Here's a couple of postings:

How should we be talking to the public about electric driving?Posting #13


Here in Florida I get the general impression that our utilities are indifferent to promoting plug-in vehicles. If they were interested why wouldn't they implement time of use rates? Maybe I'm naive, but if they were seriously interested in promoting plug-ins wouldn't this be a no-brainer by permitting them to take advantage of off-peak capacity?

Note: I was referring to a special EV tou rates like used in other states.
Example: DOMESTIC TIME-OF-USE ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING

Note that Southern California Edison requires the customer to supply all equipment to separately meter the EV load.

Larry
 
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Several months ago I spent a lot of time trying to find out what would be required for FPL to measure and bill for "time of use". Basically, you have to purchase their "time of use" meter for several hundred dollars. I assume you also have to pay for installation. Subsequently, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth pursuing since I'll only be paying about $40 more per month to charge my Model S. The payback on rates would be 3 or 4 years, and would be tied to my current house, unless I take the meter when I move.

I'll wait for FPL to come out with a cheaper "time of use" meter, or meter add-on device. And yes, their telephone personnel could not even explain the current rates.
 
Several months ago I spent a lot of time trying to find out what would be required for FPL to measure and bill for "time of use". Basically, you have to purchase their "time of use" meter for several hundred dollars. I assume you also have to pay for installation. Subsequently, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth pursuing since I'll only be paying about $40 more per month to charge my Model S. The payback on rates would be 3 or 4 years, and would be tied to my current house, unless I take the meter when I move.

I'll wait for FPL to come out with a cheaper "time of use" meter, or meter add-on device. And yes, their telephone personnel could not even explain the current rates.

That sucks, indeed. I'm still interested, though. I've only lived in my current house for a year, and my electric bills have been between $650-$750, and I think much of it could be moved to off-peak (pool heater, etc.), so it's not just the car. Do you have an understanding of what the rates would be? Is what I listed above, in conjunction with ItsNotAboutTheMoney's updates, correct?
 
I've become interested in this again, so I called FPL. Several web pages talk about Time of Use rates, including FPL Time of Use, where it even gives you a number to call to get "rate analysis". Calling that number yields a customer service rep who has never heard of "time of use" but finds it on the computer, and then promptly tells you that it is not available for residential customers. This of course cannot be true, because if you look up the tariffs you can plainly see that it's available.

Thanks to a connection from Larry from "plug-in day", I reached out to a higher up at FPL directly. She confirmed that it is available, and put me in touch with the correct people who can start the process of figuring out whether it makes sense or not. I will update this thread with the results of my experiment, in case anyone else becomes interested. The Model S was really just the catalyst for my interest, as my charging of the car is really lost in the noise of the rest of the home use. Based on my conversation today, it *may* be true that they have eliminated or greatly reduced the cost of the special meter. I'll let you all know when I find out.
 
I will update this thread with the results of my experiment, in case anyone else becomes interested.

Excellent. Thanks. Given the relatively low standard rates in Florida it probably won't be worth it - if we were paying 40 cents a kWh like California it would have a bit more of an appeal. FPL doesn't strike me as the most innovative utility when it comes to the residential side of things, but you never know...
 
Excellent. Thanks. Given the relatively low standard rates in Florida it probably won't be worth it - if we were paying 40 cents a kWh like California it would have a bit more of an appeal. FPL doesn't strike me as the most innovative utility when it comes to the residential side of things, but you never know...
Yes, it will be interesting to see what Ron discovers. FPL devotes a moderate amount of resources to promoting EV adoption. However, whenever I bring up the topic of rates I get the answer that their standard rates are low and they do not favor pursuing special EV rates.
With existing time of use rates it's very important to be able to shift load to off-peak, otherwise you could increase your electric bill.

Larry
 
Yes, it will be interesting to see what Ron discovers. FPL devotes a moderate amount of resources to promoting EV adoption. However, whenever I bring up the topic of rates I get the answer that their standard rates are low and they do not favor pursuing special EV rates.
With existing time of use rates it's very important to be able to shift load to off-peak, otherwise you could increase your electric bill.

Larry

This is true. Our behavior in this house would need to change. Based on what I'm seeing on the graphs, the main drivers of my high ($~700) bill are the clothes washer/dryer and the pool, although you can certainly see the Model S having an impact after long trips. The clothes washer/dryer situation would be the toughest thing to change, since we have someone come once a week to do that and it takes all day. The pool is also somewhat difficult, since the pump is located on the other side of the wall from the master bedroom, and it would be tough to sleep while that is on. To make it work, I will need to think outside the box. The off-peak hours during tourist season are much easier to deal with than during the summer...