Category: Pulled In

Got my first full-month electric bill using “Time of Use” billing for electricity. I don’t have a family at home using electricity during the day, so I had that in my favor. Some evenings I might need to do a load of laundry (electric dryer) or cook (electric stove top & oven), etc., but for the most part I’m either still at work or out of the house most of the hours when the “peak” billing rate is happening.

Throughout October I barely had to run the air conditioning, but I did run the blower fan almost every night, all night, to circulate air.

I put the car on a schedule to charge after 11PM. It’s always done before 6 AM, even when I’m below 10% to start.

My first full month of “Time of Use” billing was $86.01. Compare directly to October of ’22 when it was $50.96 without an electric car to charge.

…

I didn’t have the electric car last year. That saves me $250 in fuel costs. My new monthly combined total is over $200 LOWER than last year!

I paid $30 more in electricity than I did last October, but I drove my car 70 miles a day 5 days a week, and bought $0 in gas (petrol)!

I’ve done this before… I’ve “pulled in” things that I wrote elsewhere and saved them on this blog. I’ve decided I’m going to use this post to try and index anything I have “pulled in” from the past and link to those posts here.

How to talk to wingmen in Wing Commander for SNES – NuAngel.net
Why I used 3dfx hardware – NuAngel.net
Sega Dreamcast Katana SDK Leak – NuAngel.net
One Must Fall Battlegrounds review: 2097 is in the past! – NuAngel.net
PRL Hacking Phones – NuAngel.net
I Love What I Do – NuAngel.net

So the full bill doesn’t really matter, because this month wasn’t a full month on the “Time of Use” billing / CleanChoice option and the price per kilowatt hour changed mid-month because of changing suppliers, etc… BUT the important statistic off of this month’s bill is WHAT TIME OF DAY did the majority of my billing occur?

In rough terms, “OnPeak” hours (KWH) will cost double what the normal rate used to be, OffPeak hours will cost roughly the same as before I made the switch, perhaps 5-10% more than they used to cost, and SUPER OffPeak hours will cost about 50% of what they used to cost.

And as we can see in the picture, the extreme majority of my KWH usage came in OffPeak or Super OffPeak hours. So early signs indicate that the move to “Time of Use” billing for someone like me who will be charging an electric car overnight will be a very wise move!

Other than that, a simple $3.00 ‘service fee’ type of charge for going with CleanChoice energy, and elsewhere on the bill was a 5 cent charge for a “solar requirements charge” which – SURPRISE, is actually on EVERYONE’s bill every month and is described as “Charge to acquire Solar Photovoltaic Alternative Energy Credits to comply with the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act.”

Well, I may not be much, but I’m a man of my morals.

Did 2 things today: 1 signed up for variable rates based on time of day, 2, signed up for renewable-only energy through Clean Choice (Solar, Wind).

Now I’m not an idiot… the power delivered to my house is STILL from coal fire, or honestly most likely hydro-electric from Niagara Falls… but, according to the Clean Choice website: “When you become a customer of CleanChoice Energy, you’ll be supporting clean, renewable energy sources, from wind and solar, every time you pay your power bill. CleanChoice Energy purchases renewable electricity on behalf of our customers, in the form of grid power plus renewable energy certificates (RECs). We also work to support the growth of the renewable energy market, using the power demand of our customers.”

ALSO their choice of energy supplier they are buying certificates from is just as important:

“CleanChoice values relationships with like-minded businesses and organizations. We will preferentially work with Certified B Corporations, Green America Gold Certified Businesses, and SBA certified small businesses. We also seek to work with businesses that include one of the following Supplier Diversity classifications: Minority-Owned Business Enterprise (MBE), Women-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE), Veteran-Owned Business (VBE), and Physically-Challenged Business or Disabled Business Enterprise (DBE).”