My newest elatric bill...

Today I received my electric bill from UnitedPower. I used a whopping 675 kWh from February 13 to March 13. This is rather puzzling because I replaced the electric stove with a propane stove (to be eventually converted to Hydrogen) and replaced the electric dryer with a propane dryer. However, we used both appliances for a few weeks before they where replae cbeing used ed so I expect the next electric bill to drop by at least 100 kWh or more because the furnace is less and less because of the rising daily temperatures. At the present time the largest electrical load we have is the electric hot water heater.

Moving from Longmont, CO to Fort Lupton, CO essentially doubled the price per kWh we now pay. I was paying $06 cents while I was in Longmont buying electricity from a local municipality. Now with UnitedPower I am paying (the latest bill) $.11 per kWh. How did I arrive at that figure?? You simple divide the cost you are billed by the amunt of kWh you where billed for. Thus $73.53 divided by 675 kWh is $.11. On a cost per million Btu basis that is $31.97 per MMBtu!! (to figure out how you find out what your cost per MMBtu is please download the SourceBook introduction at http://beutilityfree.com/sbmainpage.html) My guess is that this is twice the cost per MMBtu of the propane. Remember the name of the game if you have to buy energy buy the least cost energy first!

The plans I have for the electric hot water heater are four fold. First is the put a timer on the electric hot water heater to heat the water only when it is needed. The next thing I may do, but have not decided yet, is to have the electric company come out and put an "off peak" meter that will allow me to use electricity for the cost of propane or cheaper (about $.04 per kWh)

The third thing I will do is to repalce the hot water tank with a gas driven tankless hot water heater. I plan to install the tankless hot water heater on the OUTSIDE of the building so I do not have to deal with exhausting the fumes to the outside by installing expensive double walled exhaust piping. The last part is to displace energy used for domestic hot water (DHW) with a soalr hot water system.

The first two steps are stop gap measures to control the amount or electricity an d simultaneously getting the cheapest cost PURCHASED electricity. But one thing I do not like and therefore may not do the "off peak" thing is that they jack up the price of your "monthly service charge" (MSC) to $17.05 a month from $9.50 effectively doubling that charge. Why do they do that? Well they lose revenue charging a kWh at $.4 when they are use to getting $.10 so they have to try and make up some of the lost revenue. But they justify that higher cost because the On peak - Off peak meters cost more. That is true but once the meter is paid for then they should lower the MSC or eliminate it all together once a meter has been paid back by the homeowner.

The weekend is coming.. TGIF!