POWER RANT

[T_Minus]

We're in CA and have a "Smart" meter...

First bill of summer was $285 which for us is extremely high, but we had a huge heat wave and ran our floor standing AC unit almost all June, and another for the kids room... to be expected.

Mid-June-->Mid-July was $185 which is more on target for summer, and that was with very minimal AC.

Just got the current bill for Mid-July to Mid-Aug and it was $296.

We maybe ran the AC 2 or 3 days during that time period because we installed a whole house fan, and the nights have been very cool, whole house fan uses about 1/2 energy as one floor AC too for reference.

I log into my account, and the last 2 months were "estimated".

WHY/HOW do they estimate ? When we're on a SMART meter and they have the data to go by?

I checked LAST YEAR same months, and same thing, exact same bill amount (185), obviously this isn't possible...

So they estimate the last 2 months, don't "correct" those estimates, and now I'm charged even more for a 3rd summer period?


Anyone have more information for me? I know I can call PGE on Monday, but I'd really like to get to the bottom of this asap.

I've already checked my new fiber/networking equipment and that uses 40w "in use", the only other 24/7 new device is another desktop but that's an E3 with 1 SSD, so low low power too.


Also, for those wondering we do about half the billing period on Tier1 ($00.20 / kWH) and then the other half on Tier 2 ($00.28 / kWh).

 

[Chuntzu]

I feel as summers kill me and my power bill

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[wookienz]

Beats my $1000 USD per 2 month

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[sth]

glad to hear someone else has a 1000$+ per 2 months....

 

[Evan]

Certainly savings to be had by choosing energy efficient equipment.
Anyway only wanted to say that your dealing with power companies, this stupidity is to be expected in all countries. Have the same stupid estimation logic here.

 

[ttabbal]

Just about every power company does this sort of thing. It saves them money to guess based on past use, they don't need to send someone to read the meter every month. Then when they do get around to it, they fix it. Most smart meters require someone to drive by with a receiver to "read" the meter.

It's somewhat obnoxious, but they aren't going to change it. Feel free to complain, just setting expectations. You might be able to get them to use the lower tier for some of the make-up, but I suspect the meter knows when you used the power and applied the tiers properly.

 

[Patrick]

My brother in law gave us a Nest. It has saved me over $1000. Apparently it does work but will not stay charged. So after 15min it runs out of battery.

Not using heat or AC from Feb to Aug has been a massive savings.

 

[TType85]

We joke that my wife likes to live with penguins. They house has to be 70deg or lower at night or she can't sleep. During the day 74 is about her upper limit. We are in So-Cal. We average around 28c/kw and the rates are going up. Last few bills were $450, $440 and $528. Winter we fair a bit better at $180-$200/mo for electricity. I ended up signing up for a solar lease and the system going on my roof should cover 98% of our usage at 19c/kwh guaranteed rate for 20 years. We are also replacing our windows (house built in 1955) and will be doing more "green" upgrades to offset even more. I figure this way, at our worst the solar should cover most of our usage at a lower rate, upgrades to the house will give a bit more head room. The solar company will make more money but I will have a consistent bill lower than what I am paying now.

 

[mackle]

I manage a couple of Ecobees. I am a big fan of them, though they have a couple of quirks that are a little annoying. Will add one to our new house prior to winter.

Best thing to me is their API means I can write my own management code to improve on their built in functionality.

Most annoying thing about our power and gas is that our usage is low enough that the fixed costs and line costs represent the large majority of our bill, with the cost of power/gas a small fraction. Transmission, distribution and energy efficiency surcharge costs are a killer here and only going to get worse.

<Obligatory MA curse regarding the price of power here>

 

[T_Minus]

We joke that my wife likes to live with penguins. They house has to be 70deg or lower at night or she can't sleep. During the day 74 is about her upper limit. We are in So-Cal. We average around 28c/kw and the rates are going up. Last few bills were $450, $440 and $528. Winter we fair a bit better at $180-$200/mo for electricity. I ended up signing up for a solar lease and the system going on my roof should cover 98% of our usage at 19c/kwh guaranteed rate for 20 years. We are also replacing our windows (house built in 1955) and will be doing more "green" upgrades to offset even more. I figure this way, at our worst the solar should cover most of our usage at a lower rate, upgrades to the house will give a bit more head room. The solar company will make more money but I will have a consistent bill lower than what I am paying now.

Well, for reference we've lived in this location almost 10 years now and our electric usually is $65-75 in winter and 110-135 in summer, even with 1 room AC in use.

At the new/current rates even when we're NOT home we're still going to pay $140/month minimum. Sure, I've added a couple systems that run 24/7 that are counted in this, but that MIGHT be+$10/mo from them alone.

The majority of the increase in cost, for me at-least is the 28C rate

At $200+ per-month and me doing my own solar with fed rebates the pay back becomes 5 years approx. Very much worth it if we were living here much longer... Gonna shell out the $ for batts+solar in our next "house"

 

[CJRoss]

My brother in law gave us a Nest. It has saved me over $1000. Apparently it does work but will not stay charged. So after 15min it runs out of battery.

Not using heat or AC from Feb to Aug has been a massive savings.

Four wire system? Surprising it runs out of battery that quickly.

If you swap to a cable with more wires you can fix the problem. Or you might have a spare wire available that you just need to hook up.

 

[cheezehead]

The majority of the increase in cost, for me at-least is the 28C rate

At $200+ per-month and me doing my own solar with fed rebates the pay back becomes 5 years approx. Very much worth it if we were living here much longer... Gonna shell out the $ for batts+solar in our next "house"

Around here electric is cheap (0.0997 per kWh), monthly bill peaks at $190 in the summer but usually cheaper. Solar ROI is around 12 years after all the rebate given how cheap electric is it's hard to justify.

If you wanted to fight P&G and you don't already have something gathering your house load Sense looked to be an interesting product (Sense - Home Energy Monitor), haven't used it but there was a thing about it on thisoldhouse a few months ago (

).

 

[Evan]

You guys all have massive electric bills for relitvu cheap power ! Are the service charges really high also ?

Look at it this what what is people's month or daily kwhr usage ?

 

[Patrick]

@CJRoss after tons of troubleshooting, the next step is a new A/C and heater unit.

And on "fighting PG&E" there were lawsuits on this. The meters were tested at an industry standard lab. One of the triggers on the lawsuits was that old mechanical meters (think 70+ years old) ran slower over time and under-reported power usage. New meters did not under meter.

@T_Minus I wonder if you live somewhere where the mesh network on the meters cannot get to?

 

[T_Minus]

@CJRoss after tons of troubleshooting, the next step is a new A/C and heater unit.

And on "fighting PG&E" there were lawsuits on this. The meters were tested at an industry standard lab. One of the triggers on the lawsuits was that old mechanical meters (think 70+ years old) ran slower over time and under-reported power usage. New meters did not under meter.

@T_Minus I wonder if you live somewhere where the mesh network on the meters cannot get to?

I'll be calling and finding out this coming week that's for sure

I know they used to drive up and physically check, that's for sure... I have only seen them once since the "Smart" meter was installed many years ago, and since I'm often home for 7+ day stretches it's very rare I (or the dogs) would happen to not notice someone driving up within 5' of the house (meter on side of house, same as my 5' office window).

I just realized too that we've been watering a LOT more this summer for the animals, dogs, garden, and in recent 3 weeks I've been flooding the blackberries practically to get some huge berries, and hopefully ripen up the rest before it's too late. The well pump is small relative to well pumps but still a 220v device, and since we only have about 50g draw-down capacity it will cycle very often when I water the black berries on high for 2-3 hours, and I recall 2 or 3 days forgetting it on for 6+ Hours. Def. not enough to warrant this huge bill, but def. enough usage to see a 15-20$ increase.

 

[realtomatoes]

Just wondering how much in kwh is that $200 bill?


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[Marsh]

I am curious ,
how much difference between PGE bill KWH monthly usage and you actual smart meter KWH usage?

My smart meter is next to my driveway.
Sometimes , I have nothing better to do, I walk up to the meter and watch it for few seconds, may even write down the usage numbers.

 

[mackle]

@CJRoss after tons of troubleshooting, the next step is a new A/C and heater unit.

From what I've seen the usual experience of a Nest that runs low on battery is that it starts running the unit (when it otherwise doesn't need to run) so it can vamp the signal, so yours sounds like a troubleshooting conundrum.

Would be interesting if the Ecobee has the same problem, though it comes with a special 'pek' kit for units that lack a C-wire.

 

[RyC]

Ecobees require a C wire to run at all, either a real one or one through the PEK, so there's no battery to run out. @Patrick if the Nest operates your AC/heater fine and it just runs out of battery, your Nest may be bad, or you should just run a new C wire (which should be a lot cheaper than replacing the entire AC/heating system). Although I'm not sure if you've already tried that in your troubleshooting steps.

 

[cheezehead]

The Nest issue is either faulty batteries (very rare) or the mA output over R1 is too low and you'll need the supplemental power from another C-wire to keep it happy...most often people see A/C units short-cycling from the amperage dips without the extra power.