Our electric bills are getting up there, so I’m looking for a remedy. I was considering getting a whole house generator with a transfer switch, but I came upon an even better solution: An off peak meter. I checked the rates with my utility company,and they are 1/2 to 1/4 the standard rate. The off peak (OP) meter automatically shuts off for a few hours each day, so here’s what I thought I’d do: Why not install a manual transfer switch calculated to the load placed on it, and during the OP black out periods simply throw the switch, and throw it again when the OP is back in service? My utility tells me that all equipment must be hard wired to the OP panel, but as far as I’m concerned what happens between a man and his electricity in the privacy of his basement is nobody’s business. Your thoughts please !
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Baseboard been VERRRY good to me
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Doubt the utility will give you the off peak rate without the automatic switch. Most or at least many utilities vary the OP times according to their load and signal the switch to cut you off. Unless you have an automatic transfer to a back up generator this can be very disconcerting when you have an 8 ft plywood panel halfway across the table saw!!
Very difficult to cost justify for a small shop or residence. If you have or have to have an emergency generator anyway it can be effective.
I figure the cost of owning and maintaining a generator would be far more than just apying the electric bill.
What'll you have, Norm?
Fame, fortune, and fast women.
How 'bout a beer?
Even better.
Are you saying they run a separate service to your house for the interruptible power? And you're talking about putting in a switch so you can switch your "interruptible" load to the regular service during the blackout period?
My thought is that it's fraud. You would be obtaining something of value from the electric company, on the basis of a falsehood, and to their detriment, because their aim was to reduce peak load, and your "interruptible" load would still be part of the peak load.
That's how I read it, too. You'd be ethically better off by having your house run off of a battery bank, using the power line to charge the batteries, and when they cut the load, you simply continue off the batteries until it's restored.
We have a peak/off-peak system here that is wonderful if you're equipped to handle it. They don't cut you off, but just penalize you for on-peak usage. With a PLC and a little planning, and very little inconvenience, we've been able to save 30% - 40% on monthly bills.
Wow, sounds complicated. Our off peak system is real easy. You sign up. Certain hours, all weekends, and most holidays are considered off peak. They replace your old meter w/ a computerized one. It tracks when you use electricity. Your bill comes it's broken into two sections X KWH @ this rate on peak, and X KWH @ this rate off peak.
Usually the $ amounts are about even. The off peak usage is nearly 4 times the KWH. We tend to do most laundry on weekends. Run the dishwasher at night, ect. to save money.
Your utility must really be lacking capacity to shut the power off totally. Never heard of that before.
That's what I'm talking about, BillyG- you (the customer) choses which type of electricity you want to use, peak or OP. In order to do that, I have to switch it manually, which is OK. I don't consider this to be theft, as my utility is offering the juice at a discounted rate to anyone who will add an additional meter.Baseboard been VERRRY good to me
>choses which type of electricity you want to use, peak or OP
But for most it's not either or. It's certain hours at one rate and certain hours at another, with an intelligent meter. The power isn't cut off, it just costs you more, so hopefully you use less.
I used to analyze the numbers for a large industrial company that had interruptible power at several plants. For them, power could be cut in a peak situation, or else they'd pay a HUGE penalty. We're talking bills of $$$millions a year.
For residential though, it's usually not interruptible power, but time-of-use power. What's your utility?
One utility in MD used to have a mutlistage TOD billing for residential. He setup a control system with time clock. for example the HW was only on from 8pm 6 am for something like that.
But he said that the have changed the system and it does not save that much now. But few people where using the old system as it was too complicated.
"For residential though, it's usually not interruptible power, but time-of-use power. What's your utilityFor residential though, it's usually not interruptible power, but time-of-use power."
Actually I think that more residnetial is going interruptible, but it is a different type of interruptible. The use remote control devices on the AC and HW and will turn them off for about 5-10 minutes an hour. What they are trying to do is control the peak usage.
>Actually I think that more residnetial is going interruptible, but it is a different type of interruptible.
This is a cool approach, too. I'm a sucker for "smart" devices.
I'd cry if our utility changed the system. It's really well suited to smart controls. I've paid for the controls probably 5 times over, so I can't complain, but I don't want a change that'll bring higher bills.
Hey,Cloud- I would rather not say who my utility is, but I am in the Northeast, and we have a very reliable,ample capacity ,lovable nuclear power plant which keeps chugging along. Our power is not interrupted. I look as this as having 2 power sources available to me, regular rate or OP, kinda like regular rate or generator. I don't see why I can't run both sources (2 meters,2 service panels) into the house and switch them as I see fit.Baseboard been VERRRY good to me
OK, I understand. It's less of an energy question, and more of an electrical question than I'm qualified to address. You need a sparky to stop in here. Hey 4Lorn1, where are you?
Hello. Someone summon me?
You know you get more reliable responses with a pentagram drawn in blood and black candles. Just say my name three times. Backwards. I appear in a dark mist, tool belt and foul smell. Hey it was a long day at work and I haven't had a chance to shower. It goes over big with the kiddies though.
Off peak electric. Depends on the utility company. Some have it some don't. Most with it in this area just install an electronic meter that record how much and when the KWHs (Kilowatt Hours) are used. Then on the bill you see two totals. Nothing fancy about it and no need for you, or the utility, to install any wiring. Takes a glorified meter reader about five minutes to install.
What you are describing is known around here as selective load control. It is common with non-vital loads in commercial settings. A few commercial freezer and refrigerated storage companies use this. At a signal from the utility the meter is disconnected. They have rules about how long you can be off so it does not damage.
If I understand what your saying is that the utility will set a meter in place of your present meter and it will, when triggered by the utility, cut power to your house. Can't say I have seen this done in residential construction. Interesting.
Instead of a generator you might get a battery bank, sized for the load used during the set off period, a control unit incorporating an inverter, to change the DC from the batteries to AC, a charger, to recharge the batteries, and an automatic load control switch to transfer the load when the utility cuts your power and to reconnect and start charging when the utility hooks back up.
Depending on the load involved it could run a few thousand dollars and you would need to maintain and eventually replace the batteries. On the up side such a set up is just shy the solar panels to create a solar system. At a later date, if it was sized and installed with provisions for it, you could easily add solar panels and get off the grid to some extent.
I have a hard time believing, barring a five-finger discount on the fuel, that you could install a transfer switch, the only really good way to install a generator for regular use, and run a generator for less than the cost of power from the utility. A generator needs to be exercised, started and run regularly, and you need to look after the engine and battery used to start it. Most of these package generation units neither run very efficiently or for very long. If run every day for a few hours most, particularly the gasoline powered ones, will last only a few years. Diesels last longer, use a less volatile, dangerous, fuel and are more efficient in terms of gallons per run hour.
The advantage to a battery system is that it is relatively reliable, mostly, discounting the batteries, solid state, quiet and automatic. Many of these control units are approved by many utilities and this can speed acceptance of the installation.
I suspect your best course of action would be to conserve. Use less power and, if you have duel rate electric, peak high and off peak lower cost, reschedule your usage. Substantial savings can be had by washing and drying clothes and such on off peak hours, usually the evenings but check with the utility.
Substitution of compact florescent for incandescent can help. But the biggest bang for the buck is simple stuff like turning off lights that aren't needed and taking shorter, assuming you have electric hot water, showers and washing clothes in warm or cold versus hot water.
In the long run solar electric or power shifting, by way of batteries that charge at the lower rate and discharge during peak times, may make sense if your rates are high and the climate and utility allows. Little things add up and most of the best plans are common sense.
Thanks for weighing in, 4Lorn. If you care to please refer to 28511.1 & 28511.10,where I describe my goals.
Forget generators. Forget battery banks. Forget conservation.
Is a manual transfer from panel to panel do-able?
Baseboard been VERRRY good to me
To keep things straight I have to define terms. I have run across two "off peak" power plans. One, I will term it Utility Load Control (ULC) allows a discount in billing by allowing the utility to kill your power at peak times. It voluntarily lowers the priority your meter has in the que when power gets tight. This was seen in Florida with water heaters on a separate control box many years ago. When things got tight your waterheater was dropped. I have heard about power to a houses meter being cut but it isn't done, as far as I know, here. I have seen it in a commercial setting.
The other plan, I will call this Dual Rate Metering (DRM) is just the installation of a fancy electronic power meter. This allows the utility to record not only how much power you use but when you use it.
Power used off peak times is billed at a lower rate while power used at peak utility load times is much more expensive.
The third plan is the normal meter read and billed each month where no consideration is given to either loosing power at peak times or when you use the power. I'll call it Normal Metering (NM)
From your post I'm not sure which power plan you are working around. ULC, DRM or NM and what possible advantage would be gained to switching from one to the other. Such an installation would cost real money and likely take decades to pay for itself in cost savings if it safes you anything at all.
Possibly the biggest problem is that the utility will usually set one meter using one power plan. They seldom will set a second meter serving a single residence. There are also a few potential code violation in this but these can be waived by the AHJ. Article 230.2 comes to mind. Two service fed by the same utility would not, IMHO, fall under the definition of a standby system.
Assuming they did set two meters it would be possible, not easy or cheap mind you, to switch a panel, or other loads, from one meter or another or even switch to alternative sources such as a generator, solar bank or batteries. The last three are easily mixed and matched with the newer load control units.
It is possible. A talk with your utility and any building department/s would be a good start. Without their approval of such a unique set up you spinning your wheels. Good luck.
On the other hand if alternative power is what you are looking for that's fairly easy to get approved and simple, if not cheap, to install. Then some combination of generator, batteries and solar, wind or hydroelectric should work. Most utilities allow net metering, if you produce more power than you use the meter runs backward, so batteries can be eliminated if you just want savings on the electric bill and not a source of power if the utility goes down. You said the utility was reliable so this may be your best option for savings.
It _sounds_ like he's wanting two feeds, one to each of two meters. The one meter is interruptible, and power he draws from that would be at the cheapest rate. Most of the time that's all he'd need. But there would be the occasional day when the interruptible would be interrupted, but he'd still want power--cost be damned--to run some critical application, such as defending a political party on the Tavern, or be/c he only ran half a mile of trim, and he has another half to go. So he'd wanna manually switch from powering the wires from the interruptible meter to powering it from the uninterruptible, but higher marginal rates, meter. Sorry if I understood wrong, MoT, I'm not trying to be dense. Some days it just happens all by itself.
I've never heard of this, and doubt the utility would allow it. At the very least, if they would set two meters, he'd likely get two bills complete with the minimum charges for each and thus a reduction in savings.
More to the point from the perspective of the utility, it'd circumvent their billing model. They offer discount rates for the non-peak portion of a billing cycle only for the right to suck you dry on the peak portion of the cycle. On net, the discounts and penalties would balance out, or favor the utility, for that interruptible customer who doesn't conserve in the way the plan intends. But MoT is asking for the full discount non-peak, while desiring the advantages, including no-penalty pricing and continuous power, that come with uninterruptible. I doubt you'll get to pick and choose like that. It's what mom called, "wanting to have your cake and eat it, too."
Edited 3/14/2003 4:39:14 PM ET by Cloud Hidden
Hello, CH ! Your first paragraph in response to my quandry is right on, especially the part about our quota of (1) mile of trim a day (ha,ha!) In our neck of the woods, the utility does set 2 meters, and bill for both. I just see this as 2 sources at my disposal in the basement to hook up as I can most efficiently use them. The utility told me I could conceivably set the whole house on OP, if I could stand the interruption. The OP rates are 1/4 the standard rate, so I stand to save a few bucks operating this way.
Baseboard been VERRRY good to me
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