Buisness electric rate!

[Kirk (KC) Constable]

My shop electric bill was $144 last month...$2 more than the house. The buisness rate is nearly 50% higher than the all-electric residential. :mad:

I had business service ran to the shop so I could write it off...but it occurs to me after doing the math that it may actually be costing me money to do it that way. If I was running the shop off the house meter, not only is the rate cheaper to begin with, it goes down even more with higher usage. I'll never use enough 'buisness' power to budge the buisness rate...so I wanna put a new shop up next to the house. Problem has always been that we built the house in one of the grazing pastures, and daddy-in-law is very protective of pasture ground...ridiculously so, in my opinion. But today as I was building the new fence that I couldn't find anybody to do at a reasonable price, :mad: :mad: I told him I wanted to take a bigger chunk so I could put up a new garage/shop complex. And much to my surpise he said why not? Ha!

This has long been the major hurdle in the new shop process...so I'll be a fence building fool the next couple days before he changes his mind. :D

BTW, I HATE building fence!

KC

[Chris Padilla]

KC,

Are you sinking 4x4s into concrete for the fence? I rebuilt a fence and a deck for some friends I was staying with one summer in exchange for room and board several years ago. I paid someone a couple year ago to redo our fence! I learned that I don't like doing fences either.

Sorry, I have no comment on business vs. residential energy bills. I didn't know they charge differently!

[Rob Russell]

KC,

2 comments:

1) Consider running upgrading the house service as part of the shop project and tie all the services to that meter. Since you're putting in a new building (s?), you could say that it's all tied together in the project. Might pay off in the long run.

2) As far as hating the fence work, think of it as the precursor to foundation work on the new shop/garage. First you "claim" the land, then you dig for foundation ...

Rob

[Jim Becker]

KC, I did essentially as you suggest doing. When I upgraded our service a couple years ago, I put in a 400 amp service with 200 amps for the house and 200 amps for the shop building...off the same meter. But you might also check out "general purpose" electric. That's offered in my area and costs about the same as residential while still having a separate bill...something that makes tax time easier.

[Joe Mioux]

KC:
How about one electric service, but two meters, one for the house and one for the shop (business deduction separate from household expenses). This was one of my options, when I was installing a new natural gas line for my greenhouses. I don't see why you couldn't do it for electric.

JOe

BTW: I will trade you your electric bill for my electric bill anyday!;)

[Kevin Arceneaux]

Kirk, while I am in Louisiana, let me check around with the people at work tomarrow and check some things out, I work for an utility.

If you get a chance, PM me your provider.

[Norman Hitt]

My shop electric bill was $144 last month...$2 more than the house. The buisness rate is nearly 50% higher than the all-electric residential. :mad:
KC

KC, the business rate out here in W. Tx is like that also, (TXU). I originally planned to put my shop on a separate meter til I found out the price difference. I also thought about upgrading to 400 A svc when they told me I had to upgrade the Service Box by the meter before I could get an elec permit for the shop, but I was quoted an extra $1,000 + to do that, so I just the new 200 A svc box.

You must be getting a better rate down there than we do out here though, or maybe your wife doesn't just come in the house and go from room to room turning on all the lights, because I used very little elec in the shop last month (only running small tools from an extension cord), and my bill was $486 (all residential rate), and I about flipped my lid. I don't think we have ever had an elec bill at this house in any month even in the spring or fall, that was as low as your total for house AND shop. Sure wish I could get one that low.

[Kevin Arceneaux]

Ok, I talked to the General manager and here are some things that he explained to me:

1. If you have a DEMAND METER - get rid of it, it is killing you. Woodshops with this type of meter will pay more due to the nature of the tools we use. The GM was visiting a Power Dispatch Center and the load factor spiked and he asked what was going on. The Dispatcher on Duty explained that on that line, whenever a sawmill located on it fired up, the system strained under the starting load. While that is a lot more than we would ever have, you get the idea.

2. Why commercial rates are higher than residential rates (NOTE: This applies to 90% of applications)

Residential users get lower rates for a verity of reasons. Most of their load is off peak, i.e. evening and weekends. Business's are the peak hours. It is also in relationship to the load factor. Load factor is is how much power you use and how close you stay to the peak. The system has to support the max load 365 days a year, even though you may only use the capacity a few times a year. You are paying for the max capacity.

[Kevin Arceneaux]

Let me try this again as 2 was about as clear as mud.

I am going to use on of our Cities as an example:

Capacity - they use generally less than 14 megs. This is the transmission capacity that they pay for. If they exceed this for even 1 MINUTE, they would have to pay for the next capacity level for every hour of every day for the next year, whether they use it or not. So wha they do during the summer is use their 2 diesel generators to shave the peak, to keep it under 14 megs.

This applies to your shop. They know roughly what you power demand is going to be, they have table, charts, etc to give them a rough estimate. They have to take you MAX demand and figure that into the capacity for your distribution line and have that MAX capacity available. So you are paying for the capacity, whether you use it or not.

Peak and off peak rates.

If you look at the rates for a megawatt/hour that a system pays for power, you will see a huge swing between weekday "working hours" rates as compared to evening and weekend rates. This is due to the nature of the beast. Evening and weekend rates a lower due to the fact that this load can be carried by coal, hydro, and nuc units, which the owners operate at or close to max load 24/7. During the day, the additional generating capacity is made up with, generally, higher cost natural gas fired units. Natural gas units can be more easily cycled up and down to match the load.