What Are Your Electricity Costs?

[Larry Frank]

The thread on AC got me thinking about the cost of electricity. In northern Indiana, I am paying about $0.11 per kwh. I noticed in some states it is closer to $0.20 per kwh and in Hawaii something like $0.38 per kwh.

What are you paying for electricity?

This last year, I have been looking at my usage. I have an electric heater I use in my shop which is an oil filled one. I used a "Kill A Watt" meter to see the cost and was shocked. I then got a heavy duty timer for the heater and cut costs by more than 60%.

I also used it on my shop lights and with eight 2 bulb 40 watt fixtures, I was also shocked. I make certain to shut the lights off when I leave the shop.

I am gradually replacing all the lights in my house to LED as I run out. I will do the same with shop lights.

I used the meter to check electrical usage on a lot of things and it has helped reduce costs. I really would like to do this on some of my shop equipment like the dust collector but can not find a reasonably priced 220 meter.

While looking at electrical costs I also found the price of water varies a great deal around the country.

[Chuck Wintle]

The thread on AC got me thinking about the cost of electricity. In northern Indiana, I am paying about $0.11 per kwh. I noticed in some states it is closer to $0.20 per kwh and in Hawaii something like $0.38 per kwh.

What are you paying for electricity?

This last year, I have been looking at my usage. I have an electric heater I use in my shop which is an oil filled one. I used a "Kill A Watt" meter to see the cost and was shocked. I then got a heavy duty timer for the heater and cut costs by more than 60%.

I also used it on my shop lights and with eight 2 bulb 40 watt fixtures, I was also shocked. I make certain to shut the lights off when I leave the shop.

I am gradually replacing all the lights in my house to LED as I run out. I will do the same with shop lights.

I used the meter to check electrical usage on a lot of things and it has helped reduce costs. I really would like to do this on some of my shop equipment like the dust collector but can not find a reasonably priced 220 meter.

While looking at electrical costs I also found the price of water varies a great deal around the country.
in Hawaii of course there is no need to heat for the winter as in the rest of the US. But AC costs must be high. I pay about 5.4 cents/kwh where I live.

[Brian Elfert]

I moved last year about 15 miles. New house has an electric co-op while the previous house had an investor owned utility. I pay two to three cents more with the co-op. My rate now is 13 to 14 cents a KW.

The house I am in now was totally remodeled before move in. Pretty much everything is LED lighting except a few basement lights. My highest electric bill to date since September was $65. I see people claiming they save $75 to $100 a month on electricity after switching to all LED lighting. I can't imagine spending that much on electricity just for lighting. My next bill will be higher due to air conditioning, but probably not a lot higher.

[Evan Patton]

In northern California PG&E charges a tiered rate starting at $0.16 going up to $0.34. This is why I now have 7kW of solar generation on my roof. Oh, and I've definitely saved 10s of dollars a month switching to LEDs in most fixtures.

[Bonnie Campbell]

One of the things I do like about living here are the electric rates.... $ 0.0475 kWh

[Jim Koepke]

One of the things I do like about living here are the electric rates.... $ 0.0475 kWh

Just across the river from you we pay about 6¢/kWh. Our power is provided by the county PUC.

jtk

[Evan Patton]

One of the things I do like about living here are the electric rates.... $ 0.0475 kWh
One of the things I miss about living in Oregon!

[Alan Bienlein]

Ours is $0.087 kwh. We are all electric. I keep the a/c in the house between 70 and 73 depending on our mood and in the shop I leave the a/c set on about 72. I don't worry about turning the lights off if I step out for a few hours and will let my cyclone dust collector run as long as it needs to run while working on projects. My last bill was $189.00.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Hawaii has it cheap. I pay $0.44/KwH prior to fuel surcharge, which when added makes it as high as $0.58/KwH.

[Bert Kemp]

Mines about 6.5¢ per kwh I use little heat in winter and use a swamp cooler in the summer way way cheaper then ac of course its not as cool as ac either but the ac ran about $400 a month and the swamp cooler about $30 a month. Outside temp 110 to 115 inside 80/83 its comfortable in the house kinda funny if you go outside for 5 mins and then come in its actually cold for a few mins :cool: if the outside cools down to 100/105 I can get 78 inside.

[Art Mann]

The thread on AC got me thinking about the cost of electricity. In northern Indiana, I am paying about $0.11 per kwh. I noticed in some states it is closer to $0.20 per kwh and in Hawaii something like $0.38 per kwh.

What are you paying for electricity?

This last year, I have been looking at my usage. I have an electric heater I use in my shop which is an oil filled one. I used a "Kill A Watt" meter to see the cost and was shocked. I then got a heavy duty timer for the heater and cut costs by more than 60%.

I also used it on my shop lights and with eight 2 bulb 40 watt fixtures, I was also shocked. I make certain to shut the lights off when I leave the shop.

I am gradually replacing all the lights in my house to LED as I run out. I will do the same with shop lights.

I used the meter to check electrical usage on a lot of things and it has helped reduce costs. I really would like to do this on some of my shop equipment like the dust collector but can not find a reasonably priced 220 meter.

While looking at electrical costs I also found the price of water varies a great deal around the country.


Eight fixtures, each of which consume 80 watts of power amounts to 640 watts or .64 killowatts. At $0.11 per Kw-hr, it costs you about 7 cents per hour to light your shop. That equates to about $2.80 for a week working full time at it. If you are a hobbiest, the cost would probably be less than $3 per month.

It isn't difficult to estimate how much it costs to run a dust collector, even without a meter. A 5 hp cyclone dust collector might consume as much as 5 killowatts. To run the dust collector for a solid hour would cost about $0.55. I only run my dust collector during the time I am running machinery so the cost of dust collection is only a few dollars per month.

If your electric heater runs on 120VAC, then it is 1.5kW or less. If the heater runs 25% of the time (just a guess) in a 720 hour month, then that is 180 hour run time or 270 kW-hr. The cost would be in the neighborhood of $30 per month. In typical home workshop applications, heating dwarfs all other winter power consumption combined.

Using calculations like these, I have determined that replacement of incandescent bulbs with LEDs is not cost effective unless you are planning to live in the same place for many years (or take your bulbs with you). As the cost of LEDs comes down, that may change. The reason I am replacing incandescent and CFL bulbs with LEDs is I don't like to change bulbs all the time and the life of quality LED bulbs is many years. the 3000* K light is also more pleasing to me than most CFLs.

[Ryan Mooney]

One of the things I do like about living here are the electric rates.... $ 0.0475 kWh

Dang and I thought power was cheap here! Out here on the other end of the Gorge its up to $0.053/kWh with a $15 connection fee for residential.
http://www.nwasco.com/residential-rates.cfm
http://www.nwasco.com/commercial-rates.cfm

All my Hawaii friends have put in a ton of solar, the PUD over there has been getting ansy about surge demand and brown outs because of it but at the electric rates its pretty rough. Some of them have AC (south/west side of the island more) but a lot don't. The big problem there with no AC is the humidity is pretty rough on tools/metal. One friend on the windward side had all of the brand new outlets in his house rust out after three years because of the salt spray/humidity.

[Larry Frank]

At 8 hours per day, my lights would be about $17 per month.

The assumption that my heater would run 25% of the time is good some parts of the year. In the winter it runs constantly at 1800 watts at worst case in coldest months which is $4.75 per day or $143 per month if calculating. The Kill A Watt meter showed it was actually about $85 per month. Using a timer for that heater and using a second one to get a quick warm up cut my monthly cost in half. We can calculate but it is an estimate and I prefer the actual usage to determine the value of changing what I do.

So if I save a few buck here and there, then in winter months can save enough to spend on wood or tools.

[Art Mann]

My electric heater is 240VAC and I leave it on about 45-50 when I am not working there. I also have a propane heater which I only use to warm up the shop when I enter it. I will adjust the thermostat of the electric to 65 if I am going to be in there a while. Obviously, there is a significant climate difference between your home and mine. My little math exercise was to illustrate that your real issue is about 90% heating unless you run your tools and lights all the time. You don't need a meter to figure that out.

[Dick Latshaw]

Here in Florida where we have to deal with Duke Energy, which owns the state legislature and the 'public service commission' otherwise known as the 'utilities service commission' , we pay,

for the first 1000 kwh, .0656 plus .04323 fuel charge,

and for above 1000 kwh, .08018 plus .05323 fuel charge.

Oh, and we have to pay for the nuclear plant that is broken and is not going to be fixed, and the one they are not going to build, ever.

[Ryan Mooney]

Oh, and we have to pay for the nuclear plant that is broken and is not going to be fixed, and the one they are not going to build, ever.

That's ok, our rates were raised to pay for them to put in load banks so they could burn the excess power coming off of the windmills.. that were paid for with tax subsidies. It appears that the load banks are being replaced with transformers so they can sell some of the power to CA at a tidy profit though so there's that..

[Steve Peterson]

In northern California PG&E charges a tiered rate starting at $0.16 going up to $0.34. This is why I now have 7kW of solar generation on my roof. Oh, and I've definitely saved 10s of dollars a month switching to LEDs in most fixtures.

I am on PG&E also. Their rates plus the 30% tax credit make it really effective to put in solar, especially if you have any tier 3 usage at $0.34. We put in enough solar to cover about half of our kwh. This should eliminate all of our tier 3 usage and most of our tier 2, cutting our bill down to about 1/4 of what it used to be.

Steve

[Rich Enders]

Final total for 2014 was 11.7 cents per kilowatt hour. That includes roughly 5 months of "summer" with extensive Tier 3 usage.

[Shawn Pixley]

Here, we have a tiered system. Lowest two tiers are around $0.08 / kWH. Tier 4 is about $ 0.36 / kWH. Tier 5 is higher. I installed solar and now get rebates. But the last conversation on this turned political and acrimonious, so I'll shut up now.

[Evan Patton]

I am on PG&E also. Their rates plus the 30% tax credit make it really effective to put in solar, especially if you have any tier 3 usage at $0.34. We put in enough solar to cover about half of our kwh. This should eliminate all of our tier 3 usage and most of our tier 2, cutting our bill down to about 1/4 of what it used to be.

Steve

It didn't take too much figuring that I'd get a much better return on my cash by installing solar panels than leaving it in the bank. Of course it's not a very liquid investment! Our 7 kWHr installation should produce more energy than we use in the summer (we don't use AC much), but due to geometry won't cover our usage in the winter months, so we should net out to about $0 for the year. Payback is estimated at 6 1/2 years, but my buddy used the same company and achieved 4 1/2 year payback with some modest conservation, watching when they used power, etc. so the estimates are fairly conservative.