Energy bill

[lasimmon]

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From past couple bills:

Feb 4-28: $3.15/GJ
Mar 1-6: $4.14/GJ
Mar 7-31: $2.34/GJ
April 1-2: $1.37/GJ

Carbon Levy apparently will be going away by May 30th so everyone's bills should see a nice drop.

For all of 2 seconds until the feds one is applied. I think it drops about $0.40 per GJ.

[Maxx Mazda]

I've had some super high bills lately. $420/mo and we're never fucking home! Good idea on actually looking at what my meter reading is. I'll do that as soon as I get back home and see what the difference is.

[firebane]

This thread has me questioning my bills and it got me wondering how they do something such as a water reading on our place.

[mr2mike]

Most water meters have a transmitter that is remotely read for billing purposes. But they seem to only read the meter quarterly and do some black magic 13th month adjustment that is in their favour.

[LilDrunkenSmurf]

My floating is fine, but my floating electricity has been fucking me since approx summer 2018, pretty much sitting at the 6.8c cap, so I'm gonna flip to the 5.9 fixed rate and see how that does.

[bigbadboss101]

Anyone else changed to fixed electricity? Past 18 months floating rate has been high. Before that much cheaper.

[firebane]

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Anyone else changed to fixed electricity? Past 18 months floating rate has been high. Before that much cheaper.

We just switched because we looked at the rates and was getting screwed.

[killramos]

Because this is this dumb shit I do for "fun" and I know its always been a point of debate on here...

I decided to deconvolute my Enmax bills from February to date ( they changes some fees in Jan so I excluded to simplify my life ).

So the age old question of " How much of my Enmax bill is just fixed fees and how much is actually related to usage" my answer is somewhere between $120/mo (super low likelihood) and $190 (almost certainly an overestimate). With my best guess at ~$145/mo as fixed fees that you cant get rid of even if you cut the line to your meter, and shut of your gas and water supply.

My convention here is Dark Green is definitive variable ( ie directly correlated to usage ), Dark Red as definitive fixed ( No correlation to usage at all ) and blue represents costs that seem to have some fixed and variable component to them in my opinion. The blues I have broken up into my estimate of their fixed and variable component assuming linear correlation to usage and the intersept of the best fit line.











My motivation for doing this is to try and estimate bare minimum carrying costs for an empty home. Obviously SOME electricity and natural gas will be needed in Calgary to keep pipes from freezing but this was something I could try and be definitive about and calculate a reasonable electricity and gas usage at minimum.

Hope others find it useful. I would be very interested if a cursory look at your own bills point to similar conclusions to me? Particularly people who use way more or way less energy than me to give some bandwidth to my data.

[davidI]

Just for reference, the rate is 0.15€/kWh (CAD $0.22/kWh) in Spain. We actually use a plan where we pay 0.09€/kWh for 8 hours of the day of our choosing (1-9pm in our case) and 0.19€/kWh the other 16 hours of the day. Having smart meters is great since the utilities can offer all sorts of unique billing systems that presumably also help them shift or plan electricity demand.

The fixed charges work on a bit of a different system here and perhaps they're lower overall (which is good given the cost of consumption) but I like that since it means reducing consumption has more of an impact on your bill at the end of the month. We pay for "potencia" which is basically the highest kWh you're allowed to use at a time. In our case, we subscribe for 3.45 kWh which would definitely not be enough for Canadian levels of consumption - if I was to say have the oven, toaster, dishwasher, and laundry all running at the same time I'd probably trip the breaker. We could subscribe for a higher potencia but it would mean a higher monthly fixed charge.

In any event, I definitely do my best to reduce my electricity consumption here (no dryer, hand washing dishes, turning off lights, etc.) so from an environmental perspective it seems like a good system.

[speedog]

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Because this is this dumb shit I do for "fun" and I know its always been a point of debate on here...

I decided to deconvolute my Enmax bills from February to date ( they changes some fees in Jan so I excluded to simplify my life ).

So the age old question of " How much of my Enmax bill is just fixed fees and how much is actually related to usage" my answer is somewhere between $120/mo (super low likelihood) and $190 (almost certainly an overestimate). With my best guess at ~$145/mo as fixed fees that you cant get rid of even if you cut the line to your meter, and shut of your gas and water supply.

My convention here is Dark Green is definitive variable ( ie directly correlated to usage ), Dark Red as definitive fixed ( No correlation to usage at all ) and blue represents costs that seem to have some fixed and variable component to them in my opinion. The blues I have broken up into my estimate of their fixed and variable component assuming linear correlation to usage and the intersept of the best fit line.











My motivation for doing this is to try and estimate bare minimum carrying costs for an empty home. Obviously SOME electricity and natural gas will be needed in Calgary to keep pipes from freezing but this was something I could try and be definitive about and calculate a reasonable electricity and gas usage at minimum.

Hope others find it useful. I would be very interested if a cursory look at your own bills point to similar conclusions to me? Particularly people who use way more or way less energy than me to give some bandwidth to my data.

Stop this, you're gonna make ExtraSlow pee his pants.

[ExtraSlow]

Higher usage-based costs are a good way to reduce consumption, I totally agree. smart meters need to be a thing here, would help a lot during short-term peaks due to summer AC.

- - - Updated - - -

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Stop this, you're gonna make ExtraSlow pee his pants.

Truth.

[davidI]

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Higher usage-based costs are a good way to reduce consumption, I totally agree. smart meters need to be a thing here, would help a lot during short-term peaks due to summer AC.

Yea, I definitely pay more attention to my consumption here than I ever did in Canada.

We think more about when we do laundry (off-peak hours). We don't use a dryer and hang our clothes instead. We hand wash dishes more than using the machine. I'm even going to get a timer to turn off our internet router at night.

As more renewables come on, it would be nice to see pricing set-out to flatten demand and reduce the "duck curve".

[ThePenIsMightier]

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Yea, I definitely pay more attention to my consumption here than I ever did in Canada.

We think more about when we do laundry (off-peak hours). We don't use a dryer and hang our clothes instead. We hand wash dishes more than using the machine. I'm even going to get a timer to turn off our internet router at night.

As more renewables come on, it would be nice to see pricing set-out to flatten demand and reduce the "duck curve".

Your second comment now about hand washing dishes...
I heard on the radio a few weeks ago (sure - grains of salt) that hand washing uses a lot more water than a machine. Ok, fine, but how much more? FIVE TIMES MORE!!¡1!
That blew me away.

I'll write a letter to The Great Greta to ask which thing makes more sense to waste.

And yes, the smart meters are probably a decent idea but get ready for the tin foil hat brigade protests about that. They are completely CONVINCED that smart meters cause everything from allergies to AIDS. It's adorable.

[killramos]

Modern dishwashers are really very good about water usage. And lower water usage also doubles as lowering heat usage.

But this is really only if you have a new dishwasher, the older ones were terrible.

[davidI]

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Your second comment now about hand washing dishes...
I heard on the radio a few weeks ago (sure - grains of salt) that hand washing uses a lot more water than a machine. Ok, fine, but how much more? FIVE TIMES MORE!!¡1!
That blew me away.

I'd say it really depends on how you wash and use your dishwasher but you are probably right for most people: https://www.treehugger.com/kitchen-d...s-greener.html

It's true that dishwashers can use as little as 3 gallons of water but I'd be surprised if I used that much water to sponge-wash and rinse the majority of my dishes (I don't fill the sink to wash and there are only 2 of us in the house).

If you're only running full loads, not pre-washing, and using the eco-settings it's true the dishwasher is probably more efficient than hand washing. Of course, in the end, we're talking about water which will be treated and returned to the earth. Of course, the washer is going to use more electricity than handwashing (unless you're using a lot of hot water in handwashing which could, again, be less efficient).

I do think dishwashers are a little more hygienic than handwashing so if I had kids I'd use the dishwasher more.

[ExtraSlow]

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I do think dishwashers are a little more hygienic than handwashing so if I had kids I'd use the dishwasher more.

There was a study on this, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but you are correct that dishwashers remove more germs than hand washing. HOWEVER the gist of the study was that it actually meant a weaker immune system for the kids raised in a home with a dishwasher, because of less exposure to minor germs. So Pros and Cons.

As for saving water, I believe in market forces, and as long as water is cheap, it MUST be of no value to conserve. So fuck you Greta, I'll use all the water I want without concern. Want me to save water, start charging 10x for it.

[davidI]

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There was a study on this, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but you are correct that dishwashers remove more germs than hand washing. HOWEVER the gist of the study was that it actually meant a weaker immune system for the kids raised in a home with a dishwasher, because of less exposure to minor germs. So Pros and Cons.

As for saving water, I believe in market forces, and as long as water is cheap, it MUST be of no value to conserve. So fuck you Greta, I'll use all the water I want without concern. Want me to save water, start charging 10x for it.

Yea, the temperature of the water in a dishwasher is higher than most people can handle for handwashing and so it sterilizes better. Obviously your water consumption also means a lot of energy consumption - it doesn't heat itself for free (unless you have solar heating, which many people here in Spain have to reduce electricity or Nat Gas costs).

[Tik-Tok]

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Your second comment now about hand washing dishes...
I heard on the radio a few weeks ago (sure - grains of salt) that hand washing uses a lot more water than a machine. Ok, fine, but how much more? FIVE TIMES MORE!!¡1!
That blew me away.

I discovered this last year when our dishwasher broke and I didn't replace it for two months. Got the water bill, and it was insanely high compared to normal. I thought one of the toilets was leaking until I realized what the problem was.

[suntan]

Kitchen faucet flows around 2 gallons/minute.

[jwslam]

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Your second comment now about hand washing dishes...
I heard on the radio a few weeks ago (sure - grains of salt) that hand washing uses a lot more water than a machine. Ok, fine, but how much more? FIVE TIMES MORE!!¡1!
That blew me away.

I'm not surprised. I think I do dishes like an average person...

Pre-step: Water for pre-soak
1) Rinse all the dishes and light scrub w/ water on.
2) Water off and soap/scrub each.
3) Individually rinse the dishes

A dishwasher can hold a lot of dishes. Most of the time is spent heating the dishes try (so electricity).
But I've also spent 15min washing handwashing a sink load of dishes with heated water... plus I think some dishwashers also filter and recycle water during the soaping phase.

My Bosch runs so well I scrap but don't pre-rinse dishes so I save water there too.
Living alone it took me 3 years to go through one bottle of dish soap, while I went through probably 200 tabs.