Electricity Costs A Cut And Paste

I’ve moved out of energy investments. Too much volatility and politics.

Not too different than CFE here in Mexico except that here once you exceed the "baseline" you pay the higher price for all you use and if you keep it up, it continues to be billed at the higher rate.

SDG&E baseline for coastal with gas and electric services is 270 kwh per month during the summer and 276 kwh in the winter.

Our "baseline" here in Zihuatanejo is 400 kwh per month.

Here during the summer here our average usage is 60 kwh per week, using the AC a couple of hours in the evening. Their numbers are very reasonable.

The magic is in time of use (TOU) and solar net metering. I get paid for my on-peak energy at about 45 cents and use tons of power off-peak at 14 cents. I only generate half my energy and my annual bill is less than $100.

Not sure this applies to MX but SC Edison was mentioned.

I am rough guessing my first 75 kWh per month is 83 centavos per kWh

Three point eight US cents per kWh.

Of course the CFE bill is bi-monthly.

The Dato Alto Consumo or DAC rate lasts a long time before dropping back to the original stepped tariff rate.

CFE tried to eliminate the solar panel buyback agreement but then reversed course. Flat laying panels on the roof it requires about 9 kWh daily production by the panels to offset 24 hour use of a 5,000 BTU window air conditioner plus refrigerator. And it all has to happen during prime daylight - about 8 hours available in the summer. Lots of panels

CFE Rates for areas 1B:

Basic consumption 0.697p for each of the first 125 kwh

Intermediate consumption 0.822p for each of the following 100 kwh

Excess consumption 2.802p for each additional kilowatt hour

The only item running in my condo is a fridge. So far, in seven months, it has cost $336.00 including tax, and all the other nice "extra" charges that get tacked on. The fridge door has been opened once...and the freezer twice.

Demand controllers are all the rage in limiting household KW /hr peak usage. A camp cannot limit peak usage, when the guest wants the juice, we have to supply it. So, when one of our 600 A CT metered measures on one hour a peak of 85 KW we pay the rate for the whole month as if that demand was there every day.
The utility company has to build for the absolute maximum power draw. So do we.
When you want a genny that will run all your house or rv needs, you have to get a big one, right, even though you may only need that big genny a few days a year.

Peak usage can be mitigated with a battery and inverter. Add some solar and you are in the sweet spot. Save not just kWhs but on that demand charge. Go a long way if you can cut it in half or more.

Monthly averages help but far more effective is time of day price adjustment. If you don't reduce the peak demand, production and grid sizing are unchanged and that makes up anywhere from 60-80% of the cost of getting a KWH to your house.

Particularly with solar, you get predictable power peaks but those peaks don't typically coincide with peak demand (early evening). The result is the power company still has to maintain traditional production plants and grid capable of meeting that early evening peak as solar provides none at this time.

If you charge different rates by hour of the day, you shave that evening peak down and shift more to the mid day when solar output is high. With lower early evening peaks, they can reduce the need for traditional power production plants and sizing of the grid components.

To some degree, consumers can manually adjust by turning off unnecessary devices during these peak times but unless it's a big price spike, most won't bother and it's tedious.

Automated systems can help a lot more:
- Pre-cool the house late afternoon (while solar is still producing) to a colder temperature and then let it creep back up until the evening peak is past.
- Water heaters can likewise be overheated late afternoon and then they coast thru the peak with little or no further heating.
- Sensor based exterior lights that don't come on until later when the sun is actually down (after the peak demand).
- Battery powered devices can have timers built in so they don't charge unless critical until later in the night.
- Electric cars can use remaining charge to feed back into the system during the peak and then recharge late night when demand is lower.

The downside is you need a meter that tracks usage by hour of the day. Total monthly usage, they can simply calculate when generating the bills at almost no cost to the utility.

Obviously everyone's lifestyle is different. We have a large house with a 125 amp service. 2 fridges,freezer,3/4 no water pump,4 yard lights,3 mini splits. We try yo minimize usage but our bills are high. We do not have one of the new meters that ateread electronically
The code cheats a lot.