From my local electric co-op

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are pulling down the gas main pressure and locking out all our (pressure sensitive) negative pressure gas valve condensors! :)

hot rod

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re: tankless water heaters

"Because when compared to water heaterd of standard design, tankless WH create a large instant demand on the co-ops system.
The member or builder must pay all associated costs associated with the need to install larger capicity wires, transformers, meters or other apparatus needed.

A KWH/KWD meter will be installed in place of a standard KWH meter.

A KWD charge will be placed on only the portion of demand placed on the system by the tankless.

Service rate of 7.25 per month, .06535 per KWH

$5.80 per KWD the KWD will be ratcheted which means 100% of the highest demand charge to be reached in any of the past 11 months will be applied to each month's bill."

That ought to get their phone ringing! If nothing else to explain exactly what that all means

hot rod

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gerry gill

huh??



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Constantin

Gobeldygook

I guess they're concerned with the spikes that large, on-demand systems can create. On the other hand, the loads imposed by AC systems, electric ovens, or electric dryers are nothing to sneeze at either. In fact, one benefit of on-demand heater loads over AC is that there aren't huge induction loads that will interfere with the rest of the network.

Thus, my guess is that someone panicked in the office and sent out a memo before it had been massaged to make any sense.

Weezbo

Wow! That sounds Severe!

not that i have any better idea what it may mean than the next guy *~/:)...

i like the Ratcheting part *~/:) has a sixties sorta appeal to it

jerry scharf_3

let me get this right

First you pay to have a new meter panel put in, and a special circuit run from that panel to the instantaneous water heater. Then you pay them for the new meter, plus any other ancillary upgrades they wish to hit you with.

Then they charge you the peak demand for that circuit over the last 11 months at a rate of $5.80 per KWD. And finally you get to pay them an additional $7.50 per month for the priviledge of this special billing.

For a 20KW system, this comes to a SWAG of $500-1000 in install cost. If the D in KWD is Day, then the peak day may have 20KW or .833KWD or another $4.75. If you have a whole bunch of relatives/friends/other over and use 40KW one day, you will pay $9.50 per month for the next 11 months. Which comes to a $17 per month surcharge over the electricity used.

That should certainly scare just about anyone off from using a tankless electric.

Definitely one of the most bizarre pricing ideas I've seen. I'd love to see the financials and requirements that back this up.

jerry

Boilerpro_3

Not necessarily a bad deal

Here in Northern Illinois in Com Ed territory, you pay a demand charge on all electricity used (when on a demand rate) , whether its from a peaker type use like the Water heater or just from back ground lighting. The demand charge applies to each month's peak and I believe its about $10.00 per Kw demand.

I also believe its real common in all of the commerical world. When I was studying Mech. Engineering 15 years ago, Equipment was often used for automatic load shedding in large buildings to reduce the peak demand.
When you start seeing a whole lot of short term instantaneous, but very short lived loads,in a residential area, the electrical grid size and need for generating plants increases enormously. A town of lets say 15,000 people with instantaneous heaters will probably need a grid that would usually serve a community probably twice the size.
I have been anticpating that we will see similiar pricing schedules for gas fired instaneous units for the same reason. Remember, water usage patterns across most residences are very similiar, so all those water heaters are running at the same time. Huge short term demands mean massive pipeline size increases and need for much greater storage facilities. Those that are living in predominatnly residential areas, like suburbs of major cities, are going to cause the greatest problems, because in urban areas where the grid serves both residential and industrial needs, the heavy residential needs will likely be offset by the much lower after hours needs of industry.
Once again, suburban sprawl is coming back to bite us in the butt.
Instaneous units, when looking at the bigger picture are a very bad idea, due to these reasons.

Boilerpro

Phil_6

gas fired instaneous units

well...If they charge extra for gas fired instantaneous units than the same should apply to setback thermostats... Every heating system in town kicks in at 6-7 am every cold morning sucking up gas like crazy.

Carl PE

Wow

A tankless water heater is generally ~10-12kW.

That's about the same as a heating coil in an electric furnace or a larger a/c unit.

Better not tell them how many amps my air compressor pulls.

Constantin

... it's all about efficiency...

Boilerpro opened my eyes to the reasoning behind demand-metering - it certainly makes a lot of sense when it comes to minimizing the stress on the distribution network and maximizing its utilization at the same time by managing demand.

However, I wouldn't single out on-demand water heaters... like Carl and others have pointed out, many devices cause massive spikes in demand, spikes that can do all sorts of funny things to distribution networks. We're all well aware how fuel demands spike in the morning as water heaters across the country reheat after morning showers. The same kind of ritual repeats itself in the afternoon as the masses return home and crank down the AC or crank up the heat.

An interesting development in the future will be the emergence of micro-managed network power management - i.e. the possibility that utility/distribution companies not only interface with a few large consumers but with many small ones as well to shape the demand for energy. As the cost to move information goes ever further down, it becomes ever more likely in areas where generating capacity is scarce, where transportation costs are high, and NIMBY forces are powerful (i.e. CA, the N.E., etc.)

Our energy provider has started down this path with an option to buy electrical energy using different rates based on a time-based system. The night-time rates are very attractive (like 1/10th the usual rate), while the day rate is downright punitive. This is but the first step in the direction of load management.

Christian Egli

Easy to explain, it's just called a rate increase. Take a peak

You'll see, your average cost per kWh will go up, probably a lot. Hot rod, fight it if you still can.

The new meter will not only measure how much power you use (in kiloWatthour, kWh, like a BTU) but also how quickly you used it, that's peak demand (in kiloWatt, kW, like you would rate a boiler in BTU per hour, BTU/h)

My three phase commercial account is ratcheted exactly the same way. I am monitored every 15 minutes. My meter clocks me every time for how fast I am burning power. If I so much as go out of line for just 15 minutes just for once in my life, that is if I turn on too many lights for the full 15 minutes, I'll pay the ratcheted peak demand for the rest of the year, even if I never turn on the lights again.

It's a state trooper sitting on your back seat watching your speedometer at all times. You speed just once and he will then reissue you the same speeding ticket every month for the next 11 months. Whether you drive of not he will say you were speeding because you did so at least once in the last 11 months. Worse part: there is no preset speed limit, it's a moving target, you'll be ticketed the first time you go 1 mile per hour. If next you go faster, that'll just be more business for the cop.

Load shedding looks at the 15 minutes as it totals up, and when you get near your desired maximum it either entirely cuts off some predetermined equipment or it stops whatever you're doing and makes you wait for the next 15 minutes increment.

Like making up your mind that you won't drive down the interstate any faster than 25 MPH on average every 15 minutes.

What a way to live.

The utilities, of course, tell you this is your opportunity to "reduce" your rates. Because, if you are super extra duper careful and fill each 15 minutes, day and night for the entire year, with the very exact same amount of usage, then you won't be affected by the peak demand surcharge. You've effectively made no peak for the entire year.

But fail just once, for only fifteen minutes, and your year's worth of careful breathing is ratcheted away. You get no partial credit. When I divide my total bill by the kWh I use I pay about 18 cents per kWh. That just stops my breathing.

It's impossible to succeed. I've seen many load shedding schemes, none are foolproof. It just takes one computer freeze up for the utility to come and make its demands on you.

The utilities also say this will prevent power peak demand on their system. This can't be true because most customers either won't succeed or will give up trying to shave their individual peaks. And anyhow, the utilities are very good at predicting demand and predicting how much power they have to be ready to provide because they look at the power grid on a very large scale where all our little individual peak waves wash out with the tide. As mentioned in other posts, power usage is largely weather related.

It's a rate increase and you'll have to live with it. Call your utilities commission and see how they tell you to just pass on the cost.

By the way, the company out of Indiana that supplies me natural gas has just increased my gas cost five folds. Just because I can pass on my cost to the customer. They have also started talking about a peak demand meter scheme for gas just like with electricity. I am lucky I have a dual fuel boiler, I whish I could also burn coal or wood. Utilities need all the competition we can throw at them.

This ratcheting business sounds too much like racketeering to me. It's absolutely no wonder businesses move out to other countries.

I hope cogeneration will save us. Step on it.

Constantin

... there is no question...

... that utilities, like all businesses try to exploit every loophole they can to increase their rate charges. We the sheep, I mean consumers, are at the mercy of utility commissions and others to have the "experts" set the rates for us. Whether or not these rates have anything to do with reality or not is a whole other matter.

On the other hand, I can see the logic in trying to tame the beast of many little ripples turning into a giant wave during different times of day. In New England, we have very limited transmission and generation capacity and depend heavily on importing power from as far as Hydro Quebec or the Midwest. Any power line failures (and they're all clapped out come summertime) and we would have brownouts or worse, as we witnessed in NYC.

Yet, the peak-punishment cycle you describe though is totally out of hand. I can see the logic in checking your consumption every 15 minutes but agree that you should be pro-rated for the time you are in compliance vs. the time that you are not. Plus, the on-demand rates should reflect the time of day, as some times are much less sensitive than others. I guess your only hope is to write to your commission and to have them re-write the rates schedule.

It's interesting to me to note how many inflationary mechanisms in the economy have started to kick in. Even the price of coal has gone up (though not by that much) as a response to other energy prices going through the roof. It looks as though that sector of the economy is now determined to make up for all the years of neglect, cut-backs, and low profits. I wonder how much it will affect our competitiveness, considering how much of the economy is now service-based as opposed to manufacturing/basic materials.

Also, this is the environment where low mass, condensing, modulating heating appliances may find their tipping point vs. the cast-iron, on-off appliances of our grandfathers. I expect that as energy prices continue to rise that all of you will have a good year indeed advising customers how to improve their energy efficiency, replacing outdated systems, etc. Oh Hermann Burner, where art thou?

Steve Ebels_3

Pretty typical

In commercial applications, billing by peak demand and using that to set your rate for the year is quite common. I think the utilities are using that as a hammer to try to keep consumption down. Their rates are for the most part limited by governmant imposed caps therefore they are not able to make investments in capital improvements required to meet the demand. If they can't raise rates to improve infrastructure they have to try to control demand and this is one way to do it.

The energy vise is tightening in this country. It'll be interesting to see what squeezes out the sides.

Christian Egli

Perverse power rate scheme

Can I ramble on a little more? I think there is nothing on TV anyway.

I would argue that the peak meter is not there to encourage energy efficiency and savings but rather the opposite.

With the idea that I've already been ticketed for speeding at the maximum ratcheted rate, and I pay my repeat fine every month, do you think I will actually care about not speeding again? I won't be penalized more, I'll just get some satisfaction that this way at least I get to enjoy the speeding for which I am paying my running speeding ticket.

Why are so many stores and large users not particularly interested in saving power by turning the lights on and off? because the rewards are perversely minimal.

But using smaller wattage bulbs and more efficient fixtures; that works, and you see a lot of it.

Power companies are in the business of selling power, which is logic.

If our government and our utilities commissions really wanted energy efficiency and grid usage optimization, perhaps we would see way more remote controlled load shedding as well as time sensitive power rates. The only sensitivity the commissions show is to cost-plus plans where the utility shows how much it spent and it is allowed a percentage profit. (The bigger the costs, the bigger the percentage for profits, he he he. So what about savings?)

I have visited many homes in Switzerland where the central (all electric) heat, the hot water tank and the washing machine (which heats its own water) each were controlled by separate power relay switch which turned off the appliance whenever the utility wanted. This has been going on for the last 25 years at least. However I really don't think this approach is any more practical than just building more power plants. I don't even think all the army of relay modules are any cheaper to buy and install than a peak power plant.

So there, all this whining about rates to conclude that my local utility is not that bad after all.

There is a big difference between all of Europe and the US, and the US shines in efficiency. Businesses and life in general goes on 'round the clock, 24x7 over here, you never ever worry a grocery store might be closed. This yields optimal store, cash register lanes, lighting and staff utilization. Supermarkets here seem smaller to me and much less crowded than the European counterparts. After all, I think it's the French Carrefour that invented the hypermarket. Hyper is bigger than super, no? All these stores are impossibly crowded on Friday because they are shut tight on weekends, often on Mondays, at night, and in many places even during lunch break.

The same is true of manufacturing plants.

Even the traffic on the European interstates goes dead flat at night, while I'd be hard pressed to tell you when you'll even find a lull on the interstates around here in my region. You won't find too many jams either, unlike in Europe.

This can't be an efficient use of resources. It probably isn't an efficient use of capital and assets either. And it follows that these quirky business hours have called for all the sophisticated peak power management devices that have made their way into the laundry schedule of every household.

I feel blessed my local utility doesn't care when or how I do my washing, so I'll live with the peak meter even with its nasty irritating effect.

Also, if I think utilities make such a killing, I can just buy some stock and reap in the dividend, no? European utilities are for the most part state-owned.

One more issue, then I stop.

Most homes here are powered with 100, 200 A at 220 V, in Europe, what I've seen was usually around 25, 35 A at 220/380 V. I guess you can say no peak, no power. One more reason I should stop complaining.

Best regards

Tom Blackwell

The atlanta area already has a residential demand charge for natural gas. They call it a "DDDC" factor which is the usage on the worst day of the year and is ratcheted for the rest of the year. I have yet to find out how it's calculated. The PSC referred me to Atlanta Gas Light, and after talking to 4 people I still don't have an answer. The bottom line is that the demand charge for my residence north of Atlanta was $27 per month even if I used no gas. Gas service is now disconnected. As previously stated the electric utilities have been doing this for the last 30 years for commercial customers. It's going to get a lot worse...