Wednesday, March 15, 2017

"Cheap" Hydro/electricity


I mentioned on Sunday I put my oven onto self clean as it was "cheap electricity" day.  As you can see above we are charged different rates for different times of day for our electricity usage.  Until April 30th 2017 this is what we pay:

Weekends & Holidays:
All day Off-peak $0.087 per kWh

Weekdays:
7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.On-peak $0.180 per kWh
11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.Mid-peak $0.132 per kWh
5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.On-peak $0.180 per kWh
7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.Off-peak $0.087 per kWh

So I try and work around the cheaper times of day to use hydro in the house.  I can't always do that, but I do try to avoid using it on the on peak times if I can.

This is not a new thing and we had the same thing when we lived in Britain.  Our hydro bills are a very sore point here in Ontario as we pay an arm and a leg for hydro due to the "other things" they tack onto our bills.  In most cases the actual hydro we use is minimal, but add on all the other stupid charges and some people are having to choose between heating their homes and eating.

When we lived at our last house it was the delivery charge that killed us as more often than not it was more than what we had used in electricity.    Since we moved back into town the delivery costs are not as much.  

We generally average just under $100 a month for our hydro bills over the year.

I am quite sure you all have your own hydro/electricity stories......

8 comments:

Evelyn said...

We pay an arm and a leg too but no cheap usage times, wish we had!

One Family said...

A $100 a month seems extremely cheap to me, especially since you live in cold winter climate. I averaged more than that at our old house (where climate wasn't usually cold) and my bills for Dec and Jan, here where it's cold winters, were $400 each month. ($300 this past month) And that's just for the electricity (to run the furnace), not including the propane LOL. We don't get the option of different usage time rates, so at least you have that to try and work with.

William Kendall said...

The bulk of my electricity use is off peak, since I'm rarely home before seven in the evening. I do have hydro horror stories, but less because of the hydro and more because I'm not supposed to be paying it in the first place. It's more of a landlord horror story, which, fortunately, is soon to end.

Betsy said...

We're on a budget plan and pay the same each month. Electricity and natural gas for heat is around $95.00 per month. Water/Sewer and Garbage is around $124.00 per month. Not too bad considering we have a big 4 bedroom house. I still would like to downsize to something smaller. I want to make sure it's energy efficient though.
Blessings,
Betsy

Jane said...

I've been protesting about Ontario Hydro for over a year now and the rates and selling off a public company have become one of the big issues in the upcoming election. Hopefully we can get rid of Wynn!

Practical Parsimony said...

Electricity is the same price all the time here. I think I pay $.09.

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

Living in the apt, our utility costs are less in terms of electric and heating than at the VA house for which we still pay those utilities (sign, still unsold). On average, the monthly electric costs for the VA home are 2X the monthly cost here :-( And, we also had to pay delivery charges there for LPG and oil.

flowerpower said...

More and more people here in south Florida are going solar the electric rates are very high and they ask for rate hikes every 6 months.

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