I continually see on here that other tiered billing rates get higher as you go from tier 1 to tier 2 etc.
Ours gets lower when you go from tier 1 to tier 2 (we only have 2).
Does anyone else have a rate structured like ours is?
This is our current winter rate. October through May
To follow up.
The rate only gets lower from Tier 1 to Tier 2 in the Winter not the Summer.
Residential Winter
For the months of October through May:
$0.073512 per kWh for the first 500 kWh
$0.073512 per kWh for the next 400 kWh
$0.060089 per kWh for all additional kWh
Summer Period Rate
For the months of June through September:
$0.073512 per kWh for the first 500 kWh
$0.073512 per kWh for the next 400 kWh
$0.081088 per kWh for all additional kWh
Two more questions on your tiering
is your billing cycle based on exact calendar months or are start / end dates offset from calendar months ? Are those offsets consistent (does current Sense billing cycle setting fit your billing cycles) ?
how do you want to view cost ? The challenge is that your costs and expenses (in the summary) get higher later in the billing month. Good reason to conserve if you are in the next or top tier, but you might have been better off seeing your estimated blended rate at the beginning of the billing month, at least until your true to-date billed cost is greater than what the blended rate would have yield (i.e. you are using more higher tier energy in a month than your historic usage).
I ask these things because I built a TOU/tiered calculator that works with Sense export data, and these are the bugbear questions I had to deal with (my billing cycle has variable offset from month to month, so calculator needs to know my own custom billing schedule).
I donāt know if this available in your are or not but I just found out a few months ago that we have the choice of flat rate or tiered. I have always had the flat rate as itās the default and the electric company never informed us we had a choice.
Flat is $.0.0846
And tired is about $0.12 and $0.06
The months and time change twice a year so spring and summer are different than fall and winter.
During either for me the flat rate is clearly about 20% cheaper. But when it changes the tired is going to be cheaper. With smart meters they donāt have to come out and we can change anytime we want.
I found the information at the states utility commission. I didnāt realize utilities are required here to publish with the state what we would be paying.
Iāll get these fuel adjustments on my bill and didnāt understand them. What it is for is when they have to buy electricity at a higher cost then they sell it to our from another utility and are required by law to adjust you bill bill for the overcharge.
Screenshot shows my rate in black circle and tiered or time of day in red
I believe our costs are lower than average here.
Correction: black my plan, red time of day and green (correctly pointed out by @kevin1) for tiered or inclining block. Thanks @kevin1
@samwooly1,
The rate schedule you circled in red is actually TOU (time of use), where rates depend on time of day, and potentially season. The one above, Inclining Rates, is the tiered option.
Thanks for pointing that out.
They call both of them tired because , I guess, there are tiers to the prices.
When talking to them they ask which tired plan your interested in. The block
Or peak off-peak are the generic names used.
But you are technically correct.
I was also unaware of the block plan until recently, I sure donāt like it with something like 2670KWH used last month.
I just quickly looked over this forum and didnāt see a mention of time based or peak hours mentioned. Rocky mountain power had the option to be charge $.03 off peak and $0.33 peak. Being able to track your off and on peak would be a huge benefit. These peak hours also change during the time of year as well.
If your have tiered ātime of dayā billing you can set up alerts for using over X watts during those peak times. Thatās a good way to focus on shifting electrical useable to later times (like dish or clothes washing)
That wish is actually on the wishlist many times. I have the same option where I live to change from flat to time of day but not having this feature in Sense is part of the reason I ha ent switched.
The other reason is my utility says nobody has tried it yet and I would be the first. They said it could take months to iron things out because they arenāt even sure how it will work. I really canāt afford to bankroll training for the electric company.
Itās been 2 years, when is this at some point going to happen ?
The biggest variable in our bills is the Hourly Demand Charge. In summer we pay, in my case $17.50 for each Kw of hourly demand between 15:00 and 20:00. Any major appliance that comes on while another is on could be incredibly expensive. For instance someone taking a shower between those hours and tripping the hot water heater on. That could easily trigger a 2 Kw addition and add $35 to the monthly bill. Thirty five dollars for a teen taking a half hour shower. Anyway, my point is that hourly Demand is really important to me.
Terry
So you are looking for time of use (TOU) pricing, not tiered pricing. Youāll want to ālikeā the wishlist item here:
BTW - thatās a huge kWh uplift.
I manage to keep my summer demand at 2 Kw and winter at 1 Kw. I do this by having my entire home automated with Insteon and an ISY994i controller. In the summer, which is until next month, I allow my AC to run for 15 minutes per hour between 15:00 and 20:00. I have kept my electric bill below $165 a month during the summer for two years now. My Demand time used to be 12 hours and I had to run the AC during Peak time. New rates lowed the Demand Peak time to five hours. My bills are lower after the rate hike than before. My next door neighbor has summer bills in excess of $300.
Terry
Tiered billing and calculations for users with a ādemandā charge would be really appreciated. This functionality is very much needed.
It looks like this was asked for 3 years ago by numerous users. I just got my sense and am now wondering if I should return it as the rates it shows are probably not accurate if you are on a tiered rate plan, or is this something that is ācoming soonā?
Depends on what you are trying to do using the Sense data. I had tiered pricing when I first started but switched to Time of Use (TOU). I used Sense exported data and Excel/R to add pricing info for tiered and TOU plans. Projected savings pushed me to move to the TOU plan.
The challenge with most tiered plans is that your pricing today is very much dependent on past behaviors. So if you are trying to use Sense pricing / cost info to change current behaviors you are going to be āpunishedā or rewarded by what you did earlier in the billing month. It might be better to set Sense goals for the usage levels for each tier. Try to stay below tier 2 pricing, and if you exceed, try to stay below tier 3.
Is tiered billing still being considered as an option? Iād love to see it!!
+1 as an LADWP customer who just installed their sense I also have tiered billing and would love to have accurate cost measurements within the sense app. Please let us know if this is still being worked on!
Is tiered billing still on the roadmap? itās great that TOU finally shipped, but tiered is also quite prevalent.
For example, a utility company could have two simple tiers:
I understand (after reviewing this thread) some tiered billing is quite a bit more complex than this. Maybe this could be rolled out to support simpler tiered structures, first?
Thanks for clarifying if this is still anticipated or not!
I too would love tiered billing. With OUC in Central Florida we have a base $15 charge and then Tier 1 for the 1st 1,000kwh and Tier 2 for anything after that.
The initial charge and the tiered billing makes it impossible to get an accurate measurement from Sense. Is this still in the works or had development stopped?
