Category Archives: General

The category for uncategorized stuff. ;)

Air Conditioning Hydro Usage

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The hot weather started here in Eastern Ontario over the last couple weeks and up until this past weekend, it was usually quite manageable. Unfortunately on Sunday, with the humidity really high at 7am, I caved around 9am and turned on the air conditioning until about 10pm.

Thanks to the Time of Use meter we have and Hydro One’s nifty online electricity usage tool, I’m able to see how much electricity we used to keep ourselves cool(er) for the day.

Graph showing hourly electricity usage for a 24 hour period when the air conditioning is on.
Yeah, that’s a whopping 46.05 kWh used in one day. We are normally around 10-12 kWh/day. Ugh.

Now, the graph above shows the cost per hour to run the AC (and I think the dryer must have been on to cause the spike around noon) but let’s remember that these rates are not the real rates we’re paying per kWh consumed. The real rate for the 2011 Summer Season for Off-Peak is more like 12.00892¢/kWh (based on Urban High Density and before tax).

So, 46.05kWh is going to cost $5.53 (plus tax) and not the $2.72 shown by the graph. Guess we’ll be selecting our cooling days a little more diligently.

The best part of this whole deal is that it was a Sunday and thus the whole day is at the Off-Peak rate. We would have just hidden in the basement all day if it was a week day. :)

Natural Gas Standby Generator

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I was recently looking at natural gas standby generators on the Costco website. Given the current electricity rates during peak Time of Use hours, I then started wondering what the cost per kWh was for a natural gas standby generator. Especially considering how low the natural gas prices have been.

So let’s do some math. Fun!

According to EnergyShop.com, natural gas is currently 25.04¢/m³ in my area. That includes all of the “add ons” that are over and above the posted natural gas rate. It excludes taxes though. As we saw before, your real electricity rate is not the same as what is “advertised” by Hydro One. We need to add in a number of extra charges to get the real rate. With the recent switch to the summer Time of Use pricing, the advertised rates increased.

Based on the current Hydro One Residential Delivery Rates, the real Time of Use prices are (based on Urban High density) 12.01¢/kWh for off-peak, 15.24¢/kWh for mid-peak and 17.18¢/kWh for peak usage. Again, these are the rates without taxes added (and minus some monthly charges that don’t translate well into a per kWh price).

So, let’s take the Generac 17 kW Standby Generator that is available on the Costco website, and figure out the cost per kWh. According to the website, it is capable of producing 16kW using natural gas and consumes 6.9m³/h at full load. So, that translates to 2.32kWh/m³ at full load. Given the current natural gas rate in my area, that means the standby generator costs 10.80¢/kWh.  WHAT?

Well, hang on, let’s not get too carried away with this. Natural gas prices are currently at all time lows.  Let’s see how much it would cost with the ~50¢/m³ that we were paying a couple years ago.  At that price, the generator costs 21.55¢/kWh to run.

Let’s not forget about the cost of the generator – $3699.99 plus around $1000 of installation/other costs (based on some rough numbers I found while Googling). To cover that, you’d have to run the “standby” generator at full load during Time of Use on-peak time for about 67142 hours all while hoping that the natural gas price doesn’t go up. Oh, and don’t forget that peak time is only for about 6 hours a day and only 5 days a week.

Oh well, that satisfied my curiosity.

Well, almost.  I poked around a bit and found a couple industrial natural gas generator sets. Unfortunately most of the large scale (2500kW – 3000kW) units I found didn’t have fuel consumption values. The $500k for a used (with no warranty) 3000kW generator set was interesting. (Yikes!)

I did manage to find the Kohler Power 400RZX which is 400kW natural gas generator. It’s capable of around 3.3kW/m³ at full load or a cost of 7.5¢/kWh. Of course, no price is listed so I’m going to assume its payoff time would be greater than the 67000+ hours of the Generac unit.

Time of Use Summer Season Starts and Rates Increase

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May 1 is the start of the summer season for Time of Use electricity rates in Ontario. For 2011, this brings one good change and one bad change.

Let’s start with the good change – the off-peak rate now starts at 7PM instead of 9PM.  This is a huge deal for us as the majority of our electricity usage is after 6PM. In the winter season, that was bad because the on-peak time was from 5PM to 9PM. At least in the summer, 5PM to 7PM is mid-peak so there’s a minor reduction in electricity rate. I think the extended off-peak will help a little more in the winter season.

Chart showing Ontario electricity Time of Use periods

Now for the bad change – the rates at all levels have been increased by 0.8¢/kWh vs the rates we were paying in the 2010 winter season. So now instead of 5.1¢/kWh, we will be paying 5.9¢/kWh. That’s an increase of a whopping 15.7%. Ouch! So, even if you’ve managed to move most of your usage to the off-peak times, your bill is going up. Your base electricity usage cost is going to increase.

Wasn’t Time of Use supposed to make it possible for consumers to save money? Hydo One has updated information on their Time of Use Prices web page.

I don’t want to spoil your day so I won’t mention how much it’s going to cost to run your air conditioning this summer.  Let’s just say that you might want to look at re-mortgaging now, especially considering how much it’s going to cost to fill your car gas tank. Ugh.

So, what are your plans this summer to try and beat the heat while not breaking the bank.  I’m all ears and would love to hear your ideas!

Six Flags Great Escape Lodge and Indoor Waterpark

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We recently went to the Six Flags Great Escape Lodge & Indoor Waterpark in Queensbury, NY and had a fantastic time. This indoor water park is only about 4.5 hours from the Ottawa, ON area so it’s quite reasonable to go for a weekend or a few days during the week.

On this trip, we only went for one night and looking back, that was a mistake on our part. Next time we will go for two nights to get more “bang for the buck”. More on this later.

The way it is setup, you book a room at the Great Escape Lodge and it includes passes for the White Water Bay water park (which is attached directly to the hotel). The base rate is about $200/night – seems steep until you see that a day pass to the waterpark is $39/person. So, with the 4 included passes ($156 total), the hotel is only $44/night! They also have a set of deals on their website that are worth checking out.

It’s even better when you stumble across a coupon code for 50% off like I did! More later on this.

I don’t think it would be worth staying at a different hotel and buying the day passes unless you were getting a really good deal somewhere else or you were dropping the (older) kids off for the day while you go somewhere else.

So why more than one night next time? Logistics. You are allowed to use the water park from noon on the day you check-in until 2PM on the day you check out. That’s fantastic except that the complication is that you can’t check-in until 4PM and checkout is at 11am. They have lockers you can rent (for $10/day) so you can stash your valuables but that means someone has to leave the water park to go check-in and haul the rest of the stuff to the room. For check-out day, you really need to haul everything out of the room before 10am (when the waterpark opens) and probably get another locker to store valuables (or at least your car keys) while using the water park after you check out. Having a second night would just make the logistics headache a little more bearable. As it was, it felt like we were rushing to get into the hotel and rushing to get out of the hotel all in the span of ~18 hours (we only arrived mid-afternoon due to travel delays coming from our other destination on this trip).

The discount code! I nearly forgot! I stumbled on that completely. The day we booked the hotel, I did a quick google search and found a code that was expiring that day. Pure luck to get the room (and 4 passes) for $99. It does appear that they have similar offers from time to time as I saw some other codes for the same deal with different dates but they all appeared to be short notice. The one I used was posted on March 2 and expired March 9.

I’m pretty sure we will be going again in the future. It’s close, has a fair bit for our young kids to do and even without the discount code, it’s reasonably priced.

Ontario Hydro Rate Hike to Cover Fines Approved by OEB

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File this one in the “You’ve got to be kidding” pile. The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) has approved a rate hike to cover approximately $18 million in fines and court costs associated with various hydro companies overcharging interest on past due accounts.

So, not only are we potentially seeing a 6.2% increase starting March 1, we are paying extra because the hydro companies were breaking the law.

Come on! Give me a break!

It’s bad enough I’m paying $0.051/kWh in off peak times and $0.091/kWh in peak times when the average market price is $0.0342/kWh for February 2011.

In 2009, Hydro One had a net income of $470 million (pdf link) on $4.744 billion in revenue or approximately 10% margin. WTF? I understand it operates as a private company and has to produce profit for it’s shareholders but shouldn’t it be attempting to pass some of that income back to the consumer through lower rates? We’re already being dinged for debt reduction, delivery, line loss, and whatever other things they can think of to squeeze more money out of Joe Average electricity user. Why not reduce that margin to 5% (which is still a huge net income of $235 million for Hydro One) and return $50 to each of the approximately 4 million homes in Ontario.

Stop trying to take more money from my pocket and bring your income to a more reasonable level.