Electricity Costs Analysis for 2022 Mach-E GT

[DF33]

@DF33
I'm getting my MME in about 2-3 weeks - In Florida FPL has a program for $38/month they provide the charger, electrical outlet install and unlimited off-peak charging - I drive about 1000 miles a month

Based on your summary of $150 for 3000 miles - then I'm getting a good deal as you didn't mention the cost to get the electrical service installed but just the actual consumption

Thanks

I just pulled my contract, and the ComEd portion was $557 for the new service. The electrical work in the garage was close to that amount as well and the ChargePoint was like 700. The total, was close to 2k, but I got a 750 tax credit for the level 2 charger.

When I looked at putting in the ChargePoint, my electrician told me I would have to upgrade to a 400 amp service and the total quote was something like 4,000, because he was going to have to rip out the old panel, dig a trench and have a new line put in, etc. (construction costs where I live outside Chicago are insane.) My garage is on an alley, and the power runs through the alley as well. So Ironically, it was the ComEd tech who came out and said, why don't you just install a new service at your garage, instead of digging up the old service? I then had to fight my village, because they didn't want people to have two services. It was actually the Comed tech who convinced my village that this was a better way to go. I know this might be shocking to hear, but ComEd was really a delight to deal with and their tech in terms of reporting hourly costs and website is really good as well. Power companies probably don't get much credit, but really I have nothing but good things to say about ComEd.

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[Regulus7]

As others have commented, it’s not just the generation cost but you also have to include the delivery charge and taxes. All in at home this is about 24c/KWh and I think in January these charges are going up even more. Luckily, at work I use a ChargePoint 6.3KW charger that chargers me $0.75c for the first three hours and then $3 per hour after that. However, there is a hack insofar if I unplug at 2:59mins and then re-plug back in it resets to $0.75/hr again. It’s a little bit annoying but using this charger most of the time
On average over the last 7 months i have gotten about 375KW per month for about an average of $50 a month. I get about 3.4mi/kw so figure that is about 1,275 miles. My ice gets like 23 mpg. So that would be like $200 for gas at 3.75/gal. So figure EV fueling costs are 1/4.

 

[ChuckA]

That's a pretty good rate for ConEd. I bought solar panels last year and I pay a fixed cost of about eight and a half cents per kwh based on the panel output and loan cost (after incentives). PSE&G's rate is over eighteen cents.

I think that ComEd in Chicago is not the same company as ConEd on the east coast. No utility in the northeast has good rates. I’m in CT and the rates are terrible.

 

[Vulnox]

Yeah delivery charges for us hurt. Even with solar because Michigan's major two electric companies lobbied to do away with true net metering and now only pay you the generated electricity rate, not the delivery rate, on exported electricity from the panels. So even if we produced more in a month than we take in, we usually end up with close to $100 electric bill since delivery charges are not offset by anything.

Still, $100 is a lot less than the $300-400 we were seeing for a couple of the hottest summer months between A/C and car charging. I suspect in the winter our bill will be around $50 since we won't be using A/C, will be generating less solar, but have a good deal of banked credits.

Part of me wonders if we wouldn't benefit more from adding a couple batteries so our excess generation can actually be used and do away with the delivery charges. But batteries are still so expensive that I imagine the break even point is counted in decades unless they raise delivery costs significantly.

 

[Blue highway]

Yeah delivery charges for us hurt. Even with solar because Michigan's major two electric companies lobbied to do away with true net metering and now only pay you the generated electricity rate, not the delivery rate, on exported electricity from the panels. So even if we produced more in a month than we take in, we usually end up with close to $100 electric bill since delivery charges are not offset by anything.

Still, $100 is a lot less than the $300-400 we were seeing for a couple of the hottest summer months between A/C and car charging. I suspect in the winter our bill will be around $50 since we won't be using A/C, will be generating less solar, but have a good deal of banked credits.

Part of me wonders if we wouldn't benefit more from adding a couple batteries so our excess generation can actually be used and do away with the delivery charges. But batteries are still so expensive that I imagine the break even point is counted in decades unless they raise delivery costs significantly.

There is a weird policy paradox of people putting in solar.

The root of the matter is that somebody has to pay for the transmission and distribution network as well as the generating capacity when end users are not on solar.

The problem is that our bills are determined largely on a usage basis. The less you use, the less you pay for the transmission, distribution, and fixed generation facilities. The cost of maintaining these things are all fixed having little if nothing to do with usage.

The issue is the same for any large shared service. When users defect, the remaining users have to pay more to keep the fixed costs paid. The higher the individual rates, the more people defect.

What is good for us individually (going solar) is bad for everyone else that doesn't.

 

[ChuckA]

Yeah delivery charges for us hurt. Even with solar because Michigan's major two electric companies lobbied to do away with true net metering and now only pay you the generated electricity rate, not the delivery rate, on exported electricity from the panels. So even if we produced more in a month than we take in, we usually end up with close to $100 electric bill since delivery charges are not offset by anything.

Still, $100 is a lot less than the $300-400 we were seeing for a couple of the hottest summer months between A/C and car charging. I suspect in the winter our bill will be around $50 since we won't be using A/C, will be generating less solar, but have a good deal of banked credits.

Part of me wonders if we wouldn't benefit more from adding a couple batteries so our excess generation can actually be used and do away with the delivery charges. But batteries are still so expensive that I imagine the break even point is counted in decades unless they raise delivery costs significantly.

That really sucks. Net metering is one of the largest benefits of going solar. With my solar I have 6 months a year where I only pay the $13 monthly billing charge. Otherwise, without the delivery credit offset I’d be paying about $170.

 

[ChuckA]

There is a weird policy paradox of people putting in solar.

The root of the matter is that somebody has to pay for the transmission and distribution network as well as the generating capacity when end users are not on solar.

The problem is that our bills are determined largely on a usage basis. The less you use, the less you pay for the transmission, distribution, and fixed generation facilities. The cost of maintaining these things are all fixed having little if nothing to do with usage.

The issue is the same for any large shared service. When users defect, the remaining users have to pay more to keep the fixed costs paid. The higher the individual rates, the more people defect.

What is good for us individually (going solar) is bad for everyone else that doesn't.

Same will happen with highway gas tax collected at the pump. Maybe when we get our EV planes we won’t need repaired roads.

 

[Blue highway]

Same will happen with highway gas tax collected at the pump. Maybe when we get our EV planes we won’t need repaired roads.

Bingo! now about those electric planes....

 

[Vulnox]

There is a weird policy paradox of people putting in solar.

The root of the matter is that somebody has to pay for the transmission and distribution network as well as the generating capacity when end users are not on solar.

The problem is that our bills are determined largely on a usage basis. The less you use, the less you pay for the transmission, distribution, and fixed generation facilities. The cost of maintaining these things are all fixed having little if nothing to do with usage.

The issue is the same for any large shared service. When users defect, the remaining users have to pay more to keep the fixed costs paid. The higher the individual rates, the more people defect.

What is good for us individually (going solar) is bad for everyone else that doesn't.

To a point, but excess generation is less fuel and wear/tear on the generation hardware and transmission lines. When you generate solar energy back to "the grid", it only goes as far as the transformer for your area and is distributed to other homes on that transformer. So not only are individual solar users requiring less peak generation energy in terms of fuel and generator wear and tear, but the oversupply doesn't have to go through a lot of hardware to get to the home compared to power generated by the electric company.

The benefits of individual solar are even more emphasized by less need for peaking power plants, which are the least efficient and highest polluting plant type. They exist only to handle peak power requirements for a few hours a day. Those hours also happens to fall in line with the best solar production times of the day. In parts of California where they have been experimenting with micro grid systems where solar/batteries cover peak power periods, there is less need for the expensive and polluting peaking power plants and a more stable overall grid.

So it's hardly as simple as saying solar users defect and others have to keep the fixed costs paid because the costs aren't fixed. Unless someone is islanding their system, which is a small, small percent of solar users who are usually grid tied, we don't have to rely on peaking plants for those periods.

That isn't even getting into the hidden costs of most grid energy production like CO2 emissions which cost us all significantly.

Not saying there is no negative impact if, say, 1/3rd of all users went solar. But to indicate that those going solar are leaving anyone holding the bag isn't the whole story. If anything it can be a benefit if the solar back feed can prevent use of the peaker plants. Those are a big part of why peak time electricity costs are higher.

 

[Jiji]

I have an app to log my charging sessions from the OBD connector so I can see my efficiencies over different time periods. My input energy is the energy measured at the MME plug (AC) and the energy added to the battery (DC) so this represents the losses inside the vehicle and not the hopefully minor) losses from my Tesla Wall Charger and the wire and panel losses.

Each session has all the details for each charging session, including a graph of the HvB SoH changes over time, I am down to 99% SoH 7200 miles into the my ownership.

 

[21st Century Pony]

To a point, but excess generation is less fuel and wear/tear on the generation hardware and transmission lines. When you generate solar energy back to "the grid", it only goes as far as the transformer for your area and is distributed to other homes on that transformer. So not only are individual solar users requiring less peak generation energy in terms of fuel and generator wear and tear, but the oversupply doesn't have to go through a lot of hardware to get to the home compared to power generated by the electric company.

The benefits of individual solar are even more emphasized by less need for peaking power plants, which are the least efficient and highest polluting plant type. They exist only to handle peak power requirements for a few hours a day. Those hours also happens to fall in line with the best solar production times of the day. In parts of California where they have been experimenting with micro grid systems where solar/batteries cover peak power periods, there is less need for the expensive and polluting peaking power plants and a more stable overall grid.

So it's hardly as simple as saying solar users defect and others have to keep the fixed costs paid because the costs aren't fixed. Unless someone is islanding their system, which is a small, small percent of solar users who are usually grid tied, we don't have to rely on peaking plants for those periods.

That isn't even getting into the hidden costs of most grid energy production like CO2 emissions which cost us all significantly.

Not saying there is no negative impact if, say, 1/3rd of all users went solar. But to indicate that those going solar are leaving anyone holding the bag isn't the whole story. If anything it can be a benefit if the solar back feed can prevent use of the peaker plants. Those are a big part of why peak time electricity costs are higher.

Well summarized.

 

[nbfa]

What bothers me is that our local utility (Pacific Gas & Electric in NorCal) offers an EV-specific rate plan that, like Ottawa Hydro, incentivizes late night / overnight charging, for something like $.18 per kWh in our case.

However, the time when the state of California is positively brimming with renewable energy is from 8AM until 4PM. So much so that on cool summer days, carbon-free renewables (primarily solar and, to a lesser extent wind) can peak to meet > 100% demand. Even on non-optimal sunny or windy days, like today, Sunday, November 13 at 10AM when I write this, renewables are meeting nearly 80% demand.

http://www.caiso.com/

So except for exceptionaly-high energy consuming days (like a state-wide heatwave), using PG&E’s overnight charging plan is creating consumer demand for natural gas generation or energy imports from dirty out-of-state utilities in the late night hours.

I decided to keep the PG&E EV rate plan but shift home charging to occur only from 8AM to 4PM; unlike our Chevy Bolt, however, our Mustang Mach-E can’t be scheduled to conclude at a given time with a calculated variable start time.

 

[Southern92]

There is a weird policy paradox of people putting in solar.

The root of the matter is that somebody has to pay for the transmission and distribution network as well as the generating capacity when end users are not on solar.

The problem is that our bills are determined largely on a usage basis. The less you use, the less you pay for the transmission, distribution, and fixed generation facilities. The cost of maintaining these things are all fixed having little if nothing to do with usage.

The issue is the same for any large shared service. When users defect, the remaining users have to pay more to keep the fixed costs paid. The higher the individual rates, the more people defect.

What is good for us individually (going solar) is bad for everyone else that doesn't.

I'm with SDGE in San Diego. They charge a PICA rate which ensures any money the utility spent to procure power based on past needs will continue to be paid by all. (Not the exact wording.) Additionally, any electricity I generate from my solar panels is used by my "neighbors" and they pay the full transmission & distribution fees. . .even though the electricity only traveled a short distance.

 

[0t60-3.5]

As I mentioned in my original post, the delivery and taxes are running around 8 cents per kWh, so the total is not as low as the power costs. ComEd actually gives you an hourly download, this is from Oct 22, you can see at 2am the power costs was $0.017. They don't show delivery or taxes, but still a very good deal for the electricity.

DataDate	HourEnding	kWh	HourlyEnergyPrice	Cost
10/21/2022​	11:00 PM​	6.6925​	$0.033​	$0.223​
10/22/2022​	12:00 AM​	5.4675​	$0.038​	$0.207​
Totals		62.208​	$0.029​	1.72189​

I watch the daily & hourly rates from my energy company as well - Alliant Energy of WI & IA. While I have a single feed, not separate like yours with one dedicated for charging, I have to estimate each hour use for EV charge. I generally find it will use about 11.35kWh per hour of charging using my Ford Connected Charger for both the Mach-Es in my garage ('21 Select & '21 GT PE).

Mine is 240V / 48A / ~11.52kW

Interesting it seems you're topping out at about 9.5kW per hour?

 

[pauljphoto]

Hello, Where on the ford pass app can you caluculate the total number of kwh used in a certain time frame. I see you had said you had used 1032. The only way I can see it is by adding up each trip under my ev driving. Also is there a way to calculate the amount of kwh's used to charge the car by the percentage added in the charging timeframe? I use the ford unit that came with the vehicle. Thank you for any help, Paul

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