Am I doing something wrong? Electric bill

[Mark813]

The $176 is due to something other than your EV. Period.

Can we end this thread now?

This thread was worthwhile for me since it reminded me to look at my numbers from my electric bill and the Ford app instead of "this is what I think I'm paying" guess.

They try to make my monthly electric bill complex but it was an easy process to total up and get real numbers for my charging cost.

With those real numbers in hand I looked at the electric company TOU plan options and found I would definitely save more on the EV charging part going forward with that plan.

I still want to make sure the more expensive times of day would be minimized by using all the available WiFi, thermostat apps and checking programming of the AC schedule.

Hopefully OP figured out the math for their situation also.

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[RickMachE]

This thread was worthwhile for me since it reminded me to look at my numbers from my electric bill and the Ford app instead of "this is what I think I'm paying" guess.

They try to make my monthly electric bill complex but it was an easy process to total up and get real numbers for my charging cost.

With those real numbers in hand I looked at the electric company TOU plan options and found I would definitely save more on the EV charging part going forward with that plan.

I still want to make sure the more expensive times of day would be minimized by using all the available WiFi, thermostat apps and checking programming of the AC schedule.

Hopefully OP figured out the math for their situation also.

You would think so, but they have avoided every direct question...

 

[Mark813]

You would think so, but they have avoided every direct question...

And could help others with whatever the the answer turned out to be

"Hey guys my 20 year old son ran the mini split in his room at 67 degrees and left it that way all month even when he left each day to go to class"

Oh wait that was my situation again

 

[Kygolfer]

" Got a new 2025 Mach E GTPE less than 2 months ago. I have a 40 amp home charger. Wife drives one way to work 16 miles, then other daily driving but not much. Our power bill went up $176 from last month. Also compared to the same month last year it was almost doubled. I see all these post about how much money people are saving with an EV, some say their electric bill didn’t even go up. We went from loving this car to regretting our purchase."

The $176 is due to something other than your EV. Period.

Can we end this thread now?

Having my AC for the house looked at this evening. I think something is up with it.

 

[bojesphob]

Having my AC for the house looked at this evening. I think something is up with it.

Good luck! Hope you get it figured out! It sucks having to have a massive change like that that's unexpected!

 

[Kygolfer]

Had a capacitor replace on my home AC. Now I will wait on next couple of bills to see if it made a difference. Thanks for all the replies and tips.

 

[RickMachE]

Had a capacitor replace on my home AC. Now I will wait on next couple of bills to see if it made a difference. Thanks for all the replies and tips.

2 more tips.

1) My thermostat is smart, it shows me the running time by day when I click into the right place on the app.

2) My utility shows me actual usage by day, 1 day later. If yours does, you could see what today's usage is tomorrow, and compare it to the previous day, and see if the AC was the issue.

 

[Beerbronco]

A lot of great discussions. I have solar and resisted signing up for the Ford/Xcel Energy program where Xcel controls when the car is charging since my bill never really went up. Well my wife is always trying to reduce monthly costs so she signed us up and now our electric bill is $-44( that is negative $44). Even a bigger savings than before. I don't expect that to be every month but overall I have driven my Mache virtually free for 4 years and only pay for charging on road trips.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

Ended up buying this:

https://www.emporiaenergy.com/how-the-vue-utility-connect-works/

I didn’t want to mess around with an elaborate energy management system given I have three panels and will need to hire an electrician to hook everything up (due to my skill level and my fear of being fried extra crispy).

The emporia Vue Utility Connect should allow me to monitor total power usage directly as reported by the meter. I will do a Design of Experiment (cycling each appliance on and off) to figure out my base load consumption (non-discretionary) as well as major appliances (discretionary). That ought to help me manage overall consumption during high price periods.

I think I will eventually get off hourly pricing and get back on the regulatory rate. There are so many extreme weather events and utility’s overcharging for capacity charges that wipes out the savings from hourly pricing. And I don’t want to fuss with it too much. It would be disingenuous to try and get a low rate for charging my EV at night when paying a penalty for normal consumption during the day. I already feel good about driving an EV and don’t care about splitting hairs with energy cost.

 

[RickMachE]

Ended up buying this:

https://www.emporiaenergy.com/how-the-vue-utility-connect-works/

I didn’t want to mess around with an elaborate energy management system given I have three panels and will need to hire an electrician to hook everything up (due to my skill level and my fear of being fried extra crispy).

The emporia Vue Utility Connect should allow me to monitor total power usage directly as reported by the meter. I will do a Design of Experiment (cycling each appliance on and off) to figure out my base load consumption (non-discretionary) as well as major appliances (discretionary). That ought to help me manage overall consumption during high price periods.

I think I will eventually get off hourly pricing and get back on the regulatory rate. There are so many extreme weather events and utility’s overcharging for capacity charges that wipes out the savings from hourly pricing. And I don’t want to fuss with it too much. It would be disingenuous to try and get a low rate for charging my EV at night when paying a penalty for normal consumption during the day. I already feel good about driving an EV and don’t care about splitting hairs with energy cost.

My utility company provides that info, delayed 24 hours, for free. Gas and electric.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

My utility company provides that info, delayed 24 hours, for free. Gas and electric.

I get what you’re saying, Rick. But that info is useless to me. My rate can go up to $3.5 / kWh (this is not a typo). I need to know the second I get the text from ComEd what my consumption is so I can figure out what and for how long to shut things down.

What makes it tougher is that I have recently moved to a single family home for the first time in 15 years. Condo living has very different electric consumption patterns and I had mastered that over time. But I’m green as they come in my new environment.

That ridiculous rate used to happen a couple of times a year. It’s been happening very frequently nowadays. That’s why I’m saying that I’m likely to switch back to the standard rate and stop this experiment.

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