Am I doing something wrong? Electric bill

[GreaseMonkey]

@Kygolfer I got this email today from my utility company. The frustration is universal.

I almost fell off my chair yesterday when I saw the latest bill. I used to pay 9 cents a kWh. I’m doing all kinds of gymnastics and am paying 17, even with an EV, which (if you do your math right), averages down what I pay substantially.

Note: see what the woman in the pic is doing? That’s what your utility company now expects you to do. Like we don’t have other shit to worry about. So whip out your laptop and dust off your ninth grade calculator. Let’s put our math skills to use, my friend.

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[Teslaeata]

Am I doing something wrong? Electric bill

Yes!

 

[Jerrytball]

Yeah, I have to agree with everybody else. I had a Mustang and then I went about a year and a half without an electric car and now that I have one my electric bill’s gone up about $20 a month. Anytime I charge as long as it’s not between 3 PM and 6 PM. It cost me about $1.20 to charge say 30 kW, if I were to charge between three and six, I’m paying about 12 bucks for that same 30. See if they have a time I use program and just don’t use powerful stuff in the house for that three hours a day like myself.

 

[Blue PonyE]

Check your power bill and look for something like "Power Cost Adjustment". With Puget Sound Energy, the rate for the May - June 2025 period compared to the May - June 2026 period, using approximately that same number of kWh, went from $2.40 last year to $33.26 this year. One way to avoid calling a rate increase a rate increase.

Also don't just look at the meter rate per kWh. Take your total cost and divide it by the kWh so you include all of the other service fees and taxes. My meter rate is 0.15 to 0.17 per kWh, but the effective rate after all of the fees and taxes is 0.21 per kWh.

 

[Maquis]

Also don't just look at the meter rate per kWh. Take your total cost and divide it by the kWh so you include all of the other service fees and taxes. My meter rate is 0.15 to 0.17 per kWh, but the effective rate after all of the fees and taxes is 0.21 per kWh.

That can be misleading if you have a relatively big fixed cost as a portion of your bill. My “meter charge” is $55 per month. Even if my kWh usage is zero.

 

[inmyrightmind]

Also, see if your electric company penalizes you for Peak Load. Some companies charge you a rate based on the highest load that you use during a given period of time. That can spike a bill ridiculously. If that’s what’s happening, charge slower.

An example of what happened to me at my old house: if I was running the electric clothes dryer at 30 A, and then my wife turned on the oven and a couple of burners on the electric stove, we suddenly jumped up to over 60 A of continuous peak usage. My electric company beat us severely on our bills for that!

 

[NY_Cade69]

A qualified electrician can check the circuit and the load the charger is pulling (charging, and at idle). Chargers can be faulty, as can be the circuit they are installed on.

 

[kltye]

@Kygolfer I got this email today from my utility company. The frustration is universal.

I almost fell off my chair yesterday when I saw the latest bill. I used to pay 9 cents a kWh. I’m doing all kinds of gymnastics and am paying 17, even with an EV, which (if you do your math right), averages down what I pay substantially.

Note: see what the woman in the pic is doing? That’s what your utility company now expects you to do. Like we don’t have other shit to worry about. So whip out your laptop and dust off your ninth grade calculator. Let’s put our math skills to use, my friend.

Are you on the hourly pricing rate? It's much cheaper than the retail rate for the vast majority of the time. I'm almost 100% electric in the house except for heat (which sucks because otherwise I'd qualify for the cheaper 3 cents/kWh transmission rate), and I usually pay just over $200/mo, and I use A/C a lot.

And yes, unfortunately this is the world we live in. It's one of "the other shit" that's included in lives now.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

Are you on the hourly pricing rate? It's much cheaper than the retail rate for the vast majority of the time. I'm almost 100% electric in the house except for heat (which sucks because otherwise I'd qualify for the cheaper 3 cents/kWh transmission rate), and I usually pay just over $200/mo, and I use A/C a lot.

And yes, unfortunately this is the world we live in. It's one of "the other shit" that's included in lives now.

Well yes I am! The two rates I quoted are both under hourly market rates. But the difference is the 9 cents was from when I lived in a condo in the Gold Coast with electric baseboard heat and the 17 cents is from the single family home I currently have in north center. The transmission rates are different and so are the capacity rates (which got ridiculously more expensive recently). ComEd is factoring in not only residential differentials between peaks and valleys of demand, but also those of businesses. They are penalizing everyone for data center energy use. JB Pritzker is also keen on “quantum”, so there is no willpower at the state level to address any of this stuff and redistribute in an equitable fashion. I was recently at an event at MHub where ComEd’s CEO spoke, and he said that the company has to spend millions upgrading transformers because with the rise in temperatures they are being forced to load transformers no more than 80% of rated capacity. I hear that downstate Illinois (not served by ComEd) is even worse.

Now something that I found out recently about but didn’t action on yet is a new program where you can sign up for time of use on transmission rates. We’ll see how much that would shave off the bill.

Lastly, a consultant that we spoke with recently gave some tips on how to manage the “capacity charge”. If you’re on hourly, and the rates spike significantly, you would need to effectively switch the disconnect off. If you do that during the 5 critical days of summer, your capacity charge would drop. Capacity charge on my bill was $40 out of $250 for a 1500 kWh consumption.

 

[kltye]

Well yes I am! The two rates I quoted are both under hourly market rates. But the difference is the 9 cents was from when I lived in a condo in the Gold Coast with electric baseboard heat and the 17 cents is from the single family home I currently have in north center. The transmission rates are different and so are the capacity rates (which got ridiculously more expensive recently). ComEd is factoring in not only residential differentials between peaks and valleys of demand, but also those of businesses. They are penalizing everyone for data center energy use. JB Pritzker is also keen on “quantum”, so there is no willpower at the state level to address any of this stuff and redistribute in an equitable fashion. I was recently at an event at MHub where ComEd’s CEO spoke, and he said that the company has to spend millions upgrading transformers because the rise in temperatures they are being forced to load transformers no more than 80% of rated capacity. I hear that downstate Illinois (not served by ComEd) is even worse.

Now something that I found out recently about but didn’t action on yet is a new program where you can sign up for time of use on transmission rates. We’ll see how much that would shave off the bill.

Lastly, a consultant that we spoke with recently gave some tips on how to manage the “capacity charge”. If you’re on hourly, and the rates spike significantly, you would need to effectively switch the disconnect off. If you do that during the 5 critical days of summer, your capacity charge would drop. Capacity charge on my bill was $40 out of $250 for a 1500 kWh consumption.

Yeah that capacity charge there's quite significant. I do manage my usage very closely, and turn off things as needed (water heater, A/C) the moment prices spike, but also turn them on for longer when electricity is cheap. (I do have a custom thermostat and Home Assistant to control my heat pump water heater for that, which I recognize isn't everyone's cup of tea) The problem with capacity charges is you don't actually know which of the 5 days they are, so you just have to keep guessing!

I also have large standalone batteries (that isn't grid-tied) to offset my other 24/7 electronics usage (home server, etc.), but that's another story

I would login to ComEd's website now to take a look at my exact prices but of course it's down for maintenance .

17 cents/kWh seems really high though, since the transmission charges are ~6 cents/kWh. On average, I see supply rates at around 3 cents/kWh or so, but varies wildly from season to season, of course. At negative rates I charge the car at full speed, while at other times it's slower since it's marginally more efficient...

I'm hoping that quantum computing won't be as extraordinarily inefficient as AI, so maybe it won't be as bad...

 

[RickMachE]

No response from OP. Keeps visiting, not replying.

 

[AKgrampy]

One thing to check, and it is fairly rare but gaining acceptance by utilities, is a residential demand charge. It still should not impact your rates as much as you are experiencing.

 

[Teslaeata]

Surely every charge point these days has its own metering system otherwise just place a meter on that circuit alone, seempools

I may be lucky but my ABB meters the leccy delivered to Stangy and e-mails me the month’s figures at EOM.

As I’m able to input the current rate/kWh I get kWh used and also the cost per charge.

Comparing leccy usage now with same period last year before EV is unsound, too many possible variables and imponderables.

I’d suggest doing the job properly and separate out just the cost to charge EV.

 

[GreaseMonkey]

Yeah that capacity charge there's quite significant. I do manage my usage very closely, and turn off things as needed (water heater, A/C) the moment prices spike, but also turn them on for longer when electricity is cheap. (I do have a custom thermostat and Home Assistant to control my heat pump water heater for that, which I recognize isn't everyone's cup of tea) The problem with capacity charges is you don't actually know which of the 5 days they are, so you just have to keep guessing!

I also have large standalone batteries (that isn't grid-tied) to offset my other 24/7 electronics usage (home server, etc.), but that's another story

I would login to ComEd's website now to take a look at my exact prices but of course it's down for maintenance .

17 cents/kWh seems really high though, since the transmission charges are ~6 cents/kWh. On average, I see supply rates at around 3 cents/kWh or so, but varies wildly from season to season, of course. At negative rates I charge the car at full speed, while at other times it's slower since it's marginally more efficient...

I'm hoping that quantum computing won't be as extraordinarily inefficient as AI, so maybe it won't be as bad...

At 2 am, maintenance is over. Here’s my latest bill:

Given that I’m on hourly market pricing, there is no specific cents per kWh for the “electricity supply charge” because the rate changes every five minutes.

My understanding (and I am know to be wrong often) is that the price to compare is equivalent to the combination of electricity supply charge and transmission service charge. If that’s the case, the combo amounts to 5 cents compared to 10.399 cents. So I’m saving about $80 a month being on hourly.

The above savings would have been higher in a normal month. But we took an 11 day vacation and didn’t drive so what is typically 350 kWh of charging the Mach-E ended up being 215 according to my Tesla app. That averaged up the cost. We will also drive less in the summer because we both work from home and the kids are not commuting to school.

Below is Delivery time-of-day pricing sheet (the new program):

https://www.comed.com/cdn/assets/v3...elivery_Service_Charges.pdf?branch=prod_alias

I don’t know how you could generate any savings with this rate table (compare tables on pages 1 and 2). The rates for 1-7 pm are double what the regulatory charge is. Need to do more math in the morning.

 

[kltye]

Here's mine. I believe the price to compare is the supply price (just from the phrasing "..electric supply price to compare"). As you can see I did use a bit more than you did but ended up paying a little less.

The delivery time of day is basically a scam as far as I can tell. Unless no one is at home during the day, or they have a fleet of EVs, most people will end up paying more.

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