I just read in another forum that they have temperature-sensing electric meters in Canada. They sample the outside air temperature and adjust the billing rate accordingly for peak periods. He said that the peak rate (cold temperatures) is 17 cents per KWh and the off-peak rate is only 4 cents. He said that it can be tricked by using a heat lamp on the meter. I would tend to think that if the meter is that sophisticated, then it probably keeps a log of temperature measurements that can be polled. Is this guy serious or am I just that gullible?

Either the guy you got that info from is full if you know what OR they don't know what they are talking about... Here in Ontario now we are all getting " smart-meters".. They record the time of use and you get billed according to that at either an off peak, mid peak or high peak rate. These meters are also going to be remote read every hour so you will be able to track your usage each hour on the internet when thats all set up, and these meters will even report a loss of supply to the PoCo should the supply go dead or someone pulls the meter out of the socket! But in no way that I am aware of are there even meters in existance that sample the outdoor temperature and adjust the peak billing rate..
Besides,if you had a meter you could "defeat" with a heat lamp, just how accurate would it be if say my meter sat in direct sunlight while my neighbours is in shade?? There would be a little bit of discrepancy between the two meters would there not?

A.D

April 1st is still a few months away.

The buzz over on rec.home.repair is about a California idea for a thermostat controlled by the utility. In peak loads they turn the heat down (or A/C up)

The method has been used for decades in Australia for off peak electricity is the two meters and a time clock for staorage water heaters. In Victoria it was known as "J tariff", Northern Territory doesn't have off-peak power so a single meter is used.

From what EV607797 has in the original post, the off-peak power is for the whole installation, not just hot water-is this correct?

I'm getting letters regularly in the mail from the power utility offering to switch to peak/off peak billing. I assumed they were talking about time-of-day.

Dave

speaking of off rate many POCO want to do that way so they can keep their exsting system long as they can.

sure i get some type of flyer both regular snail mail and email formats but my home and shop i can qualify it but i turn down i make a moot point is that my load demand is not very high to point where i have to switch it over.

Merci , Marc

The buzz over on rec.home.repair is about a California idea for a thermostat controlled by the utility. In peak loads they turn the heat down (or A/C up)



Geeze, isn't it bad enough having my wife tell me how hot or cold I can set the thermostat!

Is somebody pulling my leg?


Yes. Just like dye in the pull stations (FA) when you were ten.

From what I was told, it consists of a single meter in a typical all-electric residence in Canada. Basically, the metering is all or nothing.

We tried the separate meter plan in the US for the water heater, citing that hot water was a necessity while heat was a luxury back in the 1950's and 60's. I don't know if that was a government thing or just a POCO idea. Virginia and North Carolina are full of older services where a separate meter socket was provided for the water heater. All of those installations that I have seen are bypassed now and have blank covers in place of the second meter. The only signs of that logic nowadays are remote control devices on water heaters that were installed in the 1980's. Honestly, I am not sure that these programs are still in place. I can tell you that many of these remote control units fail and we have to bypass them to restore service to the water heater. Nobody ever says a word.

They still use seperate meter plans around here for all electric houses. (IE boiler ripped out and heat pump and water heater installed.)

Trailer park is that way too, phasing out oil and gas for two-meter electric houses, not as many connections for the park goons to make.

Ian A.

Most off-peak schemes use a time base. The idea is to get demand smoothed by offering incentives for consumers to run stuff in low-demand periods by a price reduction. This is supposed to reduce generation plant needed on standby and increase the base load for fuel efficiency. There is no reason why a poco could not use outside temperature to decide when to switch tarifs, but how does that smoothe the base load or incentivise the customer? Sure increases the bottom-line though, or am I getting cynical?!

The only other tarif switch-method I know of is that in France it is possible, if you consume enough, [ say with electric central heating ], to go onto a 100% off-peak tarif 24/7! The catch is, 15 days in the year you pay an astronomic figure - about a dollar per kwh. This is supposed to allow EDF to shut down hydro-electric and other plant for maintenance. I thought "Wizard idea! I'll just bugger off back to the UK on holiday in the peak period!"
No such luck! You only get 24 hours notice of a peak period and it's in single days, so you can't plan ahead!

That's similar to a plan over here Alan for industrial. Our Company is billed by either A,B or C Tariff. C is very cheap per KwH, B is twice C rate and A is 25 times C rate. They have a Winter period and Summer period, but are only allowed to bill us for 26 days per year. You have to call or view(internet) the next days tariff, after 12 o'clock the day before.

HECO in Hawaii (and maybe others?) offers reduced electric rates for customers with standby generators if they agree to go on generator if/when demand or casualties puts the grid into a brownout situation. Honestly, it's win-win for the customers because if the grid is browning out, we'd all be going on generator anyhow...

Our house is on the "time of use" plan here in Phoenix. For the most part it costs me more. For people with normal working hours the on peak periods are guess when? When you're getting ready for work or when you're getting home. Right now the winter on peak hours are 5-9 am and 5-9 pm.Weekends and holidays are all off peak. So just when you want a hot shower, morning coffee, warm morning house, make dinner, do laundry it's all on-peak and you pay a higher rate and a demand charge. It's a lousy idea unless you work from home or work odd shifts. I try to do what I can by turning down the T-stat and the W.Heater is on a timer, but that savings is more than offset by the penalties. It was easy to get on the plan... now I have to try to get off of it!

Cheaper off-peak electricity tariffs have been used in the U.K. for decades for water heating and for space storage heating. For anyone who has missed previous discussions about storage heaters, they are usually individual heating units in each main room which have one or more elements set inside large thermal bricks, so that the bricks can be "charged" with heat at night and release that heat gradually during the day, often controlled by simple thermostatic dampers. (Some large, centralized storage heat units with forced ducted air around the house were also installed in the 1960s/early 1970s.)

One of the original schemes had a completely separate meter to record the cheap rate usage, with a timeclock-controlled contactor which turned on power to a separate distribution panel at night. It was commonly referred to as the "white meter tariff," because the second off-peak meter was in a white casing to identify it instead of the usual brown-black. All 24-hour circuits were still charged at the normal rate on the regular meter.

These days though, the general Economy 7 tariff is the norm. There is still a timeclock and contactor to feed power to a separate panel for storage heating, but just a single meter with dual registers. As well as energizing the contactor at the appropriate time the clock also switches the meter to so that all usage during the off-peak hours is charged at the lower rate. It's usually midnight to 7 a.m. in winter, 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. in summer, or thereabouts (hence "Economy 7" -- 7 hours cheap rate each night).

We have some more options now which aren't quite so common, such as Economy 10. This gives the usual 7 hours per night cheap rate but also provides 3 hours afternoon boost for heating at an intermediate rate.

Also, in place of the conventional timeclock some systems now have remote radioteleswitch systems which change rates (and close the off-peak contactor) in response to signals from the PoCo.