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Comment by dymk | Hacker News Reader

I'm in the PNW and I pay 11c/kWh (well, I would, if I didn't have solar). Seattle is 13c, King County averages 16c. Where are you paying 5c/kWh? That's exceptionally cheap.

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Seattle is nearer 14c (13.75) and likely to increase over the next decade (because of nonsense like[1]).

[1]: This alone will increase costs by something like 4c/kWh from these 70 year old dams: https://www.king5.com/article/news/investigations/skagit-riv...

Seattle now has variable rate. I pull most of my power at night, when it's 8c/kWh.

Nice. I had heard they were planning this, but last time I looked into it, they hadn't rolled it out yet. You have some kind of home battery?

Honestly my biggest draw is charging my car, so I scheduled that. I do have a 3kWh LFP battery I have as an emergency supply, and since it's in my office anyway I charge my laptop off it, and schedule the wall plug it's on. I scheduled the AC to move the house temp up or down at night. On especially hot or cold days I'm sure I'll use it more at other times. :)

Doesn’t picking the variable rate plan mean your day time costs are priced higher? It does where I am. It’s 10c/kWh on the regular plan but on variable it’s 14c during the day and 7c off hours.

Yes. 13.4c flat rate; 16.1c peak, 8.1c trough on the variable rate plan (Seattle).

https://www.seattle.gov/city-light/residential-services/bill...

And the time periods are: https://www.seattle.gov/images/Departments/CityLight/Residen...

So you're paying a marginally higher rate almost all day on variable-rate, but substantially higher 5-9pm. The math pencils if you have a home battery you can use to load-shift, or perhaps drive an EV a lot.

(Also: this structure is clearly designed around summer cooling load, but peak load is actually winter heating. I don't know what SCL is thinking.)

When do you think winter energy is at peak load?

~6am.

The morning and evening peak loads are about the same. But in the morning, hydro generation is higher, because the Skagit dams hold back water overnight and spin up for morning peak. Evening peak is when there isn't that excess generation available.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't PG&E charge one rate for the first ?? kwh and then more for the rest? Perhaps OP made a mistake of using the base rate (which you will blow past if you have too many computers or AC)

They do and how they do the price tranches has changed a lot in the last 5 years. It used to be 4 tranches, 10, 20, 30 and 40. It was very hard to get into the 20 tranch for a single home (maybe if you were bitcoin mining or something). Now the tranches are multiple times higher and its easier to get into the higher tranches. Look on PG&E's website for the specifics.

Near Vancouver.

Guessing Vancouver WA (just north of Portland OR) not BC (Canada). For those not familiar with the area.

correct

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