Hi all,
I recently got one of those electric bills that makes you rethink electricity usage in the house. It wasn’t terrible but high enough to make me look into ways to save some money. My local utility offers a program called Dynamic Peak Pricing where the kwh rate varies by time and day so that nights and weekends are basically a quarter of the rate of peak pricing 3pm-7pm m-f and half of 7am-3pm and 7pm-11pm.
The general idea is to shift usage to off-peak hours. So running appliances and a/c at night for a fraction of what it costs in the afternoon. Blast the a/c at night to cool the house down and not have it run between 3-7pm, for instance. Easy to do with a thermostat schedule.
The only caution is that rates are high during peak hours and there’s a critical peak period that can happen 14 times a year where they jam the rate up my ass for 4-6 hours aka 95 cents per kwh. Yes, almost a dollar.
I already have led lights and a newer a/c and high efficiency appliances. I’m only seeing the positives here and I want to sign up. Has anyone done anything like this? Are there any gotchas that I’m not considering?
Edit- location is Michigan. Company is DTE. Here’s a link to the program- https://newlook.dteenergy.com/wps/wcm/connect/dte-web/home/service-request/residential/pricing/rate-options
July 12, 2021 at 12:31PM
