Cost per kWh

[EatenByLimestone]

The cabin bill just came in. I used 41kwh. 90% of that is the refrigerator. The bill is for $24.18 after all fees, etc are factored in.

That equals out to .59 per kWh. Does anybody have me beat?

I’ll have to check the house bill when it comes in.

 

[begreen]

Ouch!

 

[EatenByLimestone]

To be fair the reason it’s so high is there’s a basic service charge of $17.33 that doesn’t get spread out very far. Cost per kWh goes down a lot if you spread it out with more usage.

 

[NHWS]

That equals out to .59 per kWh. Does anybody have me beat?

I concede. $0.11 to $0.13 per KWh here. A bit more than $1/therm for NG.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I need to get my bill for the house. Then I can check the prices for this place. Last time I did it, natural gas was 6x cheaper than electricity per btu, but i can’t remember the prices.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Ok, I got to curious and logged into the National Grid website. My house price is:

278 kWh for $64.26 so .23/kWh.
12 therms of gas used for $32.28 so 2.69/Therm.

My basic service charge for the gas is $21.40 including the first 3 therms. As winter comes in and my boiler kicks on, I’ll use more gas and this cost will be spread out farther.

The basic service charge for electric is the same as above.


278 kWh equals 948975 btu. Or .68 per million btu.

12 therms equals 1.2e+6 btu, lol. We’ll see if the calculator accepts this, otherwise I’ll have to figure it out by hand and it’ll take me longer.

Oh, it looks like 1 therm equals 99976.1 btu. I can work with that number!

2.69/99976.1 is .27/million btu.


So gas is still much cheaper than electricity in my area and I expect the price of gas to go down as I use more. I’ll recalculate later on in the year to see how the numbers change.

 

[peakbagger]

My guess is you are on the Marcellus supplied side of the natural gas system, they would much rather sell it you than have to pay the upcharge to turn it into LNG and even if they did turn it into LNG they would need to find a buyer. Lots of expensive LNG capacity has gone online worldwide and the demand is currently lower than it was before. Northern New England cant get to this gas as several pipeline projects have been canceled so folks tied to the Marcelus fields are going to be seeing lower natural gas prices.

Electricity on the other hand in New England is tied with the Regional Greenhouse Gas initiative, which is effectively a carbon tax on fossil fired grid generation, therefore cheap natural gas prices does not necessarily mean low electricity prices as any gas fired generation need to be offset by renewables.

If there was a universal carbon tax on fossil fuels for heating and electric power production, then the prices of natural gas would go up and the price of electricity would stabilize.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

The majority of my electricity comes from natural gas.

It’s still much more expensive per btu than ng. I’m not complaining about the cost. We don’t use much of either, so our bills are much lower than most houses.

 

[Poindexter]

Using 12 (summer) to 25 (winter) kwh per day I am paying about 25 cents per kilowatt hour.

The main winter expense for us is the head bolt heaters on the vehicles parked outdoors, they draw about 1000 watts each, or two kwh per hour when operating. I am using a timer, so the head bolt heaters come on around 0400, my truck has been warming for about 2 hours when I hit the key around 0600. When my wife hits her key around 0800 her vehicle has been warming (battery blanket, head bolt and oil pan heaters) for about 4 hours.

I do not want to know what our electric bill would be if we weren't using a timer on the head bolt heaters. It would be a lot. A decent timer is ~$20. I should probably put my wife's vehicle on its own timer.

 

[Highbeam]

I concede. $0.11 to $0.13 per KWh here. A bit more than $1/therm for NG.

No, that’s just the incremental cost for each kWh. This thread is about total cost. TKe your bill and divide it by kWh consumed.

I have the same power provider, PSE.

 

[NHWS]

No, that’s just the incremental cost for each kWh. This thread is about total cost. TKe your bill and divide it by kWh consumed.

Dividing the total October 12 electric bill (including all fees) by the number of KWh used works out to $0.122 per KWh. Essentially the halfway point between $0.11 to $0.13. The total fees are the "Basic Charge", the "Other Electric Charges and Credits", and the "Energy Exchange Credit". Combined they represent 3.6% of the total cost of electricity for the 29 days.

That said, I used a lot more KWh per month than @EatenByLimestone's cabin, so the "Basic Charge" is amortized over more KWh.

 

[Prometeo]

seeing these prices, one might think that firewood is more expensive, I made a comparison these days, if I burn 30 kg of wood in a day, is approximately equivalent to a 9000 btu air conditioner running 24 hours, considering green wood 15 euros, every 100 kg and dry about 25 consequently and electric cost kw 0.3 euros.
Sure fire is beautiful, but not cheap.
Of course, if you look for the cost of kW of wood, there may be conflicting values but in practice... It is also true that at very low temperatures, air conditioner does nothing almost

 

[NHWS]

seeing these prices, one might think that firewood is more expensive, I made a comparison these days, if I burn 30 kg of wood in a day, is approximately equivalent to a 9000 btu air conditioner running 24 hours, considering green wood 15 euros, every 100 kg and dry about 25 consequently and electric cost kw 0.3 euros.
Sure fire is beautiful, but not cheap.
Of course, if you look for the cost of kW of wood, there may be conflicting values but in practice... It is also true that at very low temperatures, air conditioner does nothing almost

Would you have a stove if you didn't have a wood source?

I'm fortunate that I have my own wooded property and the equipment to harvest and process my firewood. I don't think I'd bother with it if it wasn't easily available to me. I would keep my stove and burn it like people burn a fireplace just for looks but not for a primary heat source.

www.hearth.com

Electricity is relatively inexpensive in western Washington state. There are sources of firewood with no upfront cost, but you pay more for it in the search and in sweat. Personally I don't count the sweat much - it's a good excuse to get outside and get some exercise. The search can be frustrating, though.

Not sure if I would have installed a stove if I had to pay retail prices for firewood. It's good to have heat when utilities go out in a storm, or when the furnace breaks and it takes months to get it repaired, but there are other options.