How to lower your electric bill and NOT get arrested!

I spent most of the day working with the power company to get our bill down after receiving our latest invoice for $686.32. For all of you that don't know there are several options available to customers (at least in my area). If you qualify as low income you may be eligible for the CARE or FERA programs, which respectively offer a 20% discount on all tiers or a 30% discount on all usage over tier 3. If you have a really high bill for one month and don't know how you're going to pay it you may be eligible for a one time assistance rebate of up to $100 (once per year). There is also the LPP (level pay plan) which averages your usage over the last 12 months so that higher bills during one part of the year are evened out with lower bills during another part of the year. Be careful of the LPP though, you can end up with an ENORMOUS bill at the end of the year without even knowing it. Every month you pay your average monthly rate and the excess amount of your bill is added up. At the end of the year you either get a credit (unlikely in all of our cases) or a bill for the excess amount (this can be problematic if you don't keep track of things and is VERY likely to happen if you run high wattage equipment). There are also different domestic service rate plans available in my area. My power company offers 2 different TOU (time of use) plans depending on how much power you use. With a TOU plan instead of being billed for usage on a tiered structure you are billed by on or off peak usage. In my case peak hours are from 10AM to 6PM and the cost is $.30/kWh (kilowatt hour). Off peak usage costs $.15/kWh. You can see how this could come in useful if you don't use much energy during the day and your lights are on at night. In my area tier 3 power costs $.25/kWh and tier 4 costs $.28/kWh (OUCH!!!) Basically, the more power you use the higher up into the tiers you climb. I was able to get us enrolled in the CARE program for a 20% discount, am getting an assistance voucher (just for this month) for $100 and am considering the TOU rate plan as opposed to the tiered structure I'm paying on right now. I'm sure lots of us on this site are paying way more than we need to just by having not looked in to all of the options available to us. Check your power company's web site to see what kind of programs are available in your area. DON'T STEAL POWER and ALWAYS PAY YOUR BILL!!!!!!! As long as they get their money it doesn't seem to be a problem how big your bill is. They just want to get paid. They'd rather all of us 1000w owning gardeners continue to pay our bills on time as opposed to putting us in jail and not getting a dime. Also remember that whenever discussing your amazingly high energy usage with the power company you run several web/data/storage server racks and high BTU air conditioners to keep them cool and have your fridge turned down all the way and your roommate sleeps with his TV on ALL THE TIME! Plenty of people have very large power bills that have nothing to do with growing. Just be safe!

Thanks occg for that great info . I hear my areas electric charges are going up 22% starting this month, maybe other places as well. My bill is not nearly as high as yours however I greatly appreciate the fantastic info you provided, and may consider the CARE or FERA programs for myself.

Thanks again, and be well.

$600 how many lights/watts do you have?

$686 was more of aEDIT up on our part than anything else. 1x 1000w MH, 1x 1300w (11000BTU) air conditioner and the rest of the house (another 1500w A/C left running too much, the fridge running too cold, 1x file server, 1x render server, 2x workstations, etc... and electric EVERYTHING (stoves, heaters, water heater, etc). The big problem is the way the tiers work in my area. Rates start at about $.05 for tier 1, $.085 for tier 2, $.15 for tier 3 (where we fall without the garden), $.25 for tier 4 and $.28 for tier 5 (where we fall WITH the garden). We don't run the big A/C at all anymore, the fridge is turned WAAAAYYYYY down (runs less) and we're on an 18 hour light cycle right now instead of last month's 24hr. With the 18 hour cycle we save 180kWh/month on the light and about 200kWh/month on the air conditioner in the garden. The plants seem to like it better too. Fewer low humidity days, not as much heat stress from running the light during the day, etc. So, just by switching from 24hrs veg to 18hrs we save close to 400kWh/month which in tier 5 adds up to about $100/month. This, plus the other changes we've made should put us in a lower tier as well which will save more money.

jeffca said:

$600 how many lights/watts do you have?

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I only see those kind of bills during the winter when I have 50,000 Christmas lights up And i'm runnin 2 1k's

I feel your pain. I see bills like that regularly in the summer. Where I live you need to run the ac in the garden and the house. Most of my power is used in the house though. There are always so many electronics running. Big tv's really use a lot of power, at least mine does. My garden doesn't even use half of the power my house does. There always seems to be somebody home burning juice.

Wow is taht a big bill and here ive been worried about my place using $120 worth of the stuff every month, but since changing out all the incandesants to cfls and the fluros to HIDs we have only noticed a 15 buck increase in our bill

I wouldn't stress it bro, I was paying around $140/mo without the garden, just for the rest of the house. Like I said, I've rarely seen problems arise unless you don't pay the bills. Damn the man!