TexasCHLforum.com

chamberc wrote: ↑Mon Feb 22, 2021 2:27 pm

FrogFan wrote: ↑Wed Feb 17, 2021 10:02 am I'm curious: If you have Griddy, does Oncor (or its equivalent) still have the option to cut your power, even though you're willing to pay spot prices for power? I ask this as a Direct Energy (and Oncor) customer who has been without power for over 50 hours and counting.

Yes, who generates your power has nothing to do with when you're provided power.

That's what I thought. There has been a lot of chatter, here and elsewhere, about which provider people had and the implication that some were more reliable than others in providing (delivering) it. We consumers have no control over delivery reliability; e.g., we can't pay more for better reliability, even if we wanted to. Stated differently, even if we elect to pay extremely high prices on the spot market for power, there is no guarantee that Oncor (or whoever) can deliver it, or indeed is allowed to deliver it (by ERCOT). Seems like a major point of failure.

I went without power for 75 hours straight. I see here that others were out even longer than that. Something needs to change.

I'm curious: If you have Griddy, does Oncor (or its equivalent) still have the option to cut your power, even though you're willing to pay spot prices for power? I ask this as a Direct Energy (and Oncor) customer who has been without power for over 50 hours and counting.

My December electricity was 8.1 cents per KWh all in. Of that 2.4 was electricity, delivery was 4.5 cents the rest was fees and taxes. Apparently delivery and fees and taxes can vary depending on where you live. But yes 9 cents all in for three years is a great deal.

I'm in the Oncor "TDU". The published delivery charge right now is $3.42 per month fixed plus $0.035448 per kwh.

I just paid a visit to powertochoose.org and many of the low rates I saw just last week aren't available anymore. There was a rate out there last week with Cirro of $0.022 per kwh (independent of usage), which translated to an "all in" rate of $3.42 plus $0.057 per kwh per month. I can't change plans without a penalty until June, so I'm just going to have to wait until then and see what's available.

the rate I previously quoted of 11.9 cents per KWh was the all in rate including all taxes and fees averaged over the entire year. Most of the time except in the afternoon the cost for the electricity by it self is like 1 to 2 cents a KWh.

The rates on powertochoose are "all in". In the past, many companies had complicated rate structures with fixed charges imposed for usage over or under certain "trigger" use amounts (in kwh). This year, those complicated structures are largely gone. The rate is the rate, regardless of how much power you use and when you use it.

I'm getting about 9 cents a kilowatt/hr from Discount Power (TX) on a three year contract.

That's a really good rate on a 3-year contract. I'll check to see if it's available here in my area (DFW). It's going to be hard to resist those 6 cent rates though, as long as they're available. I'd like to derive some "benefit" from the oil price slide, with all due respect to those here who work in the oil business.

My two year contract with Reliant is up for renewal in June. I currently pay just about 9 cents per kwh. If I renew, the rate goes to 12.5 cents. Meanwhile, a check of powertochoose.org reveals many plans available for just about 6 cents per kwh if you're willing to accept a 3 month contract. The cheapest 1 year contract comes with a rate of around 8-9 cents.

My approach will be to enroll in short term plans as long as those low rates are available. I suspect these cheap rates are related to the price of oil, and I understand why the power companies won't offer them for longer terms.

I've always found that powertochoose.org provides accurate information about electric rates. It's the rates themselves that are complicated. They tend to be piecewise linear in usage. In other words, fundamentally, the amount you pay per kwh depends on how many kwhs you use, and, depending on the plan, when you use them; i.e., days, weekends, evenings, etc. It would be very simple if all the electricity providers were compelled to offer you the same price per kwh regardless of how much you use, but they aren't, so they don't. I'm reminded of the old Braniff Airlines ads where Wilfred Brimley would remind us that "every seat on the plane has the same low fare". We all know what happened to Braniff. They went bankrupt, because, among other things, it's not possible to make money in the airline business by offering every seat for the same fare. It strikes me that something similar happens in the electric power business, but the drivers are probably different.

Anyway, powertochoose.org provides you with a cost per kwh for three different usage levels: 500, 1000, and 2000 kwhs. If your usage is equal to any of those, then you know what you'll pay per kwh. If it's not, then you don't. It would be nice if powertochoose provided a tool that allowed you to calculate rates per kwh for any usage level for any provider, but it's easy to see, I think, why that would be impractical. The site does, however, provide you with the details you need to calculate that rate yourself. I've done it in the context of an Excel (actual an OpenOffice Calc) spreadsheet. When it's time for me to choose a electric power plan, I gather my past usage per month from SmartMeter and apply the rates offered on powertochoose as modeled in my spreadsheet to those rates. I now have average usage per month going back more than five years, so I can forecast my usage each month pretty accurately. It's then straightforward to choose the best plan for me, given my usage. I've never been surprised by a bill being different from what I expected.

Except for the wintertime, I use a lot of power, close to 5000 kwhs for a couple months in the summer. I have a pool and a 20-year old two-story house which is not as well insulated as modern houses are. The best plan for me is very different from that of a neighbor who uses far less power.

I wouldn't want the government to go back and legislate rates, and that's, in effect, what would happen if providers were compelled to offer power for the same price per kwh, regardless of usage. In light of this, I don't know how powertochoose.org could be made any simpler to use. Of course, YMMV.