Save Money on Electricity — Get to Know Your Time-of-Use Electricity Pricing Details

This is probably a matter that goes under the radar for most people, and it offers potentially huge financial savings for many of them.

Most of us get our electricity bill every month, pay it, and try to forget about it. Or we have autopay set up and don’t hardly think about it, beyond balking at high bills as the price of electricity and electricity usage go up.

However, if we learn about our utility’s time-of-use electricity pricing, there’s a lot of money on the table. And who doesn’t want more money?

The short and sweet of it is that electricity can cost vastly different amounts depending on the time of day or night. Electricity can cost several times more during periods of high electricity demand than during periods of low demand. Learn those times, plan your electricity usage around them where possible, and pocket the savings! (Disclosure: Not all utilities use time-of-use pricing. Also, for some of them, you have to choose which electricity plan you are on, some with time-of-use pricing and some without it.)

In my utility district here in Florida, this is how pricing varies:

• $0.23/kWh on-peak (2:00 PM to 6:00 PM from April to October, 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM from November to March)
• $0.07/kWh super off-peak (12:00 AM to 6:00 AM)
• $0.09/kWh off-peak (all other hours)

For some things, it really doesn’t work to shift our electricity usage. My wife and kids have to get ready in the morning for work and school, and that can involve using the stove, microwave, toaster/toaster oven, and coffeemaker. However, there are electricity-sucking activities that can be done during off-peak or even super off-peak hours (by the way, I do love that there’s a “super off-peak” time in there).

Charging our electric car is a big one. We could plug in when getting home in the afternoon and let the car charge then, but that would lead to much higher electricity bills, as that’s the time of the highest electricity demand. Instead, I have the car scheduled to start charging at 12:15 AM, when electricity is cheapest. I DO plug in when getting home, but the car waits until 12:15 to start sucking in electricity. (In my case, I used Tesla’s internal scheduling system, but it’s also possible to using a smart EV charger’s scheduling system to do this.)

We can also make sure to run the washing machine and dryer during off-peak times. And for the dishwasher, I typically start it after midnight, and now that I’m thinking about this, I’ll make sure to do so! It’s also easy to make sure to shower after 6:00 PM rather than showering early.

This is outside the norm, but since we have Bluetti battery backup systems in case of power outages from hurricanes, it hit me that I could use a big battery to charge computers and phones throughout the day, and then recharge the big battery overnight every couple of days or so. Does it make a huge difference? Probably not. But working throughout the day every day, it must add up to something significant.

Regarding charging our electric car, I used this calculator to compare $0.07/kWh super off-peak charging with $0.23/kWh on-peak charging across 10,000 miles (which is approximately what we drive in a year). The calculator tells me that I’d spend $177 a year charging at the $0.07/kWh super off-peak time, and $583 a year charging at the $0.23/kWh on-peak time. Wowza! That’s $404 in savings and requires no extra effort at all beyond setting the daily charging time to 12:15 AM.

If I drove the US average, ~15,000 miles a year, the totals would be $266 and $875, respectively, meaning $609 in savings! Multiply that by 10 years and that’s $6,090.

Of course, charging and using electricity off-peak helps to keep the air cleaner and the climate stabler, since the utility doesn’t need to turn on dirty, polluting gas peaker plants to handle excess electricity demand during high-demand times. So, not only are you saving money, but you’re also helping the planet and our combined public health.

Feature image courtesy of Pacific Power