House electricity bills sky high

[Alpaca]

A few years ago I looked onto our electricity consumption. Found we had an inline vent heater in our air make up unit. Our HVAC system is on for 20 min every 60 minutes and the air brought in from out side had this electric heater t warm up the outside air. It is a 220V electric heater which uses alot of electricity. Ours was set to heat the make up air to about 20C, I had the choice to turn it down or turn the breaker off, after talking to the manufacturer we turned it off. Made quite a difference.

[taffeyb]

IKEA sells LED's starting at $4 a pop for a single bulb. I bought a few to try them out.

It's a pretty solid deal. I'm going to switch out my pot lights with these.

If you are with Enmax, are you on Easymax? How much are you paying? I was on a "good" 5 year deal at 8 cents/KWH, but I switched to the float rate which is about 1/2 of that right now. With the Sheppard plant on the verge of turning on, 8 cent is high for the next little while. You are always allowed to switch plans.

[Regular_John]

Originally Posted by T@T

Sometimes I wonder about enmax, a few years ago I had 5 straight months of crazy high bills, I complained and even asked them to check my meter (they said it would cost me $200.00 for a service call if nothing was found wrong )

Funny, after that the high bills stopped!

Me to, I had the opposite experience a few years ago, I had 2-3 months of 0kwh on my bill. Like literally zero electricity use. I called Enmax up each time and said "yeah we definitely used electricity this month, something's wrong here"

Took about 3 calls and me insisting they come look at the meter to have it replaced. They just didn't seem overly concerned about it.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by jaydorn

Me to, I had the opposite experience a few years ago, I had 2-3 months of 0kwh on my bill. Like literally zero electricity use. I called Enmax up each time and said "yeah we definitely used electricity this month, something's wrong here"

Took about 3 calls and me insisting they come look at the meter to have it replaced. They just didn't seem overly concerned about it.

I wouldn't mind living with free electricity.

[Calgary14]

Best Buy sells a plug that allows you to control (on/off) the device/appliance from your phone. It also monitors energy usage. I'd be curious to see how much some power of the standard appliances are actually using.

http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/...467f47196een02

FWIW I checked our last enmax bill and electricity usage was 427 kwh. We have a 3 year old home, 2000 sq feet, 3 bed 2 bath, pretty standard layout with no fancy appliances. We are pretty conscious of turning off lights when not in use but nothing too crazy.

I have family in Surrey BC and they mentioned police monitor energy usage of residential homes as a way of detecting grow ops there (which it sounds like is fairly common). I'm sure they do the same thing here. Of course that doesnt work if the grow op is stealing electricity from another source.

[killer_carlson]

A tip I got on here a few years back with a similar issue was to change the furnace filters monthly, and to get the furnaces cleaned. For the cost of a furnace cleaning (~$250) it was well worth it and did help.

We have an old, old drafty house, but that did make a difference.

[trackercowe]

Do a breaker test

[#22]

Just looking @ my last Enmax bill, and it looks like I'm in the 750 KW range (Dec-Jan, so Xmas lights etc). What I have a question about are all the additional charges. Distribution charge, Transmission charge, Rate riders, Local Acces fee. Are these rates a percentage of the usage charges or are they flat rates? Total usage charges are $55.11, total Electrical bill is $115.65. If these are all flat rates, then if I could reduce my usage by 50% (just as an example), I would only save 24% on my bill.

[DoubleK]

The Utilities Consumer Advocate has a great deal of information on what the other charges are.

At a high level, the distribution and transmission charges are fees paid to support the infrastructure that moves electricity around the province. Those charges are regulated by the Alberta Utilities Commission.

[Red]

Originally Posted by #22

Just looking @ my last Enmax bill, and it looks like I'm in the 750 KW range (Dec-Jan, so Xmas lights etc). What I have a question about are all the additional charges. Distribution charge, Transmission charge, Rate riders, Local Acces fee. Are these rates a percentage of the usage charges or are they flat rates? Total usage charges are $55.11, total Electrical bill is $115.65. If these are all flat rates, then if I could reduce my usage by 50% (just as an example), I would only save 24% on my bill.

These are what we call Alberta Advantage fees. We don't question them, just smile, pay and keep repeating Alberta Advantage, Alberta Advantage.....

[Fobby]

Originally Posted by Red

These are what we call Alberta Advantage fees. We don't question them, just smile, pay and keep repeating Alberta Advantage, Alberta Advantage.....

Lol at your Alberta advantage fee comment.

Because you don't need transmission lines and distribution to get the electricity into your home. they don't need to maintain them either. Run under the line falls down right?

And what do you guys do when the powers out? Its always the utilities fault.

[Red]

Originally Posted by Fobby

Lol at your Alberta advantage fee comment.

Because you don't need transmission lines and distribution to get the electricity into your home. they don't need to maintain them either. Run under the line falls down right?

And what do you guys do when the powers out? Its always the utilities fault.

Some of us are old enough to know what de-regulation did to our energy prices along with these extra fees. Sometimes I wish I were young and oblivious, I'd probably be ok with everything I was being told.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/12...n_4441519.html

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Fobby

Because you don't need transmission lines and distribution to get the electricity into your home. they don't need to maintain them either. Run under the line falls down right?

How about the price for electricity should include everything required to get it to your house? Very few other things that we buy get broken down to that point. When I buy a loaf of bread, there is delivery, farming, and retail store costs included in that $2.

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by T@T

Sometimes I wonder about enmax, a few years ago I had 5 straight months of crazy high bills, I complained and even asked them to check my meter (they said it would cost me $200.00 for a service call if nothing was found wrong )

Funny, after that the high bills stopped!

edited

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by #22

Just looking @ my last Enmax bill, and it looks like I'm in the 750 KW range (Dec-Jan, so Xmas lights etc). What I have a question about are all the additional charges. Distribution charge, Transmission charge, Rate riders, Local Acces fee. Are these rates a percentage of the usage charges or are they flat rates? Total usage charges are $55.11, total Electrical bill is $115.65. If these are all flat rates, then if I could reduce my usage by 50% (just as an example), I would only save 24% on my bill.

Welcome to utilities. Problem is they have to cover costs of infrastructure/delivery to everyone, regardless of what you use (a big upfront and ongoing cost) and if they just put all of those into one rate per GJ or kWh, it would likely double it, and people with low usage wouldn't be covering the own cost of their services, so high users would be subsidizing their usage.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Welcome to utilities. Problem is they have to cover costs of infrastructure/delivery to everyone, regardless of what you use (a big upfront and ongoing cost) and if they just put all of those into one rate per GJ or kWh, it would likely double it, and people with low usage wouldn't be covering the own cost of their services, so high users would be subsidizing their usage.

Increasing the variable costs of power would give people more of an incentive to conserve, which is probably a good thing. Plus, it would lower demand for new (expensive!) transmission projects, which we all pay for.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Increasing the variable costs of power would give people more of an incentive to conserve, which is probably a good thing. Plus, it would lower demand for new (expensive!) transmission projects, which we all pay for.

You would need a very strong price signal to accomplish this, which would be very hard on low/fixed income families.

[ken0042]

How so? If a typical house uses 1000 kw/h per month, and their electricity bill comes to $200, just charge 20¢ per kw/h instead of the current 8¢ plus a whole bunch of extra fees.

That way a low income earner could significantly reduce their bill by conserving. That could also end up being the tipping point for many people to look at solar options. (Myself included.) I'd be quite eager to spend the $5-10K on a solar setup if I knew I could reduce my bills by a good $100-150 per month. Also at that point I'd be putting power in the Calgary grid during peak times, reducing the need for the long distance transmission lines. (Assuming thousands of households followed suit.)

[DoubleK]

The electricity delivery charges aren't consumption based.

If you believe solar has the ability to satisfy your household's electricity demand and provide surplus power back to the grid, I'd like to see what you are reading. In reality, it won't even keep your beer fridge running.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

The electricity delivery charges aren't consumption based.

If you believe solar has the ability to satisfy your household's electricity demand and provide surplus power back to the grid, I'd like to see what you are reading. In reality, it won't even keep your beer fridge running.

Surplus Power during peak times. That not hard. Solar panels are rediculously cheap these days.