Calgary energy consumption up during Earth hour

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by brownstown24

AWARENESS is the key with these types of campaigns!

If you're telling people that wasting is bad, you've done your part?

[habernac]

My Dad doesn't get that I was looking into getting a hybrid vehicle not only for the $ savings. I actually want air quality to get better. Not idling when you stop at lights is a great start I think.

[Flame On]

Not surprised with the usual nay-saying on this here. I find it funny though, that a few posters on here think they know better than the thousands (millions perhaps) people in other cities (much bigger and significant ones i might add) who were able to bring down their consumption in their respective cities.
Realistic and attainable? How hard was it to sit with the game on for an hour by itself? Hell I had the game and the fireplace on it was great!
To me the overall project was; again, a great success whether the center of oil & gas in Canada took part or not.

[Ford Prefect]

Originally Posted by fotze

I agree. I think gas is too cheap but I also have a vested interest in it. Plus the bills are chalk filled with amounts that are unrelated to the amount of gas used with fees and what-not. I think it should all be boiled down to a price per amount used, then jack that that price up. Same with garbage, $/kg thrown out. If you have 20 of your closest family members in your house you should pay more than your neighbor (unless you somehow do not use as much stuff).

Behaviours are not changing because the incremental cost of waste is not significant to most people. I still drive to 7/11 that is 5 blocks away.

This is what burns my butt. The last time I checked out my electrical bill, the consumption portion of it was less than half of the charge. The rest was mostly delivery fees, plus other administrative crap. The delivery fee goes toward building and maintaining the transmission lines, which means the customers are paying the bill for the infrastructure used to deliver the electricity. That's a pretty good gig for the electrical industry ... we've paying most of their overhead.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by Flame On

Not surprised with the usual nay-saying on this here. I find it funny though, that a few posters on here think they know better than the thousands (millions perhaps) people in other cities (much bigger and significant ones i might add) who were able to bring down their consumption in their respective cities.
Realistic and attainable? How hard was it to sit with the game on for an hour by itself? Hell I had the game and the fireplace on it was great!
To me the overall project was; again, a great success whether the center of oil & gas in Canada took part or not.

Doesn't using the fireplace (presumably natural gas fired) defeat the purpose of turning off the lights?

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by Ford Prefect

This is what burns my butt. The last time I checked out my electrical bill, the consumption portion of it was less than half of the charge. The rest was mostly delivery fees, plus other administrative crap. The delivery fee goes toward building and maintaining the transmission lines, which means the customers are paying the bill for the infrastructure used to deliver the electricity. That's a pretty good gig for the electrical industry ... we've paying most of their overhead.

You pay overhead for anything you buy, why should utilities be any different? Hell if companies didn't charge you for their overhead, no one would make any profit.

[Flame On]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

Doesn't using the fireplace (presumably natural gas fired) defeat the purpose of turning off the lights?

Not if was likely to have been on anyway, which it was in my case.
The idea wasn't to turn off all energy and water and gas and dishwasher and blah blah blah of every sort of foot print. Just lights alone.
Ironically if you're into this for money or conservation or however, you're likely to have had CFT bulbs, as I do in most of my house. Meaning that my contribution would have been less significant that someone who had all traditional bulbs! What can you do?

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by fotze

I think natural gas would be better than wood though, more efficient, less particulate released.

NG is the cleanest burning hydrocarbon. Its better to burn that than other fuels for sure.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

There was a commercial on this weekend with The Hated Suzuki and he tells some guy that he's going to save 150 bucks a year if he turns off his beer fridge and the guy starts running around the house turning everything off. 150 bucks? Come on. If you want a beer fridge in the garage, saving 150 bucks over the course of the year doesn't mean squat. Probably wouldn't even notice on your bill, but you'd notice that you have to go into the house everytime you want a beer, so the fridge gets plugged back in.

That comercial had such potential, then it turned into such a Message!

What they should have done was have Suzuki unplug that old fridge and replace it with a small beer fridge. Then explain that the small fridge uses $100 less worth of electricity per year, and after a year the fridge is paid for, then in the second year he starts earning beer money.

Show me that without sacrificing anything (like buddy who never had more than a 6 pack of beer in the fridge) I can make changes. The one comercial where they show him replacing bulbs with CFLs is a start. Have another one with programable thermostats; showing how it costs you $70 to start but saves you $20 per month over the winter. Then have another comercial showing the proper use of the thermostat; ie the rule of not turning it down further than 1 degree for every 2 hours you will be away. (Meaning if you are away for 8 hours; turning it down by more than 4 degrees becomes wasteful again.)

[Ford Prefect]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

You pay overhead for anything you buy, why should utilities be any different? Hell if companies didn't charge you for their overhead, no one would make any profit.

Ya, okay, so overhead was the wrong word. The other word i used, infrastructure, would be more accurate. We pay for the actual cost of building and maintaining their transmission lines, which you'll never convince me is right. It would be like paying a trucker for the purchase cost of his truck and trailer so he can deliver freight to me, and still charging for delivering the freight too boot. If you think that's a fair system you can have it. By the way, I've got an idea for a new service you might like ... but you have to give me the money to start the company first.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Ford Prefect

Ya, okay, so overhead was the wrong word. The other word i used, infrastructure, would be more accurate. We pay for the actual cost of building and maintaining their transmission lines, which you'll never convince me is right. It would be like paying a trucker for the purchase cost of his truck and trailer so he can deliver freight to me, and still charging for delivering the freight too boot. If you think that's a fair system you can have it. By the way, I've got an idea for a new service you might like ... but you have to give me the money to start the company first.

The trucker still does that.. He just rolls the cost of his truck into the overall cost to ship. The only difference is the power company is transparent in listing that cost/fee on your bill.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

The trucker still does that.. He just rolls the cost of his truck into the overall cost to ship. The only difference is the power company is transparent in listing that cost/fee on your bill.

Not only that but whenever the power company wants to charge more for anything they have to apply to the government to increase the charges and they can only do this so many times a year. They make a regulated rate of return whereas the trucker example can just charge whatever he wants whenever he wants for whatever reason.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by Ford Prefect

Ya, okay, so overhead was the wrong word. The other word i used, infrastructure, would be more accurate. We pay for the actual cost of building and maintaining their transmission lines, which you'll never convince me is right. It would be like paying a trucker for the purchase cost of his truck and trailer so he can deliver freight to me, and still charging for delivering the freight too boot. If you think that's a fair system you can have it. By the way, I've got an idea for a new service you might like ... but you have to give me the money to start the company first.

Burn_this_city, just made the point I was about to make, but I'd like to reinforce it.

Building the transmission lines is part of the cost of marketing the gas, just about every product you buy has a capital component built into it, you just don't see it.

Why on earth should the utility companies not pass this cost along to you? You want the gas but you don't think you should pay for them to put the transmission lines in? How else is it going to get to your house?

If I live out in the country and I want electricty I've got to pay to have the lines put in, and the company charges me for that capital on my bill untill other people come along, and then it gets split out to them too, that's just the way the world works man.

[4X4]

I think that the problem Ford Prefect is getting at (or at least my agreement with his original beef, but worded this way) is that the fees are static and then usage is on top of that. So why do I pay the same base fees on my Enmax bill for my small apartment as my sister pays for her 2 story house?

If it was more linear it would be an easier pill to swallow. I think the idea is not so much griping about transparency, more about having a minimum charge and then a usage fee over and above that. IMO, it should all be part of the unit price. Like gasoline. I don't have to pay an $8 'delivery charge, plus a multitude of other fees just to pull up at the pump. I pay for what I take, and the taxes and costs and fees are all in the price PER LITER.

[4X4]

As for HHH's (absolutely brilliant) idea of a detailed usage meter, I want one right now. I want to know if I'm getting raped by leaving my desktop on 24/7. Or how much it's costing me to to arbitrarily leave the kitchen light on just because I like it on.

A computer screen mounted in the hall by the thermostat with all the outlets listed, showing how much power is being sucked and a dollar figure beside it? Maybe a bit futuristic, but like I said, I want one.

[metallicat]

Edmonton was down 1% according to Global News. Calgary up 1%.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by 4X4

I think that the problem Ford Prefect is getting at (or at least my agreement with his original beef, but worded this way) is that the fees are static and then usage is on top of that. So why do I pay the same base fees on my Enmax bill for my small apartment as my sister pays for her 2 story house?

If it was more linear it would be an easier pill to swallow. I think the idea is not so much griping about transparency, more about having a minimum charge and then a usage fee over and above that. IMO, it should all be part of the unit price. Like gasoline. I don't have to pay an $8 'delivery charge, plus a multitude of other fees just to pull up at the pump. I pay for what I take, and the taxes and costs and fees are all in the price PER LITER.

The infrastructure is static, so your fee is static.

Much different than trucking company (whichdelivers gasoline).

If gasonline was piped to your house, I would expect a static fee. If you bought power by having batteries trucked in to you, not static.

[Azure]

A better idea would be to show the actual money 'saved'.....when you have your power off.

[Wookie]

Originally Posted by oilers_fan

Edmonton was down 1% according to Global News. Calgary up 1%.

From what?

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

The infrastructure is static, so your fee is static.

I have yet to have the same charge two months in a row for the fees you refer to as "static."

Actually 4x4 accidentally brought up a good reason for those fees:

Originally Posted by 4X4

So why do I pay the same base fees on my Enmax bill for my small apartment as my sister pays for her 2 story house?

My answer is that is costs the same to run the lines to a house from the power plant as it does to run to your apartment. However I wish the prices were based more on cost per unit; a single line item. Gasoline does it, takeout pizza companies do it, etc.

On my latest Enmax bill I paid about 9.15¢ per KW/h. But once you add in all the fees the actual cost works out to closer to 14.83¢ per KW/h. Why does it matter? Well, back on topic of the thread..... if I cut my electricity usage by 25% under the current system I would save $12.37. If we charged based on the 14.83¢ pricing my savings would be closer to $20- a little more significant. In fact, I would be willing to pay a little more per KW/h to be able to have full control over my useage and costs.

Once again it comes down to a matter of making it easy for the average Joe to find ways to cut back. If he sees one line item, he knows how he can reduce it. If his bill has 12 other fees besides electricity usage, he says fata it and just pays the bill.

And for those of you who want to know how much juice you are using at any given time, it'll cost you $25. Canadian Tire Link