Know your electric bill (Part 1)

A discussion about saving electricity and money can not begin until we understand how we are charged for electricity. This week’s blog will provide an explanation of your kWh’s (kilowatt hours) and current electric costs.

Your bill is in direct relationship with the amount of electricity you use each month. When you look at your monthly bill you’ll notice not only the cost of the bill but the # of kWh’s that you’ve used.

Where do those kWh come from? A standard 100 Watt bulb uses 100 Watts of electricity an hour. 10 of these bulbs would use 1000 Watt hour or 1 kiloWatt in one hour.

I know you’re thinking, “Aaron, that was simple”. If your electric bill is handy I reference it in this next section.

The utility company, providers of your electricity since power lines were built, decided to bill you more for the more electricity you use. That’s right, the more electricity you use the higher the rate that you pay, per Watt.

Rates are confusing, explaining your electric bill would take page after page of explanation. As mentioned above the more you use the more you pay, and utility companies bill on tiers, 1 being the first tier and the least expensive and 5 is the most expensive. As an example:

Bill tier: Price per kWh $:
1 0.13
2 0.15
3 0.23
4 0.24
5 0.26

As you can see tier’s 1 & 2 are $0.02 apart and tier’s 2 & 3 are $0.08 apart, an incredible increase in cost.

If you’re looking at an electric bill you will notice on page 2 of your SDG&E bill there are different charges at different costs. These prices per tier do not accurately reflect your entire bill due to the additional charges which are also directly related to your electric bill.

Now the tricky part is finding out how many Watts fit into each tier. Depending on where you live you’re given a different amount of kilowatts for tier 1. This is because a home on the coast without A/C will use less electricity than the same sized home in the desert.

At the beginning of your billing cycles you’re usage is 0 and as your kilowatts add up your bill increases. If you’ve been paying attention, you’d of realized it would be best to use electricity within the first 2 tiers. Of course that sounds good but when we look at the amount of kW given per tier we realize this is difficult to accomplish.

Next week we will discuss the percentages per tier and how conservation, energy efficiency and solar electricity can provide you with an attractive return-on-investment and the power to help save your environment.