[ale] Monitoring Total Household Electricity Consumption

[Greg Clifton]

Thanks for the responses, I'll take a look at those links after dinner.

My understanding is that GP has converted every customer in the state to a
smart meter. Mine was upgraded some years ago.

More data on my situation, I'm total electric with 200 amp service (main
breaker external to the house beside the meter box with 4 breakers tied
together with a bar through the toggles) and 2 circuit breaker panels,
supporting 3 heat pumps, Water Heater, Range and Dryer each on its own 240v
circuit. I have programmable thermostats, but don't use the emergency heat
strips unless it's really an emergency (getting close tonight ;-). Since I
am not always home I cannot slip out and take a reading and "catch" the
peak. I'll need an automatic logger, first to see what my peak usage is
(since GP says they can't tell me) and to keep GP honest.

As an aside, I am very impressed with how well the heat pumps function.
They are Goodman units and have been chugging along for a bit over 10 years
now with very few service calls. When external temps are above about 40
degrees F, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a gas
furnace and the heat pump by the temperature of the air at the registers.
Anything above that and the heat output is way more than adequate. However,
below about 37 degrees outside and there isn't much heat to scavenge and
below 30 degrees, forget about it! So I set my thermostats to super heat
the house while warm out during the day and coast through the night.

Jim, the rate is $6.53/kw for peak usage for a 30 minute period each month.
The rate is fixed, but the usage can vary, supposedly to encourage you to
level your personal load on the grid.  Sort of a supplemental base rate in
addition to the $10 monthly base charge and associated junk fees/taxes. The
rest of your bill for the month is at only 0.9754 cents/Kw off peak and
9.6052 cents/Kw peak ( 2p-7p, June-Sept). So potentially, one COULD save
money on this rate plan, it would seem, but you are married to the rate
plan for 12 months once you say "I do..." So I figured I should try to
determine my peak usage before I commit.

On Tue, Feb 9, 2016 at 6:18 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:

> That s sounds like the minimum bill will be for 30 minutes at their peak
> rate no mater your usage.
> On Feb 9, 2016 4:23 PM, "Greg Clifton" <gccfof5 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> GA Power has several rate plans available these days. The newest they are
>> promoting is the so called "Smart Usage" rate plan. The off peak rates are
>> even cheaper than the plug in electric vehicle plan, but the gotcha is that
>> they charge $6.53/kWh for the peak 30 minutes of consumption  each month,
>> both peak (June-Sept) and off peak.
>>
>> The GA Power web site allows me to monitor daily usage, but does not
>> provide the 30 minute granularity necessary to calculate if this rate would
>> save or cost me $. Which prompted this email to see if anybody on the list
>> has a suggestion of an affordable device or Rpi project that could log my
>> power consumption on a minute by minute basis.
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Greg Clifton
>>
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