TOU

It is currently 12:36am.  Instead of going to bed like I should, (I'll pretend that my apartment is too hot to sleep just for argument's sake), I have just created my online account at Hydro One in order to view my 'Time of Use' electricity usage.

It's interesting.  I'll give it that.  You can view your hydro usage by the hour, day, or month.  It's also all broken out into off-peak, mid-peak, and on-peak times so that you can see exactly when you are burning up energy.

I have these strange peaks in my hydro throughout the day (even when I'm not at home) that I can only contribute to my computer.  Or maybe my freezer - I don't know, maybe it defrosts a lot while I'm at work (maybe it just permanently defrosts... that would explain why my ice cream is always soft.  ...ANYWAY  The point is, through the week I seem to be using more hydro between the hours of 9am-11am than at any other time of the day.  Hot water heater maybe?  Trying to heat up all that water I misplaced while showering?  Or is someone living in my apartment while I'm at work?

I also get these spikes during the weekend.  4 or 5 times during the day my hydro usage just shoots up in a big spike.  I'm assuming its my computer turning on and doing computer-y things.

The BEST part about seeing my hydro usage, (isn't it great that we Canadians have so many words for that juice that keeps our lights on?  'Hydro', 'electricity', 'energy', 'power'....), is that Hydro One has so graciously included calculations of the cost of the energy you're using.  For example, in July, I used $5.29 during on-peak, $9.36 during mid-peak, and $7.95 during off peak.  For a grand total of $22.60.

SO WHY THE HELL WAS MY BILL $59.94?!?!?!

If you're going to charge 'delivery' and 'debt retirement' fees which amount to MORE than the actual energy usage, do us all a favour and build those fees into the price of the electricity!

If I could go off-grid I would.


Edit:
Ok, I know that it's no surprise that we get billed the extra fees like 'delivery' and 'debt retirement'; it's not new.  It just really ticks me off that it makes up 2/3 of my bill and I have no control over it.

This whole Time of Use thing was 'supposed' to allow us to look at our energy use patterns and encourage us to change our habits, thus lowering our energy consumption and costs.  At least, that was the story they've been feeding us.

Last month, according to my smart meter, I burned about $23 worth of electricity.  That's 75 cents a day; 3 cents an hour.  It's pretty much completely impossible for me to lower my energy consumption habits any lower than they already are.  Unless I want to unplug my fridge.  Maybe I should just start flipping my breakers off when I leave for the day...

And no, I don't really think that going off grid is the answer either.  The capital expenses and equipment maintenance costs involved in that make it pretty much out of reach for the average person.  I'm sure there are reasons for that - if there was a mass exodus of people from the grid, there wouldn't be enough customers left on the grid to maintain it.  Hydro costs would either skyrocket, or the whole system would collapse.

Maybe we should be stockpiling candles and kerosene.