Texas Utility Offers Nighttime Special: Free Electricity

[Megalith]

Wind farms are responsible for this cool perk that many Texans get to enjoy at night.

…Texas has more wind power than any other state, accounting for roughly 10 percent of the state’s generation. Alone among the 48 contiguous states, Texas runs its own electricity grid that barely connects to the rest of the country, so the abundance of nightly wind power generated here must be consumed here.

 

[punisher]

TXU and I think a few more utilities have the free night time electricity deal going on. If your house is occupied during the day, like mine, then it isn't such a great deal due to AC demand during the late morning/afternoon. Elon Musk and his home battery systems would be popular here.

 

[Dan_D]

TXU and I think a few more utilities have the free night time electricity deal going on. If your house is occupied during the day, like mine, then it isn't such a great deal due to AC demand during the late morning/afternoon. Elon Musk and his home battery systems would be popular here.

TXU started doing that a couple of years ago or so.

 

[Spire3660]

Tesla and other whole home batteries are going to be huge there!

 

[punisher]

TXU started doing that a couple of years ago or so.

Tried to edit my post saying that, but no go. Thought it would be neat to have a plug in hybrid to take advantage of this deal, but there is/was fine print about usage limits.

 

[Ducman69]

Its really more of a scam, as in most of Texas power usage in the middle of the night when its free is at minimal demand anyway, and those that offer the free nights overcharge during daylight hours.

Most of your power usage in Texas is your air-conditioner, and the nights are reasonably cool and people are generally sleeping by 10PM with lights off, TVs off, computers off, and they aren't doing noisy laundry drying their clothes at midnight or 3AM.

The only smart thing I can think of is if you loaded your dishwasher and drier and had an electric car charger, and you set them all on a timer to run at night. But if you use too much power, they still end up charging you as its not unlimited.

Texas in general has nice cheap power. I'm paying 7.8 cents / kwh, and that's fine as a flat rate.

 

[Dead Parrot]

The 2.3 cents/kwh federal wind tax credit is the prime incentive here. TXU gives the power away to Texans and the rest of the country gets to pay for it.

 

[Freiya]

They also have plans where you can get free elec in 3 hour blocks during the day. It's not only at night.

 

[Ducman69]

Yeah, but again, you have to look, whats the total bill going to be for the average person.

http://www.vaultelectricity.com/tex...-need-to-know-about-the-txu-free-nights-plan/

So that's one with 3-hour blocks, but how much can you get done in those 3-hours, and look at the rate the rest of the time. 14.8 cents is very close to DOUBLE my constant rate, where I don't have to worry about when I'm using power.

And that's not thanks to wind power, that's thanks to Texas having a crapload of coal and natural gas.

 

[Scooter30]

That would be great for me since I'm a night owl. My neighbor not so much.

 

[CanesVenetici]

Its really more of a scam, as in most of Texas power usage in the middle of the night when its free is at minimal demand anyway, and those that offer the free nights overcharge during daylight hours.

Most of your power usage in Texas is your air-conditioner, and the nights are reasonably cool and people are generally sleeping by 10PM with lights off, TVs off, computers off, and they aren't doing noisy laundry drying their clothes at midnight or 3AM.

The only smart thing I can think of is if you loaded your dishwasher and drier and had an electric car charger, and you set them all on a timer to run at night. But if you use too much power, they still end up charging you as its not unlimited.

Texas in general has nice cheap power. I'm paying 7.8 cents / kwh, and that's fine as a flat rate.

That'd work out great for me. My power usage during the day is minimal. I work odd hours so when I am home and using power it is generally at night.
The only downside is I'd have to live in Texas. No offense to any living there, but... no

 

[sfsuphysics]

I would love to see that in California, but then again California has some of the highest rates in the country along with the highest "you're being naughty for 'using too much'" rates in the country. I mean yeah Hawaii is sky high, but throw solar panels on your roof or be less of a wuss and run ceiling fans instead of A/C.

 

[SvenBent]

Its just more price obscurity.. no company is giving away their product for free. but it sure sounds nice

like Ducman69 said. gotta look at the bottom line. not the fancy gimmicks

 

[sfsuphysics]

Its just more price obscurity.. no company is giving away their product for free. but it sure sounds nice

like Ducman69 said. gotta look at the bottom line. not the fancy gimmicks

Oh yeah, they already said a "slightly higher" daytime rate because they're figuring most people will not change their habits and as a result they'll make more money. The local power company did something here when people in really hot areas bitched and moaned that their rates got too high during summer months because of heavy AC usage and the tiered pricing based on usage, so what they did is they lowered the higher tiers and raised rates on the other and I'd be willing to bet more money is coming in for them, sure those high users are not paying more, but the rest of us non-high users sure as hell are.

 

[workshop35]

This would cut your bitcoin mining electricity costs significantly....

 

[HAF72]

Wow, that's pretty cool. Too bad I don't have that here in Texas.

I always thought California had more wind farms than Texas. Shows how ignorant I was.

 

[nutzo]

Texas in general has nice cheap power. I'm paying 7.8 cents / kwh, and that's fine as a flat rate.

Unlike California where we have a tiered rate structure, that starts at 15 cents, then 19, and finally jumps to 28 cents / kwh The tiers are so low, that unless you are living in a small apartment and are gone all day, you will usually hit the 3rd tier. It's especially brutal during the summer when you need to run the air, and end up with a $300+ bill.

Plus they just notified us up another price increase

 

[nutzo]

The only downside is I'd have to live in Texas. No offense to any living there, but... no

And I have the downside of living in California.
Used to be a nice place, but it get worse every year.
The high costs of everything, combined with extreme regulations and social anarchy is making it impossible for the middle class to make a decent living.

Both the wife and I are natives, and the only reason we still live here is because most of our extended family lives near by.

 

[Deleted whining member 223597]

You know what's funny, the tiers start at like 13-15 cents where I live in the Bay Area, but go up to 37 cents. Those tiers are also absolute bullshit, I bet they say my house is comparable to some trashy 1000 sq ft shack on the other side of town when making up those tiers.

The only reason I would stay here is if I get close to a 6 figure salary right out of college, otherwise I'm out in a heartbeat, the weather isn't worth it for me at this point in my life.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

Where are yall getting these costs from, or where do yall live in Texas? I mean good God, I live in Houston and pay 4.3044 cents on a fixed plan, no tiers and I have the option for free nights, free weekends or account credits.

 

[punisher]

Where are yall getting these costs from, or where do yall live in Texas? I mean good God, I live in Houston and pay 4.3044 cents on a fixed plan, no tiers and I have the option for free nights, free weekends or account credits.

Depends. I paid electrical on one of my rental houses while fixing it up. It was an all electric house, no natural gas and I remember it being under 5 cents. At the same time my house was about 8 cents but it has gas heating/water heater/stove.

 

[Skripka]

I would love to see that in California, but then again California has some of the highest rates in the country along with the highest "you're being naughty for 'using too much'" rates in the country. I mean yeah Hawaii is sky high, but throw solar panels on your roof or be less of a wuss and run ceiling fans instead of A/C.

Our country is too much a bunch of wusses to not have A/C. Reminded every year when I go camping in the summer.

 

[Ducman69]

Where are yall getting these costs from, or where do yall live in Texas? I mean good God, I live in Houston and pay 4.3044 cents on a fixed plan, no tiers and I have the option for free nights, free weekends or account credits.

I'm calling BS on that, as 4.3cents/KWH is unrealistically low, so you're probably on a plan that has a low "fixed" rate but a bunch of account maintenance fees and the like. Look at your bill where it shows how much you ACTUALLY paid for electricity that month. Its usually on the bottom right, and is required by law and shows what the real price per KWH was after all fees.

 

[Old_Way]

I'm calling BS on that, as 4.3cents/KWH is unrealistically low, so you're probably on a plan that has a low "fixed" rate but a bunch of account maintenance fees and the like. Look at your bill where it shows how much you ACTUALLY paid for electricity that month. Its usually on the bottom right, and is required by law and shows what the real price per KWH was after all fees.

I suspect you're right. I suspect he's really between 8 and 8.5 cents/ KWH with everything factored in. He's probably looking at just his lowest tier costs without any city fees..... which nobody ever gets under unless they go on a vacation for the whole month and turn everything off while they're gone.

I live in Austin, where the city has a utility monopoly (most of Texas is deregulated), and has slightly higher than average residential rates vs. the rest of the state. Here's our average summer rates direct from the City website (note that winter rates work out around 25% lower than summer rates overall):

Tier 1: 0 – 500 kWh 3.300¢
Tier 2: 501 – 1000 kWh 8.000¢
Tier 3: 1001 – 1500 kWh 9.100¢
Tier 4: 1501 – 2500 kWh 11.000¢
Tier 5: > 2500 kWh 11.400¢
When you add in all the extra fees,1000 kWh of power is really 10.75 cents / KWH

Texas has a few regulatory advantages when it comes to business vs. other states. Politicians like to talk about their pro-business records and what laws they passed, but I think the No. 1 advantage is really the power grid. By the state owning the grid, the US government can't come in and regulate things to nearly the extent they can in other states because our power lines aren't directly using federal funds to be built and we don't import power from other states. With 6 of the 20 largest cities in the country (population), Texas uses/needs a lot of power.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

I'm calling BS on that, as 4.3cents/KWH is unrealistically low, so you're probably on a plan that has a low "fixed" rate but a bunch of account maintenance fees and the like. Look at your bill where it shows how much you ACTUALLY paid for electricity that month. Its usually on the bottom right, and is required by law and shows what the real price per KWH was after all fees.

I know my bill, which is often only $50-60 right now in this weather, going back a few months to when it was hot, my bills are around $80. I also have my main rig, server and backup that run 24/7, AC is never turned off and set to 68, I cook ALLOT (all electric) etc etc. Place is small, at a tad over 1,200Sqft. I have one fee, of $10 as meter and service maintenance, tow other fees, one for meter reading which is 50cents and the other fee I don't recall what it was for, but also around 50cents. Its local to my city, and something I will be missing, as I am moving and will no longer be available to the area I will be in, which pricing things out range around 6-8c for the new area, which is still no where close to the lowest tier of 12-15c some people are talking about.

 

[Commander Suzdal]

I know my bill, which is often only $50-60 right now in this weather, going back a few months to when it was hot, my bills are around $80. I also have my main rig, server and backup that run 24/7, AC is never turned off and set to 68, I cook ALLOT (all electric) etc etc. Place is small, at a tad over 1,200Sqft. I have one fee, of $10 as meter and service maintenance, tow other fees, one for meter reading which is 50cents and the other fee I don't recall what it was for, but also around 50cents. Its local to my city, and something I will be missing, as I am moving and will no longer be available to the area I will be in, which pricing things out range around 6-8c for the new area, which is still no where close to the lowest tier of 12-15c some people are talking about.

Most (maybe all) of the people talking about tiers starting at 15c and going up high from there are talking about California, not Texas.

 

[Quix]

I would love to see that in California, but then again California has some of the highest rates in the country along with the highest "you're being naughty for 'using too much'" rates in the country. I mean yeah Hawaii is sky high, but throw solar panels on your roof or be less of a wuss and run ceiling fans instead of A/C.

That's because half the country moved to California and the state cut infrastructure funding at the same time. Don't expect to see any relief from this until they (inevitably) hike taxes to pay for infrastructure upgrades, in fact it will probably need to be significantly worse before anyone will accept that tax hike.

 

[gunbust3r]

Would be great if you had a gycol chiller AC system, freeze it down at night, cool your building in the day...

 

[nutzo]

I know my bill, which is often only $50-60 right now in this weather, going back a few months to when it was hot, my bills are around $80. I also have my main rig, server and backup that run 24/7, AC is never turned off and set to 68, I cook ALLOT (all electric) etc etc. Place is small, at a tad over 1,200Sqft.

I live in California, and I can only dream about my costs being that low.

I have a larger home (2500 sq ft), but I've done about everything I can to reduce my bill. More insulation, double pane windows, LED and florescent lights, and setting the Air to 78 degrees. Closest I come to a server is my HTPC, but it's very low power, and only drawing 40 watts when it's on, and it's set to go to sleep when not in use, so it's only drawing a few watts most the time. Plus my heater, water heater, dryer and stove are all gas.

Still, my lowest bill this year was around $70. If I had set my air to 68 over the summer, I'd be looking at a $1,000 electric bill.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Tier 1: 0 – 500 kWh 3.300¢
Tier 2: 501 – 1000 kWh 8.000¢
Tier 3: 1001 – 1500 kWh 9.100¢
Tier 4: 1501 – 2500 kWh 11.000¢
Tier 5: > 2500 kWh 11.400¢

Holy crap balls!
Here in NorCal, the rates are more like
0-100% of baseline* 16.7 cents
100-130% 19.8 cents (technically 19.824, they really are going to count down to the thousandth of a cent!)
130-200% 25.2 cents
200+ 32.1 cents

*baselines go all over the place, as NorCal has different climates and as such how much your "allotted" differs, i.e. the "do you have natural gas available for heat?" and "did you decide to live in an oven for the summer months" rates. So here in San Francisco we're allowed 7kWh per day as a baseline for the summer months, someplace like Sacramento is nearly twice that, but even so, when you add everything up for that 32.1 cent final tier, that's still less power usage than your first tier. Needless to say, all the arguments of solar power and how long until it pays itself off really do not apply here if you use power.

 

[sfsuphysics]

That's because half the country moved to California and the state cut infrastructure funding at the same time. Don't expect to see any relief from this until they (inevitably) hike taxes to pay for infrastructure upgrades, in fact it will probably need to be significantly worse before anyone will accept that tax hike.

Always thought there should be a fee (tax) on new home construction or new units opening up to pay for infrastructure. They tried to make solar panels a requirement on new homes, and people complained that it'd add tens of thousands to the cost of homes (which considering the state isn't that much) and it was struck down quite quickly. But yeah, they build pop up suburbs all over the place and sure they have fire, police, schools, and what not, but things like electricity and water aren't magically increasing.

 

[nutzo]

That's because half the country moved to California and the state cut infrastructure funding at the same time. Don't expect to see any relief from this until they (inevitably) hike taxes to pay for infrastructure upgrades, in fact it will probably need to be significantly worse before anyone will accept that tax hike.

Don't count on it. Out here in California tax hikes mainly go to pay for higher government employee pay, pensions, and welfare. The little that is left over, goes to wasteful infrastructure projects like high speed rail and mass transit that nobody uses, or as handouts to politically connected companies.

The Democrats will always choose to support the unions over everything else. They have already cut way back on infrastructure, and they are now cutting back on public safety spending. Just wait until they have to start cutting back on welfare, that's when the state will implode. Hopefully I will have retired to another state by then.

California already has one of the highest income gaps of any state, and it's getting worse. There is a huge divide between the rich costal areas and the inner part of the state. We are starting to look like a grounded version of Elysium.

 

[nutzo]

Always thought there should be a fee (tax) on new home construction or new units opening up to pay for infrastructure. They tried to make solar panels a requirement on new homes, and people complained that it'd add tens of thousands to the cost of homes (which considering the state isn't that much) and it was struck down quite quickly. But yeah, they build pop up suburbs all over the place and sure they have fire, police, schools, and what not, but things like electricity and water aren't magically increasing.

California has been doing this for years. Most new housing complexes have extra taxes added on to pay for everything from the street lights to new schools. This is one of the reason new homes are so expensive out here.

I make decent money, but the only reason we can afford to have a decent home in a nice area is because I bought it 20 years ago when the prices where less than a third of what they are now. I doubt my kids will ever be able to buy a decent home where we now live.

 

[GotNoRice]

California already has one of the highest income gaps of any state, and it's getting worse. There is a huge divide between the rich costal areas and the inner part of the state. We are starting to look like a grounded version of Elysium.

Inland California has a shit ton of farms, one of the largest and most productive agricultural regions in the entire country. Farms require lots of laborers. Farm workers tend to be poor.

The problem, to the extent that there is one, is more about suburban sprawl (from coastal areas) encroaching into former farm areas. The sort of people that these cheaper areas tend to attract turns them into cesspools of crime (see: Stockton, Meth capital of CA & largest city to ever file for bankruptcy prior to Detroit). Farm laborers tend to accept the fact that they are poor, but the suburban sprawlers usually bring their "I'm special" attitude with them, and we all know how that works out when it comes up against the brick wall of real life.

As a bonus, places that used to have a really bad reputation, like Oakland, have become significantly gentrified, and are now great places to live, as the problems packed themselves up and moved away (to places like Stockton).

 

[Old_Way]

Some California voters have an interesting mentality. The environmentalists / conservationists / Hollywood all come out against any new power plant construction project that might help the problem. So, in exchange, about 25% of Cali's power has to be imported from other states.... at significant markups. I figure California residents are subsidizing a lot of power projects in neighboring states. Because a certain amount of power is lost for every mile it has to travel, power plants sending that power have to be built bigger than if they were actually local to California. Its a paradox of causing more pollution just so it's not anywhere near their back yard.

As for Oakland 'gentrification'... Ebonics... enough said!

 

[ugemeistro]

Wind farms are responsible for this cool perk that many Texans get to enjoy at night.

…Texas has more wind power than any other state, accounting for roughly 10 percent of the state’s generation. Alone among the 48 contiguous states, Texas runs its own electricity grid that barely connects to the rest of the country, so the abundance of nightly wind power generated here must be consumed here.

Yup and my monthly bill is now less than a $100 month, because i got my job schedule during the day and i have about 3 hours at home at 11.9 cents/kwh the rest is free...

 

[sliverjazz]

Get a garden of some marine deep cycle batteries to keep you powered for the daylight!

 

[CreepyUncleGoogle]

I'm proud of Texas for finally getting electrical power! It's a step in the right direction. Now all they have to do is develop indoor plumbing and get the population of "native Texans" how to read and write and we'll be like almost caught up with the rest of the nation.

 

[Commander Suzdal]

I'm proud of Texas for finally getting electrical power! It's a step in the right direction. Now all they have to do is develop indoor plumbing and get the population of "native Texans" how to read and write and we'll be like almost caught up with the rest of the nation.

Let me guess--you live in Austin...