| Has anyone ever partipacted in one of these Utility programs? (residential)
| There is a program in Westchester County NY and I would like to know if
| anyone has any experiences with it?
|
We have a similar two tier system in the UK. It ran from midnight
through to 7am and the cost was about 1/3 the normal cost. Offset
against this was the fact that peak charge was slightly more than the
normal peak cost, making it even more important to limit use during
peak times.
We used it for several years and were able to achieve some worth while
savings. Much depends upon your lifestyle and how willing or able you
are to adapt yourself to its time limitations.
We found it just about workable, providing limits were carefully
adhered to. We tended to use lots of time switches, so that things
which could be done during the off peak were done then. Washing
machines, battery charger, water heating, larger infrequently opened
freezers and etc. all set to start when off-peak was available.
You would need to sit down, work out consumption and work out what you
could manage to move to off-peak use, balance this against what you
cannot move, without causing complete chaos. One of those plug in
kilowatt hour meters might prove useful, if they are available in the
US. They can check the overall consumption of appliances one by one
over a sensible period of time.
--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT)...
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