Energy and other costs

[snousle]

I've been keeping a very close watch on energy use lately. PG+E has a sharply progressive price structure, so while our first kilowatt-hour we buy each month costs only 11 cents, the last one costs 30 cents. That's really quite a bit. Most of what we use is in this 30-cent tier.

Yesterday was a very hot day, and we used 55 KWH of electricity, about $16 worth. That's with five refrigeration units - an undercounter fridge and wine cooler in the residential kitchen, and a commercial fridge, chest freezer, and ice machine in the commercial kitchen. We also made modest use of the air conditioner, which uses 6 KW and therefore costs about $2/hr when it's blowing. So this is not quite the worst case scenario, but it's close.

Averaging over the past three months (in which one month we didn't have the commercial kitchen installed) and projecting forward has us using about 9200 KWH per year. This is just a bit over the average use of a Sacramento customer in 1999 (PDF document) but as much as 50% more than people using other utility companies. This number had initially freaked me out a bit - that's a steady kilowatt, on average - but if we have all this commercial stuff running and still come in somewhere near the average, that's actually doing pretty well.

Today, I turned off the ice machine and put the ice in the chest freezer, which is nearly empty. It's been running almost all the time, so I'm suspecting it's a major energy hog.

My current estimate for our principal fixed costs looks like this:

Propane: $1500 (maybe less with a wood stove)
Electricty: $2500
Gasoline: $5000 (2 cars, 2 motorcycles, 3 people, ~30000 miles/yr total)
Registration, insurance, maintenance: $5000
Road association fees: $2000
Grocery: $8000 (includes wine and liquor)
Property taxes: $7000
Mortgage: $0 (yeah, I like this number a lot!)

A doubling of current energy prices would make things a bit tight. I'd been worried about how this would affect us living up a mountain and all, but in fact the cost of getting up and down the hill has more to do with road and vehicle maintenance than with gas - cars don't last as long here as they do in the city. The American lifestyle really uses a LOT of power, and in the long term there are a lot of ways to cut back, but in the short term it isn't so easy to do.

The one cost that really galls me is cooling the wine collection. We don't have a proper cellar yet, and while I hate to see it sitting at 80 degrees, I also hate forking out ten dollars a day to keep it at 70. Ideally it should be at 60 but that's just not possible right now. Guess we better start drinking!

Comments

[winstonthriller.livejournal.com]

We pay between 12 and 13 cents per kilowatt hour through Green Mountain Power. There's a yearly adjustment up or down depending on a couple of factors (profits, HydroQuebec adjustments, and some other things).

The big, big axe over our heads (and most everyone else here) is the price of home heating oil. It has almost doubled since we moved here. Our co-op says that it may be over 5.35$ a gallon this winter, and that they cannot guarantee supply. So, they're giving no- and low-interest loans for more winterizing and for pellet/woodstove installation.

This is not going to be a good winter...

[danibearess.livejournal.com]

.
re the wine, dig a hole, get a high/low thermometer, if the temp at bottom of the hole goes above your required temp, dig deeper. Four or five feet down should get you somewhere near 52 degrees Fahrenheit.

[sskroeder.livejournal.com]

Regarding the chest freezer, remember this old advice: A freezer works best when full - this especially apply to chest freezers...

The more you fill the freezer, the less power it will use to keep goods frozen, since frozen items preserve the cold temperature better than the air that occupies the empty space...

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Wind? Solar?

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Got a spare $70K to get me set up? Solar is sorta cost-effective if you amortize it over 30 years and you took advantage of the state subsidy (which has since expired). Wind is almost certainly more expensive than that. Best bet right now might be a supplemental propane generator, but I have enough projects already!

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Well - It is possible to build your own wind turbines for much less than it would cost to buy them.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I don't need to do any calculations to be pretty sure that this is a hobby, rather than a cost-saving measure, for those of us on the grid. To be clear, I'm really not that interested in being "green" or "off grid" just now. I'm interested in controlling expenses!

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Fine; I was just thinking if there were a relatively inexpensive way to get even an average output of 250W - that's a quarter of your average power draw right there. Maybe better than that in terms of money if that pushes you down out of the top ¢/kwh tier. I certainly wasn't thinking whole-hog "off the grid."

Obviously, reducing demand is the immediate way to reduce cost. That spring water we drank much of at QBT seemed to be pretty cold (when it hadn't been heated up by the sun beating on the hose); I have to wonder if there's some clever (cost effective) way to take advantage of that for summer cooling, even if it only reduces how much you wind up running your A/C.

[fingertrouble.livejournal.com]

ground water heating/cooling? Passing water through underground pipes can help cool it, could that be used as a cooling system?

And as going green, it's not really about that now, it's more peak oil/oil and gas wars are going to make all carbon based energy expensive as people scrabble for the last bits (maybe not coal), the green is the bonus. If you can afford solar/wind go for it, cos it's going to get worse.

And free energy? Nice price!

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

You could run it through a swamp cooler. I've often wished we had a well to feed ours here. Ours is only effective up to 100 degrees with city water. After that the inherent high humidity produces an unpleasant 'steaming' effect. If you were to turn on the AC then, the AC would have to dehumidify the house before actual cooling could be felt.

Creating coolth

[bikrcowboy.livejournal.com]

What's the temperature of your spring water (when it reaches the house)? Perhaps you could immerse a chest that could hold and cool the wine bottles without wetting the labels.

A swamp cooler is a very good way to go in hot arid climates. It would be great for your kitchen, as it provides 100% fresh air. It might push kitchen odors into the house, unless there were a relief vent. Even though AC is not your largest expense, every little bit helps.

A chilled water cooling system is possible, but a huge project to installb (piping coils in the concrete floor slab), and nearly impossible as a retrofit.

Since the spring runs constantly, you could discharge spring water on the roof, which would cool the whole place.

If you have attic space, you MUST install a whole house fan. We put one in this year, and what a difference! When outside is cooler than inside, we run the fan, evening & early morning. It sucks room air into the attic (which must have adequate vents to relieve the increased pressure), in turn drawing outside air into the house thru open windows. The cooler attic makes a huge difference and the room ventilation is awesome. $175 for the fan, then a $100 PGE rebate.

Re: Creating coolth

[snousle.livejournal.com]

There is, at present, not enough spring water for cooling purposes, and it's hard to get it down from the spring without it warming to about 80 degrees.

We do have a swamp cooler for the commercial kitchen, which provides replacement air for the vent hood. In retrospect I would probably have used it for the whole house.