Originally Posted By: Shannow
Did the math some years ago for my place...see my Natural Gas thread for why it's no longer viable due to gas prices.
During winter, if I'd run an IC generator on gas, there would be enough low and high grade heat to provide my winter heating and hot water, while offsetting my electricity consumption.
Solar is now under $1,000/KW, so is more likely to attract my money short term.
Currently looking at thermal absorption refrigeration as my mental rabbit hole (google Einstein Fridge, but there's simpler out there), as I'd love waste heat to cool my place.
i saw what they're doing with NG down there, that is insane! we are charged by the cubic meter, the price just spiked from 18.3cents to 20.89 cents/m3, and i thought that was bad. i think that works out to 1.7cents/MJ, so still a deal, relatively.
but we're currently paying 155cent/L for regular petrol (and are trying to pipe alberta crude to the usa and to the coasts- destination china). selling right out seems to be the norm for the commonwealth, innit? 3.6c/MJ for gas would almost be a human rights violation in the frozen wasteland we live in.
electricity: we not only pay for the KWH consumed in a 3-rate pricing structure, but there are a set of standard fees that must be paid, regardless of consumption. the same with the gas bill too. if one of those services could be nixed, we wouldn't have to pay these arbitrary fixed charges.
eg. our gas bill for march 20 - apr 17 is $135.96. of that, we've consumed $46.57 worth of gas.
the rest must be paid, even if we use no gas at all:
Originally Posted By: Enbridge extraneous charges
"Customer Charge" - $20 (great, we have to pay for just being a customer)
"Delivery to you" - $23.40 (because doing virtually nothing to physically move the gas costs each customer that much)
"Transportation to Enbridge" - $15.34 (a second delivery charge)
"Gas supply charge" - $46.57 (actual fuel cost)
and finally
Cost adjustment - $8.92 ????
that's no better than the electricity, though. while it's "relatively" cheap per KWh, still carries fixed charges and is priced according to time of use.
Originally Posted By: Toronto hydro bill, last year 12/19/2012-2/20/2013 a bi-monthly bill period
total bill: $187.79
old rates (they've gone up since);
* 11.8 ¢/kWh Highest Price (On-peak)
* 9.9 ¢/kWh Mid Price (Mid-peak)
* 6.3 ¢/kWh Lowest Price (Off-peak) after 7pm
Real Power consumption - $95.49
Delivery -
$72.89
Regulatory - $8.20
Debt retirement charge - $8.21 (not bc we paid late last month, THES charges everyone this fee-- it's
their own debt
we are absorbing!)
so for electricity, we consumed at that time, at those rates $95.49 worth of juice at a tiered pricing structure.
surely subscribing to these two services, regardless of consumption is an extortionist affair. i'd love to cut one completely off if possible, but having not run all the numbers,
am not sure if it could be economical for us.
in your case, in sunny Australia solar just seems to make the best sense, perhaps even solar water heating. here, every day it seems is overcast. it just seems impossible for a day to go by with clear skies from morning to night- if it starts off clear, it almost certainly gets overcast by days end...................
so how about that absorption refrigeration idea? got any plans