Xcel Smart Monitor (Denver: flat fee, home, calculation)

[sjanew80]

For those of you in the Denver area who got one of Xcel's "smart monitors" placed on their home meter. Did your bill go up at all? I am starting to hear from some people that their bills have almost doubled?!! We have so far avoided getting one due to our dogs being in our backyard (not purposefully) and I am wondering if I should leave my dogs outside purposefully so they don't add it to our home...

[cowboyxjon]

Do you mean the smart meter that they use to measure usage for their Time of Use plan?

If you don’t want to be on the Time of Use plan, you can opt out, although then I believe there is then a flat fee applied to every bill in addition to your usage.

I’m on Time of Use and for me, it’s been slightly cheaper as the majority of my energy usage happens during off peak hours although I haven’t been on Time of Use for a full year yet.

[davebarnes]

We have a smart meter.
We chose to stay with traditional rates.
Our bill is almost identical to our neighbor’s (who is ToD). Both at 16¢/kWhr.

[himain]

I've heard if you have solar you won't be getting one as they haven't figured out a way to integrate it yet. Anyone else heard this?

[cowboyxjon]

Originally Posted by himain

I've heard if you have solar you won't be getting one as they haven't figured out a way to integrate it yet. Anyone else heard this?

I have solar and I’m on Time of Use and it works in the respect that they can properly measure and account for solar production during each Time of Use tier (off-peak/mid-peak/peak). However they’ve been having problems with automatically reading my meter lately, where they have to send someone out to manually download the information from it in order to bill me.

I’ve got a friend who recently had a solar system installed on his roof and Xcel gave him a ‘regular’ Net Meter, and he’s not on Time of Use. They didn’t give him a choice about whether or not to be on Time of Use; he’s just not on it.

[kevin_in_Denver]

The Time of Use (TOU) rates are supposed to incentivize electrical usage during periods of less demand.

However, they have not made the monetary incentive large enough (only $0.025/kwh) to help the average homeowner* I would currently recommend EVERY ratepayer to opt out until the rate schedule is tweaked enough to provide a real incentive.

Theoretically, one could install a Tesla Powerwall (which is a battery and software) and it could pay for itself and save enough money to make it worthwhile. In some states and countries this is true, but not for Xcel in Colorado.

Elon Musk has said that this portion of Tesla's business could eventually be larger than their car business.

I'm looking for some detailed calculations or an interactive spreadsheet that can help ratepayers make informed decisions.

*Off peak is $0.10/kwh but the opt-out flat rate is $0.125/kwh so even if you tried really hard you could only save pennies per day. (Off peak is between 7pm on Mondays until 1pm on Tuesday, then 7pm Tues. to 1pm Weds., etc.)

By the way, Xcel and PSCO has been trying off peak rates since the 1970s and have NEVER had a successful program. Digital smart meters should make it easier but we just can't expect a monopoly to make logical decisions. It goes back to their "no profit" operating policies.

RE: Solar not having smart meters. Yes, that's correct. Additionally, the rate schedule for solar customers does not incentivize solar nearly enough.

[davebarnes]

We stayed on the old electric rate plan after the installation of the new smart meter.
We live in a duplex.
Our neighbors went with ToD pricing. They had 3/4 of their use in off-peak.
We each used about 500 kWh of electricity last month.
We paid 16.0¢/kWh and they paid 14.7¢.

[kevin_in_Denver]

Dave, thanks for the hard data.

Back to the OP's question:

Let them install it because it gathers useful information for the ratepayer, but opt out of the TOU rate, and your bill should not change.

I didn't see an online method to opt out

If you choose to opt-out of TOU, call Xcel Energy customer service at 800-895-4999 and ask to be placed on the flat rate.

Keep an eye on things, because this will be another failed rate plan, and they will change it again.

[sjanew80]

Originally Posted by kevin_in_Denver

Dave, thanks for the hard data.

Back to the OP's question:

Let them install it because it gathers useful information for the ratepayer, but opt out of the TOU rate, and your bill should not change.

I didn't see an online method to opt out

If you choose to opt-out of TOU, call Xcel Energy customer service at 800-895-4999 and ask to be placed on the flat rate.

Keep an eye on things, because this will be another failed rate plan, and they will change it again.

Thank you! Yes, I agree that this is only temporary. Everything is already too expensive, I didn't want/need to add yet another expense.

[himain]

Excel came out yesterday to install the new meter and couldn't due to me having solar. Said they needed a different kind of meter