Are PECO special rates going away?

[dafreerider]

I live in Southeastern PA. PECO is my utility company. Heat pump owners get special (lower) electric rates from October to May. These rates help to make owning a heat pump worthwhile. I've heard through the grapewine that those special rates for heat pump owners may go away soon (next couple of years). Since I am in the process of selecting a new system, that information can play a major role in selecting the officiency of the heat pump (more efficient unit will payback much sooner).

Does anyone have any information regarding the expiration of those special PECO rates? Does anyone sit on PECO Board and willing to give us heads up? If you do not know, where should I go to get this kind of prospective information?

Thank you!

[beenthere]

PECO wants to try some new things for billing.
You might want to read up on at their website.
You can also send them an email through theircontact link, and ask them.

http://www.exeloncorp.com/ourcompani...and_prices.htm

[Jopopsy]

Just an aside here, but I just got off the phone w/ PPL this AM b/c I am considering a heat pump install as well. While my rates are lower then PECO, PPL does not have a special rate schedule for folks heating w/ electric.

[beenthere]

No they don't.
Did they tell you about the rate hike thats coming. I think in 2010.

[Jopopsy]

No they don't.
Did they tell you about the rate hike thats coming. I think in 2010.

Thanks for the heads up.

Found it:
http://www.pplelectric.com/NR/rdonly...ember_2006.pdf

Great. Now I have to add 30% to the calculations done for my Heat Pump estimate. Still cheaper then Propane though (I think).

[beenthere]

It will be.
Gas, and oil are going to continue to go up also.

[heatpumpguru]

Having a good friend on the PECO board,he said that the RH rate is not going away.They are looking for a 20% increase in 2010. You can go up from 6 cents with RH or 15 cents a KW .I have not sold many a/c unit in my area which is PECO country and made up an EASY cheat sheet to get the rate with going through ALL the problems. Everyone said it was easy to do,without the backdoor way GOOD LUCK!!!Can we get a shot at your job??

[flange]

One of the reasons that housing has been grown so quickly in SE pa is the adoption of the heatpump. This allowed the builders to build without waiting for infrastructure with natuaral gas, or with the perceived odor of oil in new homes. Although these systems were technically inferior for the climate, people jumped at the chance to buy new homes, specifically in Bucks and Mont counties. The rate adjustment helped to justifiy the heatpump for this climate, and doubtfully will go away. There are just too many customers with this rate structure. This allows for smoother operations of the generating stations, as opposed to going into seasonal lag caused by not running condensers for air conditioning. If all those heatpumps stopped running, they might have to take power plants offline, and this is more costly than your lowered rate. But since you are here anyway, there are some fine contractors on this site, how about giving one or two of them a shot at your work?

[Jopopsy]

One of the reasons that housing has been grown so quickly in SE pa is the adoption of the heatpump. This allowed the builders to build without waiting for infrastructure with natuaral gas, or with the perceived odor of oil in new homes. Although these systems were technically inferior for the climate, people jumped at the chance to buy new homes, specifically in Bucks and Mont counties. The rate adjustment helped to justifiy the heatpump for this climate, and doubtfully will go away. There are just too many customers with this rate structure. This allows for smoother operations of the generating stations, as opposed to going into seasonal lag caused by not running condensers for air conditioning. If all those heatpumps stopped running, they might have to take power plants offline, and this is more costly than your lowered rate. But since you are here anyway, there are some fine contractors on this site, how about giving one or two of them a shot at your work?

If I were building the house myself I most certainly would give any number of you guys a shot at this. However the builder has his HVAC guy so I have to play by his rules.

On the other hand, when I need a Aprilaire humidifier installed or something like that done - you bet I'm coming here first.

[heatpumpguru]

If you want a LOCAL person I live near LONGWOOD Gardens.Since we cannot do the work at least I can make sure you get a QUALITY job. I have BAILED out a few people on site already.You can get me via my site.

[rk911]

The rates will go up from what I hear
..

[RandomNick]

Does anyone have any information regarding the expiration of those special PECO rates? Does anyone sit on PECO Board and willing to give us heads up? If you do not know, where should I go to get this kind of prospective information?

I did come across this:
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/busin...nt_ending.html

However, I haven't spent time digging via google, PECO's site, etc. Here is another link while I have it handy:

http://www.peco.com/pecores/energy_r...etocompare.htm

[jerrod6]

I've been thinking about switching to dual fuel HP/gas backup and have looked at the price to compare chart. I went to the PECO web site and see that they have a new rate filling effective November 30, 2010 before we have even gotten to 2010 or switched suppliers. What is this? Extra money for Christmas?

The rate for regular service increased to .0919 up from the current .0698 in the winter
Heating service went to .0937 for the first 600 kwh then .0495 for amounts over 600.

Since the newspaper ariticle mentioned that the Heating service rate will no longer exist after 2010-2011 heating season It might be wise to just base your calcuations on the regualr rate. Is 9 cents high for electric heat pump rates?

Also consider that there is the variable distribution charge in addition to the energy/transmission charge that everyone will pay to PECO energy regardless of what company you buy your electricity from. The variable distribution charge is applied per Kwh so the more you use the more you pay. The charge looks about the same as is now: .0520 in the winter. In the summer it is .0520 up to 500kwh then .0596 for every kwh you use over 500.

[Jack2007]

Heating customers won't lose their special rate this winter. The discount will be cut by half during the 2011-12 heating season, however, and by the end of 2012, it will disappear altogether.
Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/busin...tml?page=1&c=y

Well, Obama did say under his administration electric rates will "skyrocket".

This reminds me of the 70's when oil prices went through the roof and PECO asked everyone to "conserve" energy. Well, everyone conserved so much energy that PECO said they HAD TO RAISE RATES to make their ends meet.

Since PECO has everybody by the short hairs, I guess we can call this "legal robbery".
.

[pstu]

Well, Obama did say under his administration electric rates will "skyrocket".

This reminds me of the 70's when oil prices went through the roof and PECO asked everyone to "conserve" energy. Well, everyone conserved so much energy that PECO said they HAD TO RAISE RATES to make their ends meet.

Since PECO has everybody by the short hairs, I guess we can call this "legal robbery".
.

People always say that about a regulated monopoly. Didn't all kinds of energy prices rise through the roof in the 1970's, oil gas AND electricity? Construction costs rose immensely too, making plant construction a nightmare. I think that nuclear plane PECO was constructing was more of a direct cause of rake hikes. The only utilities that escaped that kind of grief were ones which relied almost completely on coal... the kind of coal plants built w/o emission controls which were cheap to build, cheap to run, and produced enough pollution to actually kill a statistically measurable number of people.

Regards -- Pstu

[jerrod6]

People always say that about a regulated monopoly. Didn't all kinds of energy prices rise through the roof in the 1970's, oil gas AND electricity? Construction costs rose immensely too, making plant construction a nightmare. I think that nuclear plane PECO was constructing was more of a direct cause of rake hikes. The only utilities that escaped that kind of grief were ones which relied almost completely on coal... the kind of coal plants built w/o emission controls which were cheap to build, cheap to run, and produced enough pollution to actually kill a statistically measurable number of people.

Regards -- Pstu

You have a point. I was around during the time our 2 nuclear plants were constructed in the 1980’s. Up until then our rates were steady each year but as soon as Plant 1 began construction we faced rate increases every June. PECO wanted a large increase all at once, which the utility commission denied so then our rates increased every year in June. After the first reactor was constructed PECO decided to construct a second one. We were told it would keep prices down. Another 5 or 6 years of rate increases every June until that plant was constructed.

Because PECO could not get the full rate increase at once, the public utility allowed them to recoup the cash they otherwise would have gotten. This recoup was done by applying an unrecoverable rate factor to each bill. This factor was multiplied against the total Kilowatt hours and then the resulting figure was added to the bill. So this is how PECO came to have the highest rates in Pennsylvania. We do the same thing everyone else does – turn lights on, run AC, run heaters, dryers, we just pay more to do it.

Several years ago PECO customers were allowed to choose another provider for electric generation. This is when our bill was segmented into separate charges for generation, transmission, and distribution. PECO provided the distribution to each house so you paid them for that, while paying the energy provider for electricity, and transmission. I chose among many providers and was able to get electric cheaper than PECO’s prices. In a few years the providers pulled out of the state saying that they could not make a profit because electric regulation. So far we don't have as many residental providers as before. Now the state has passed this new law to deregulate electricity and will also force everyone in the state to have smart meters. I have a semi smart one in that no person has to read it because it transmits a reading to the company every morning - I guess that’s all it can do.

Back to heat pumps. Next heating season the electric heating rate will disappear and the info I see now says that the generation and transmission rate is expected to be 10.16 cents per KWH. Is this too high to run a heat pump?

[pstu]

In Texas where I am electric "deregulation" has proceeded in a similar way. The special rates tend to disappear, just like you are seeing. Do you have natural gas utility service in your area? If so I would tend to believe NG prices will not rise enough to keep it from being better than electric heat pumps. Some people will install both a heat pump and NG furnace, they can run whichever system will do the job and be cheaper to run.

It sure look to me though with all the new NG finds in America, that fuel will be plentiful for a long time, and cheaper than most alternatives. I can see this changing only in the event we make a massive change in NG usage, for example running long distance trucks on it like Boone Pickens wants. However NG prices could double and I think it still would be the heating fuel of choice for most of us.

Best of luck -- Pstu

[jerrod6]

I have NG service and use it to heat the house, hot water, dry clothes and have a gas cooktop/electric oven. I was thinking of replacing the Ac with a heat pump and using the gas furance as backup, however am not sure the price can be justified with the new electric rates coming up.

My NG gas is billed by energy and distribution for each CCF(hundred cubic foot) and the current combined price is $1.59847 per CCF, plus a fixed monthly cost of $12. I have seen comparison calculators mentioned on this site and have been trying to search threads for them, of course when you want it, you can’t find it.

[beenthere]

Were you thinking of something like this.

http://www.hvacopcost.com/

[fixitfast]

If you want a LOCAL person I live near LONGWOOD Gardens.Since we cannot do the work at least I can make sure you get a QUALITY job. I have BAILED out a few people on site already.You can get me via my site.

Small world! So do I. I can almost see their water tower from my house.