I am surprised no one is discussing the new
Electricity Rate Selection options. I don't know what others think, but it seems to me that they are priced such that for most people, the
Tiered rates option would be cheaper than the
Time-of-use rates option. The only exceptions I can think of are:
- Those who always leave their home empty during the day (work away from home and have no kids), and
- Those who charge an EV at home (and drive it a decent amount each day)
This seems silly as surely they want to make TOU rates cheaper for the average person and only make Tiered the better option for those in exceptional circumstances.
Ever since the TOU plan came into effect, I have tried to shift my use to off peak. Surprisingly, when I did an analysis of what the new rates would have cost (had they been options) using my historical data since May 2018, I found that for me, Tired would have been slightly cheaper every month until I bought my EV in late June 2019. It wasn't cheaper by very much (only an average of $1.71 a month) but I was surprised it was cheaper at all.
After I bought my EV and started charging at home overnight, TOU became the cheaper option every month up until COVID hit, but only by an average of $7.61 a month. This surprised me as I thought with charging an EV off-peak would have made TOU a significantly cheaper option.
Doing the analysis after COVID was more difficult, as Hydro Ottawa lists all electricity used as Off-Peak, so I had to download the hourly usage and split it up On-, Mid- and Off-peak and then sum the monthly usage back up again. Since I wasn't driving as much, it went back to Tiered being the cheaper option most months (though there were 2 months that I did drive more, so for those TOU was cheaper).
In the end, for me it is so close that it probably doesn't matter which I choose, but I did find my results surprising.
I also find it frustrating that Hydro Ottawa isn't providing any good tools (that I know of) to help people do this analysis, especially with the limitations of how electricity was billed since March 2020.