All ComEd Customers Should Be Receiving Notices From ComEd, Encouraging Users To Switch To “Hourly Billing”

Supposedly you can then take advantage of cheaper pricing at low demand times of day, rather than be billed a flat rate.

So is it worth it? The answer is it is too soon to tell, but it looks to me like this is going to be up to individuals depending on your own circumstances.

As I told an Owner recently who inquired about this, I got one of these notice as well at my home. There is not really much to go off to be able to make any recommendations or a suggestion of real educated value. At least not yet.

I did check with our Utility Consultants at Prospect Resources. They help the Association make decision about Gas and Electricity purchases, and budgeting year to year.

They said the hourly rates ‘supposedly’ save ComEd customers vs. the standard ComEd fixed price rates assuming you get your electricity from ComEd and not through a 3^rd party provider. They added there is an active component here. You have to be regularly engaged with your electric usage to really benefit. For example plugging an EV or turning on the AC becomes a decision around “is this a good time?”. And then analyzing your usage versus the history of your actual expense.

They have not studied the real impact of this program and said there really is not enough data to make an educated recommendation, partly because at the end of the month you get one price, and it gets really challenging to break it down by the hour without requesting interval data.

What does my gut say??? If you think it is worth the discipline it will take to govern your energy use – enough to make it worthwhile, then it could be worth a try. My bills are about $55-$80/month, so for someone with my schedule, probably not. At about $2/day average or so, I just don’t feel I’d be able to really make an impact worth the effort.

But some homes might.

It is an interesting concept though and we’ll be keeping an eye on it.