As part of the above project, we finished out insulation in the front third of our attic. We discovered the original builder had shorted in that area. No wonder that front bedroom on the third floor was impossible to head and cool. Now it is like the rest of the house.

When we finished off the bottom of the three levels, which is half sunk into a slope, with southern side exposed with windows, we had the contractor double out the framing, so that instead of four inch there are now eight inch insulated walls on all three exposed or partially exposed sides. That lower level temperature is constant and perfect as a result, requiring very little effort to heat or cool, whatever the season.

We have also made the move to compact fluorescent bulbs in most lamps, including the chandeliers on the main level rooms. We plan to migrate the ceiling inset flood lamps to fluorescent over the next year, except in the hallway stairs to the lower level, where we want the instant brightness of fluorscent (but where the bulb is not left burning).

We have many computers around the house (I am a computing professional, my wife uses them for her profession), we are talking a total four servers and eight desktops and one laptop. Only the servers are allowed to run 24×7, since two are outward facing Internet serving web and mail servers. But we have started the practice of turning our workstations off at night, not even letting them slumber, or forcing them to go into hibernate mode and turn off the monitor after a period of inactivity. Leaving your PCs/Macs running 24×7 without doing this is a tremendous drain on power unnecessarily. Over the past 12 months I also rebuilt most of the PCs and replaced the power supplies with the latest generation more energy efficient (and quiet) power supplies. The newer generation or much better at power management.

All of these steps have added up to tremendous reduction in kilowatt usage in a house that is all electric. We have no gas or oil for any services, period. We have a fireplace and a pile of wood laid in out back in case of winter emergency power failures.

Of course our power bill is only a few dollars shorter each month compared to last year’s, because the utilities have ramped the rates up. But that is another story.

Since solar panels and windmills are not particularly reliable in that they generate only when conditions are right, that means that costs for a particular time of day will probably be different from what they are now. I can see that windmills along the coast will be at peak production during the morning and late afternoon, while in the midwest they would probably be generating at peak capacity during most of the afternoon. Obviously the solar generators will work only during the daytime. Geothermal would not have any particular daily pattern. Tide generation would peak twice a day, and wave generation would vary depending on weather rather than time of day.

As for charging according to the time of day, that seems like a good idea. Here we are charged on a sliding scale depending on the amount we use per month. The first bit costs less per kwh with each level being increasingly more expensive. I believe we have three levels although personally I generally have to pay only the first and occasionally sneak into the second. To charge by the time of day would go a long way to creating more efficient economic conditions for the generation plant.

The bulbs replaced were in our own unit in the 5,000+ square-foot, five-unit frame building we own, live in and manage, which dates from 1885. We pay utility charges for our own five-bedroom triplex as well as for a three-room unit and a studio. Bulbs were not replaced in either of these rented units. We hoped for some savings, but nothing like the savings we actually experienced.

For service from June 30 to July 30, before the wholesale bulb replacement, our Con Ed bill came to $505. For service from July 30 to August 28, the bill dropped to $473.54. For the period from August 28 to September 29, I was floored when I saw the amount due: $299.18. From September 29 to October 28, the bill was even lower: an unbelievable $204.77.

In four months, CFLs have helped us lower our electric consumption markedly and lower our bills by around $300. More important, this experience has spurred other energy-saving moves–like using night lights in hallways when it’s just the two of us at home, which is most of the time. And unplugging all those instant-on plugs when we’re not using the appliances to which they connect.

wrt to the main post, the average price may be around 9 cents, but it’s important to keep reminding people that the marginal cost of electricity changes radically every single day. It can be 2 cents in early a.m. and 20 cents during peak hours. The marginal costs at any moment depends on which plants (and fuels) are on the margin of the dispatch at any given moment, and during peak demand hours, the plants on the margin tend to be less efficient gas-fired plants. When gas prices are high, that meants marginal costs can be very high. The time to use less energy is during peak hours. During early a.m. hours, it doesn’t matter that much.

Finally, wrt to coal plant displacement, we’re not even close to having enought demand response or renewable to push most coal plants out of the dispatch. Since their marginal operating costs are fairly low, they tend to be dispatched most of the time. When you add a new wind mill, it doesn’t displace coal, it pushes the supply curve to the right and pushes the most inefficient gas plants off the dispatch. We need massive, massive amounts of alternative resources and demand-side response to change this picture.

The best demand-response programs being done by utilities start by getting retail rates structured better, which means actually charging people what it costs in each hour. Early hours should be prices at lower marginal costs; later hours should be priced higher; peak hours should be priced the highest, because that’s when the most expensive plants are being dispatched and when demand reduction has the most value. A few states are starting to do this, but not enough. In some regions, the price changes every hour, and the largest customers (industrial) see their retail rates change every hour.

Really, though, I agree with you that electrified transport will (hopefully) create a new source for major electricity demand. Hopefully, we will mount renewable power faster than electric transport requires.