EPB costs will soon vary by time of day

Lisa Simpson Strange

Nov. 5, 2009 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- GLASGOW -- Glasgow Electric Plant Board customers currently pay the same rate for their electrical power no matter what time of day or time of year they use it. That will change by mid-2010.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has made the decision to adjust rates to utilities based on "time of use" rather than just one basic rate, according to EPB Superintendent Billy Ray.

"This whole concept is really coming home to roost now," Ray told participants of a recent Lunch and Learn session at Mary Wood Weldon Memorial Public Library. "For years, as long as any of us can remember, TVA has not priced electric power depending on the time of day. Nearly every other utility in the country has started using these peak times of day to change what electricity costs. They send the message out to you that you need to use less power during these hours of day because it's going to get more expensive."

Homes in Glasgow that utilize EPB power today pay about 9 cents per kilowatt hour regardless of when the electricity is used.

"We pay it during the peak time. We pay it in the middle of the night. We pay the same thing year round," Ray said. "As a result of that, most of us don't pay any attention to what time of day it is when the peak occurs. We don't worry that much about putting a programmable thermostat in or doing anything to change the decisions that we make about when we run the clothes dryer or the dishwasher because we haven't been given a price signal to do that."

But beginning in April 2010, TVA will adjust the wholesale price of energy it charges EPB based on peak usage times and the utility has been making plans on how to deal with that.

"We're going to start getting a price signal. To implement a rate structure where you get a price signal and where your electric bill every month is dependent upon what time of day you use the energy requires a lot of planning because the normal electric meters that you have been used to having on your house forever don't have a time element. All they have is just a little bunch of wheels that count the number of kilowatt hours and it doesn't know what time of day you use that," Ray said.

EPB has been in the forefront for many years bringing updated technology to Glasgow, the transition will be less painful for the local utility and its customers than some of the other power companies that get their electricity from TVA, he said.

"In Glasgow over 20 years ago, we believed that this time was going to come and that's why we started in the '80s building the broadband network that delivers your cable T.V. and telephone and Internet, as well as, is capable of reading all the electric meters in town," Ray said. "We started that based on really just a belief that this time was going to arrive and we should be prepared for it and it took a lot longer to arrive than I thought that it would but now we are prepared for it and the other 158 utilities that buy power from TVA are not prepared for it -- not nearly as prepared as we are. We've been working toward this time for a long time and we've developed a lot of interfaces and a lot of technology that's going to allow us to help you live under a new rate environment, what we call a time of use rate environment."

EPB has installed close to 1,000 state-of-the-art meters that allow the utility and homeowners to monitor power usage in a residence through access on the Internet and adjust consumption accordingly.

"We now have the technology in place. We have between 500-1,000 of these meters already deployed in Glasgow and they're already working and giving this sort of feedback with an Internet Web site that we call the EPB Portal," Ray said. "We give directions on how to get to it and give you a password and then you can at any time and from any place. You can be on vacation in Hong Kong. You can have Internet access and read the meter and see what's going on at your house."

Ray said he has also applied for "Smart Grid Demonstration Project" Department of Energy grant through the government stimulus package. If the utility receives the money, all 7,500 electric meters EPB serves would be refitted.

A graphic provided by the utility will begin to show up soon alerting residents of the peak times of use when electric rates will be higher. Peak months will be June, July, August, September during the summer and December, January, February and March during the winter. In the summertime, the hours of 2 to 8 p.m. will be peak usage time and 6 to 9 a.m. and 5 to 8 p.m. in the winter.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0415-39483926