Chances are you're like us: sitting at home with a full house of kids and extended family crammed in a little cubby hole or "cave," all trying to get some personal space with their electronic device of choice. Meanwhile, you've commandeered the dining room as your primary office space, while your spouse is roasting away upstairs, surrounded by large electronic devices. Each of you take turns on the quarter-hour to turn off lights, fans, and TVs in empty rooms as groups of kids or extended family take their little party from room to room, probably necessitating a vacuum every other day or so.
Of course, this is extremely unprecedented in terms of literally being sequestered in your home—working, living, breathing, and keeping your sanity (or at least attempting to) with everyone there 24/7 for months at a time. Spending so much time at home with everyone is novel and admirable, but let's face it: after the first few weeks the bloom is off the rose, and you start to see the drawbacks. For instance, there are only so many books on hand to read, and policing screen time probably went right out the window after the first 96 hours of wall to wall kids 24/7. Charging their phones, games, pads, and what have you overnight, at lunch, and once more at dinner. Yet, it's certainly a convenient time to do so since there is a no electronic device rule at mealtimes as it is, and it makes for really the only time you can get their attention.
Wow, This Month's Electric Bill IS Ginormous
The A/C, refrigerator, dishwasher (running 3x a day), microwave, bread maker, air fryer, toaster oven, washing machine, dryer, and maybe the second fridge or freezer you purchased to stock up are all contributing to a whopper of a utility bill. If you are lucky to be on PG&E's Time Of Use (TOU) Rate Schedule and get up and turn in early, you just might find you are in the okay territory. However, if you are like us and have TV's in every room, as well as a body who wants to binge-watch their programs in their own space, well...let's just say resistance is futile when fighting with kids over bedtimes, especially when their older adult siblings are home. Eventually, you give in for sanity and the fact that there is a lot more lethality outside these four walls than the effects of too much TV. In the end, it's not such a bad trade-off.
With TOU, you might find a reasonable rate in the day. And if you turn in early and don't really consume a lot of electricity in the evening, then you might escape the brunt of a follow-up punch. But if you, and perhaps everyone in the household, are a night owl and on TOU (or the even more dreaded "Tier" Structure), be wary of your usage, which can compound quickly, especially in these peak demand periods. Consequently, you might find yourself paying double what you would normally pay per kilowatt-hour; maybe living in Tier 2 and 3, or even the dreaded Tier 4, where the rate can be as high as $.54 per kilowatt-hour. After days of hitting those thresholds, your consumption can easily skyrocket from $25 per person to $75 per person each month. Even more so if you have extras like a pool, hot tub, or an arc welder. Not to mention, all the work you may have done on your project car will also come at a high price.
Now when you add this all together and multiply the x # of households in your zip code, you will have one heck of a perfect storm of challenging high demand and the threat of random powerless events—and we aren't even in fire season yet.
Well, I'm Covered Since I have Solar Already
So what can you do? Well, if you have solar but owe over $1k to PG&E (whom you would normally just owe a few hundred dollars to), you might consider retrofitting batteries to your existing solar system. This accomplishes three objectives:
A partial home back up for devices such as your refrigerator, security alarm, tv lights, and garage door.
The ability to utilize your own power from your solar panels when PG&E's grid is down.
During the peak times in the evening instead of drawing power at monopolistic pricing, you can select a much cheaper option and draw it from your own battery instead.
In fact, if True Up is consistently a few hundred dollars a year, the addition of a battery will make your system more efficient and cost-effective. The addition of two batteries means, for most households, a full house back with heavy appliances and your HVAC system. It's important to note the type of battery utilized may have limitations, however, so do your research on the site to help you decision making.
Gee, I Looked At Solar Several Times, but Couldn't Justify the Cost
If you don't have solar, it might seem like a non-starter at first blush. But I'm sure you've already considered it and found it too expensive. Maybe you decided that the pain of rising energy rates would be more tolerable in the hopes that they would eventually plateau. Perhaps, for a short while, that appeared to be a good solution before the rolling blackouts emerged, challenging the reliability of service delivery and adding extra costs to the mix. From the heavy impact of power loss on a household through medical machines, medicine (especially if it requires refrigeration) and food spoilage, to the effect of the power fluctuations on household appliances such as TV's dishwashers, etc., many have had the useful service life greatly reduced because of inconsistent power flow and fluctuations, work stoppage (especially if you work from home), and larger water bills due to pools and hot tubs losing their filter and pump mechanisms. People don't attribute a cost to these situations, but there is indeed a cost far beyond that from the savings derived and the peace of mind you gain from having power assurance.
People have a hard time recognizing all the cascading events that follow on from the impact of high prices and service unreliability. So, knowing what you know now, doesn't it make sense to revisit this "pain" you have learned to live with? What if I told you can achieve Grid Independence and Power Assurance for nearly the same cost of what you pay for your electricity today and successfully "flatten the curve" on your electric bill.
Act now, otherwise that curve is going to cost you even more.