DarkStar said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
around here, they have lower rates than residential. in fact, much lower.
I'm with Dave on this one... I guess this is just different depending on where you live too. In my area, commercial electrical service is cheaper than my residential service, even with me on time-of-use.
In northern CA (PG&E) commercial rates are very complicated, but it doesn't look like anybody gets off cheaply. There are four different rate schedules which PG&E shuffles the businesses among depending on their maximum load.
If they never (or rarely) use more than 200 kW at a time they are going to pay around $0.15/kWh in the six "winter" months and $0.20/kWh in the six "summer" months. I think this might roughly correspond to 1000A service, and I'm sure a big box store like Costco is way above this.
On the other end of the scale, if their load occasionally goes over 1000 kW they end up paying by time of day
plus a hefty surcharge based on the maximum load. The rates per kWh are a lot better, 8 to 10 cents except 14 cents noon to 6 PM Monday to Friday. But then PG&E adds $9.44 times max load (meaning at least $9,440/month) plus $12.80 times max summer noon-6PM load (probably another $12,800/month or more) plus smaller amounts for max partial peak loads.
If, for example, the max load is 1200 kW and the min load is 200 kW and the store is open 12 hours a day, they might pay a $22,000/mo load charge (averaged summer/winter) for about 520 mWh. That would effectively add $0.0423 to their per kWh charge, putting them somewhere around 14 cents on average.
Bottom line: Most commercial businesses in PG&E territory are probably paying an average of 14 to 18 cents/kWh.
Ray