Understanding Billing
HOW AM I BILLED?
Demand has always been part of your electric bill. It just wasn't broken out so you could see it. In the past the metering required to measure demand on a house-by-house basis was not affordable. With the new metering technology that we now have, you can do as our commercial accounts have done for years and take advantage of reducing the demand during critical peak times and save on your electric bill.
Your new bill shows you more of the components of your electric usage than we have done in the past. While you always paid for demand, you couldn't tell how much. The $9.30 was determined like we do all of the components of the bill. We performed a cost of service study that looks at each aspect of providing you electricity and then determined the appropriate charge for each.
WHAT IS DEMAND?
Have you ever wondered what Demand is? Electric demand refers to the maximum amount of electrical power that is being consumed at a given time, as opposed to energy which is the amount of power used over a period of time. For example, a typical hand iron requires, or demand, 1,000 watts of power. If that iron is used for two hours it consumes 2,000 watt-hours of energy.
Using multiple appliances at the same time increases your demand. A typical dishwasher has a demand of 1,200 watts. If you used the dishwasher at the same time as the iron, the total demand for the two appliances would be 2,200 watts. If instead you choose to operate these at separate times, the maximum demand for these two appliances would only be 1,200 watts.
