EZ-3 Price Plan Saves Us Money

After a rocky start, it looks like SRP's EZ-3 price plan is going to save us money and improve our quality of life a little.  Because peak electric rates only occur from 3 to 6 pm Mon through Fri, we can set our thermostat to 85 during those hours and lower our peak usage to between 1 and 3 kwh.  On SRP's time-of-use(TOU) plan, peak pricing occurs between 1 and 8 pm, which is far too long to endure little or no air conditioning, resulting in peak usage between 13 and 20 kwh.  I ran the numbers on 2 similar days where total usage was 53 kwh.  Under TOU pricing, we used 13 kwh on-peak and paid $5.18.  Under EZ-3 pricing, we used 2 kwh on-peak and paid $4.13.  That's a 20% savings!  Hopefully these numbers will hold up, I only have 4 days worth of EZ-3 data so far.

Lifestyle improvements include turning on the water heater at 7 instead of 8, which is better for dishes and showers/baths.  We can also run our pool pump during the day until 3pm, which, I've been told, helps keep the pool clean.

An SRP smart meter is required to sign up for the EZ-3 rate plan.  You're at the mercy of SRP's master schedule for upgrading meters if you don't have one yet.