Canadian Chat → [Rant] FKN Toronto Hydro

Power off for 4 days, yet my Hydro Bill is higher then it's even been.
I average 70-80/month, this month in came in a $120!

Bloody hell

Hee Hee. Same here.
All I can say if my furnace was on for at least 1-1/2 day just to heat up to 21Deg C.
Rest nothing has changed for months now.

Remember the rate increase Starting Nov 1... I'm sure that added to it, we also had some pretty good cold in December before the ice storm.

I'm gas heated, and the gas bill hasn't gone up much (they still owe money on the "budget plan").

The fan in furnace couldn't have run that much

must be some billing anomaly screw up with the smarter meters

More likely they simply guesstimated because they didn't roll anyone out to take meter readings, and then adjusted the amount up against the cold snap.

Nobody is supposed to roll out for readings anymore.. the entire idea behind the smart meters

How much did they lower your bill to reflect the lower cost of reading meters?

How much?
mine went down by the square root of doodah

Haha no. They still roll someone in a truck nearly everywhere. $20 says that if you watch, you'll see either Toronto Hydro, or someone they've hired out on a rollout to get the data. Which is fed into a handheld wireless receiver, or on a unidirectional antenna mounted on the vehicle. They switched to "smart meters" for my water meter in Florida almost 4 years ago, and they drive in a truck down the street collecting the info, same with electricity here in Woodstock. And the same with power down there now too.

Hell the town of grande cache were I was, went that way with their water meters and ABGas was doing the same thing...with smart meters. At the end all it means is the person isn't walking to the meter to get the reading, they're driving around and getting it.

It depends. Some need a truck to roll around (still better than having people walk up to the meters), but I seem to remember reading that in Ottawa they have something in each neighbourhood that reads the meters and sends out the data. Not sure whether that's true or not. I've been meaning to ask Hydro-Ottawa.

Pretty much.

the electric meters communicate via a 2.4GHz network. They can send data back to MDM/R as frequently as every 5 minutes. The drive-by readings are usually water meters.

Mashiki. Whether you want to believe it or not...

Here's the path information takes from your smart meter to your electricity bill : »www.ieso.ca/imoweb/sites ··· p?sid=ic

@elwood: check your furnace fan specs...they are power hungry...typically though it doesn't run that often but to heat up your house it was probably running continuously for a long time...but my money is on increased rate + furnace fan.

Power came back on the between the 25th and 6th, both are holidays and should have been at the "cheap" rate.

True, cheap rate went from 6.7c/kWh to 7.2c/kWh so...an increase of about 7.46% over previous....so it doesn't quite add up...I'd see if you look at your usage online....if you want, and see where the peaks and valleys are....

HTH