High Tide Aquatics

It was roughly 2 years ago, PG&E...

changed to a 3 tier system for electric rates, 0 to 100% of baseline, 101-400% of baseline, then 400+% of baseline. Now I'm not going to get into a rant on the bullsh*t of baseline quantities especially when PG&E continuously parrots the the cost of electricity is the cost it takes to distribute it...

But interesting fun fact, in the past 2 years the tier 1 rates increased 18.3%, tier 2 rates increased 18.3% and tier 3 rates increased "only" 10.3%, now suffice to say those of us in the hobby are probably easily in the tier 2 side of things, possibly tier 3 if you have A/C needs for your house (ironically in SF my usage is larger in winter due to the increase heater usage... on my tank :D). PG&E, continuing to make life difficult for the already expensive enough to live in California, even though California is one of the lowest users of electricity per capita.

Just something to think about when you start eyeing that really cheap (or free) large tank :D
 
My usage went beyond the 3rd tier so I pulled out of the tiered system and went for "time of use" plan. I run all tank lighting til 4pm and then lights out.
 
Yeah, I remember now you had done that. How's it working out? Is it actually saving you money?
It is saving me about $115 a month. The downside is that since the lights go off at 4pm, I hardly get to see the corals/fish. It is really sucking a lot of the enjoyment out of reef keeping
 
It is saving me about $115 a month. The downside is that since the lights go off at 4pm, I hardly get to see the corals/fish. It is really sucking a lot of the enjoyment out of reef keeping

That's too bad; well it's good the amount of savings you're seeing, but bad that you're not seeing your fish. I wonder if you can adjust it just a couple hours so you might not save as much but you still get to enjoy them a bit more.

I don't remember, are you running LED's or dimmable T5's? If you do, and they ramp down, the energy usage would be less for that time. Just a thought.
 
I’ve seen on the MUNI buses that San Franciscans can now purchase their energy off of San Francisco; interesting to see their rates vs PGE
 
That's too bad; well it's good the amount of savings you're seeing, but bad that you're not seeing your fish. I wonder if you can adjust it just a couple hours so you might not save as much but you still get to enjoy them a bit more.

I don't remember, are you running LED's or dimmable T5's? If you do, and they ramp down, the energy usage would be less for that time. Just a thought.
I am running 2 - MarsAqua 300w LEDs. No ramping.
 
Lighting never has been the large consumer of electricity for me I think, it's always the heating aspect that takes the most energy due to where my tanks have been downstairs, room that never gets above 60, and me trying to keep nearly 80 degree water, the laws of thermodynamics kicking my butt. Even on my 180 with 2 - 250w MH and 6 54w T5s, mostly because the MHs were only on for 4 hours, and the T5s were staggered between 12 and 8 hours on.... of course I did have the really old power meter with the analog dial at the time that I was almost certain ran slow.
 
I remember my PG&E bill went around $250 a month to well over $500 and then topped off at $853 a month. They said it was my reef tanks. Called them out on that and said they were up and running for quite awhile so nice try. Went to solar right after that
 
Back
Top