As our members receive their February 2024 bills for January 2024 energy use, we are getting a variety of questions. Our employees welcome your questions and want you to review your bill as you use electricity nearly every second of every day and receive a monthly bill for it. Here is some information to help answer those questions and to better understand your bill and how your energy use impacts your bill.
1 – January 2024 was cold. In the extreme cold our service area experienced – with some days dipping down to 17 degrees – heating systems worked overtime to keep your
home at the temperature programmed on your thermostat. If it is 15 degrees outside and your thermostat is set to 68 degrees, your heating system is fighting against a 53-degree difference.
Members often say they didn’t change anything or do anything different with their thermostat. If you do nothing and let your unit run to maintain the temperature the thermostat is set to, it will do its job and maintain the temperature – running however long to make that happen.
View your energy use in the SmartHub app and see the correlation with the weather. January seems like a long time ago. It is easy to forget how cold it was and how many times you heard the heater cycle on and off.
2 – The power cost adjustment is not a new charge. The customer charge is not a new charge. Thanks to a software upgrade, our billing statements changed in May 2023 and began listing all charges as line items.
Prior to May 2023, our billing statements provided information on the bill and showed all costs wrapped into one line item under “Energy Charges.” If you have an outdoor light, this was its own line item. Our website calculator showed all billing charges as line items, including the power cost adjustment and customer charge, and many members asked that this same information be shown on the billing statement for greater transparency.
If you are comparing your February 2024 bill to February 2023 and looking at the line items on the back of the bill, the power cost adjustment and other charges look like new charges because they weren’t in this line-item list in early 2023. This move to be more transparent shows exactly what you are paying for each line item and how it is calculated without you having to calculate it yourself or visit the website to see the breakdown.
An explanation of each charge can be found at https://singingriver.com/understanding-my-bill/.
The February 2023 billing statement (below left) shows the power cost adjustment and other charges in the message center with the cost per kilowatt-hour. The amount for each is on the bill but is not calculated.
The readings on the February 2023 billing statement (below left) are the same as the February 2024 billing statement (below right). However, the February 2024 bill charges are broken down into line items for each individual charge for greater transparency.
3 – Comparing your bill to your neighbor’s bill is like comparing apples to oranges. Your energy use is specific to you and your home’s characteristics: what you set the thermostat to, your home’s insulation and infiltration, age of appliances, light types and run times, air conditioning/heating unit efficiency, when you run your appliances – the list goes on and on. Understanding your energy use and how it affects your bill is key to keeping your bills in check – whether in mild temperatures or in extreme heat or cold.
On your bill, the energy charge and the demand charge are the two things you can control. We offer many resources on our website for both.
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- For tips and changes to help reduce your energy use, visit singingriver.com/ways-to-save.
- For information on how to spread out your energy demand and reduce your demand charge, visit https://singingriver.com/understanding-demand/.