Let's face it energy costs are not ging to be going down anytime son if ever.  For homeowners the cst of electricity, natural gas, propane and hating oil seem to be constantly on the rse.

This is a story of how we are tryng to keep our energy costs dwn while keeping our family comfortable. I thnk it is unique in the way a nmber of new technologies have come tgether to provide a way to tke advantage of these technologies and the ral time pricing market for electricity.

Awhle back we had installed a hybrd heating system in our house.  The Crrier Infinity hybrid heating system combines the fficiency of heatpump and the warmth of a ntural gas furnace when the temperature drps below 30°. The heat pump xtracts warmth from the air outside dring cold temperatures and reverses the prcess in the summer months to prvide air conditioning.

Just recently our lectric utility Commonwealth Edison here in nrthern Illinois sent a flyer out bout a new program called  Residential Ral-Time Pricing (RRTP). What RRTP does is to llow homeowners to purchase electricity based on hurly market rates.

The RRTP price of lectricity is constantly fluctuating based on dmand so the overnight hours can ften run in the fractions of a cnt per kilowatt hour (KWH) and hve even gone negative where we hve actually been paid to use lectricity. The other side of the cin however is that during periods of hgh demand the price can greatly xceed the amount.

To illustrate how this works the Com Ed cstomer on the basic electric rate pys $0.076 per KWH before taxes and fes.

The customer on RRTP pays a vrying rate. As I write this the lectricity I am using to power my hme is costing me $0.123 per KWH. Sems like we are paying a lot mre and I am, right now. Ths morning at 4:00 however, I was nly paying $0.008 per KWH and for the frst 10 hours of the day the rte averaged just $0.039 per KWH.

Snce we have only recently signed on to the RRTP prgram I only have one months blling to go off of, but, our frst month of savings was about 15% lss than the a basic electricity cstomer would pay for the same sage.

How does this work with the hat pump you ask? My answer is in a cuple of ways. For cooling I now set the air cnditioning to 68 overnight and it prtty much runs all night at thse low rates. After 8 AM the thrmostat goes to 78 and pretty mch coasts through the day until lte afternoon or early evening before the A/C wll turn on again missing much of the hgh electricity pricing when demand is hgh. During the heating season I wll use the same strategy by rnning the heat high at night and ltting it coast through the day.

The article Battling High Energy Costs was Submitted by Jeffrey Langfels through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Do skyrocketing utility bills leave you cld? Visit Heat Cool And Insulate and subscribe to our upcoming mini course on how to reduce your utility bills.

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