This is just a quick post to talk about an article in the Dallas Morning News I saw which discussed a new plan that’s available to a small number or customers in Texas, although it should expand to much larger areas of Texas in the next couple years. The plan is called a Time of Use Plan, and basically it has different rates for electricity depending on what time of the day the electricity is being used.
The aim here is for consumers in the Texas electricity to use a plan that gives them incentive to use their electricity in off hours, which is often times the late afternoon. So this plan could appeal to people who are away from home during the day and don’t use much electricity in that time span. The benefit to the TDSP (Oncor, Centerpoint, etc.) is that there is less electricity demand during the peak hours when power plants are running at maximum capacity.
So what’s the catch? Right now the only people who can get on a plan with these electricity rates are ones who have Smart Meters installed in their households, which is about 300,000 people. But many many more smart meters will be installed by the end of 2012, so this plan could be much wider in availability in the next couple years. If your household does have a smart meter, it makes sense to explore right now and see if this plan makes sense for you.
Right now the only two REPs who offer this plan are Reliant and TXU, although other companies will probably adopt it over the next couple years as the availability of smart meters increases.