Anyone good with energy rates?

[Adrian @ JB Solutions]

Moving to a new home and trying to calculate what is worth moving over towards gas (dryer and water heater).

Current gas rate is "0.8345 per 100 cubic feet with a minimum bill of $8.00 which includes first 1,000 cft this month under that $8.00"

Current electric rates: https://cemc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/RATES-2025-FCA192-202501-002.pdf

I'm getting confused with all the conversion calculators, hoping someone here is a bit more familiar.

 

[Julian]

I can't imagine living in a house without a gas range! I hate cooking on electric!

We have a gas range, water heater and grill. Wish I'd run a gas line to the 2nd floor when we moved the washer and dryer there....

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Moving to a new home and trying to calculate what is worth moving over towards gas (dryer and water heater).

Current gas rate is "0.8345 per 100 cubic feet with a minimum bill of $8.00 which includes first 1,000 cft this month under that $8.00"

Current electric rates: https://cemc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/RATES-2025-FCA192-202501-002.pdf

I'm getting confused with all the conversion calculators, hoping someone here is a bit more familiar.

For your heating of any kind gas is the way to go, and as Julian just pointed out, having the gas bbq with natural gas is very convenient. And I agree with Julian, cooking on electric sucks… some people I know love it, but I don’t like it.

As far as the electric goes, are you moving away from FLA to TVA area? Are you buying a new home that is going to be built? If that is the case at the very least you want to have natural gas plumbed throughout the house and into the second story as applicable. We need some more info on this.

If you want to know what the monthly cost of electric in the area where you are moving to, call their customer service and ask them what the average cost is and what the KWh usage is..in summer and winter, that is far easier than trying to calculate the fuel charge, energy charge etc… they should be able to send you a sample bill. Looks like TVA also has time of use metering but the on and off peak schedules are not defined time wise, ask about that as well, usually they are time of year sensitive, for example my time of use metering in the winter is 0500-0900 & 1700-2100 on peak, summer is 1400-2000, 5 days a week including holidays, weekends are exempted. The on peak rates don’t look too bad but there are a lot of other charges broken out that look VERY additive on the bill.

To me at first glance the electricity looks very expensive, but you’ll see that with a sample bill.

Again, natural gas is always best for comfort heating, water heating etc…

 

[Adrian @ JB Solutions]

For your heating of any kind gas is the way to go, and as Julian just pointed out, having the gas bbq with natural gas is very convenient. And I agree with Julian, cooking on electric sucks… some people I know love it, but I don’t like it.

As far as the electric goes, are you moving away from FLA to TVA area? Are you buying a new home that is going to be built? If that is the case at the very least you want to have natural gas plumbed throughout the house and into the second story as applicable. We need some more info on this.

If you want to know what the monthly cost of electric in the area where you are moving to, call their customer service and ask them what the average cost is and what the KWh usage is..in summer and winter, that is far easier than trying to calculate the fuel charge, energy charge etc… they should be able to send you a sample bill. Looks like TVA also has time of use metering but the on and off peak schedules are not defined time wise, ask about that as well, usually they are time of year sensitive, for example my time of use metering in the winter is 0500-0900 & 1700-2100 on peak, summer is 1400-2000, 5 days a week including holidays, weekends are exempted. The on peak rates don’t look too bad but there are a lot of other charges broken out that look VERY additive on the bill.

To me at first glance the electricity looks very expensive, but you’ll see that with a sample bill.

Again, natural gas is always best for comfort heating, water heating etc…

Yes moving to Nashville Metro. House is already built with gas hook-up for some stuff but not for range/water heater/ or oven. It has a crawlspace and no need for anything upstairs. Was trying to see cost savings going gas for these items.

The cooktop is a touchy one. I like the look of a gas cook-top but from what I read, induction is king.

 

[buckbuck]

You may want to consider if you will ever need a back up generator to maintain electric in case of hurricane. You will certainly want natural gas for that.

 

[Neutron]

When it comes to anything with a heating element, like a clothes dryer or range, gas has always been more efficient.
I have a natural gas tankless Rinnai and outdoor kitchen that is used almost evey day and it all sips gas, eventually i will replace the range and dryer with gas.

 

[2kwik4u]

Moving to a new home and trying to calculate what is worth moving over towards gas (dryer and water heater).

Current gas rate is "0.8345 per 100 cubic feet with a minimum bill of $8.00 which includes first 1,000 cft this month under that $8.00"

Current electric rates: https://cemc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/RATES-2025-FCA192-202501-002.pdf

I'm getting confused with all the conversion calculators, hoping someone here is a bit more familiar.

The hard part here is knowing your current usage and figuring out what part of that is going to change.

Say you're 100% electric now and using 250kWh/mo of electricity. How much of that is the dryer? The Stove? etc? Once you have some usages, the conversions are pretty straightforward.

Beyond that, there are efficiency numbers to look at. For instance, a purely electric heater is 100% efficient, so you put a kW of electricity in, and you get 1 kW of heat out. Gas might be 80-90% efficient, so you put 1kW of gas in, you get 0.8kW of heat out. Heat pumps have greater than 100% efficient in terms of heat transfer, so you might put in 1kW of energy and get 1.4kW of heat out. This makes comparisons, well, quite messy at best.

100ft^3 of gas is roughly equivalent to 130kWh of energy. So, in theory that's $0.0064/kWh. As best I can tell it's $0.02508/kWh for electricity. assuming the same efficiency between appliances, anything you swap to gas should be less expensive. That's a pretty broad brush of idealism, but you get the idea.

 

[Bottom Bracket]

Gas water heater in the garage next to an EV charging, next to a boat load of fuel, what could possibly go wrong.

 

[zipper]

I/we have never broken down the usage/cost per appliance. We have had gas appliances since the early 90's. First CNG, down in town and now LPG up on the farm. When we moved up here I converted the dryer gas orifice from CNG to LPG. Back then we were off grid, no power lines to the house. We made our own power via 900w of solar, 1kw of wind on top of a 72ft tower and a backup generator and stored that energy in large 4v electric forklift batteries. We still have that system, however we need new batteries. In 2004 we paid the power company $10/ft to place poles, 18 of them and the lines on our 4300 ft long driveway. We had logged trees the previous year to come up with the money to pay for this.
All of our appliances are LPG, the Viking stove/ovens, the clothes dryer, the Bosch direct vent water boiler and the direct vent wall heater in the shop. This time of year, Winter, I use a 250k btu, Central Boiler, wood gassifier outdoor boiler for all heating and domestic hot water needs. I burn a lot of wood about 15 cords/year, but I have a lot of woods to harvest dead trees and wind falls with the Kubota. We fill our 1500 gallon propane tanks to 80% in October and usually make it til the next fill in October. The driveway is difficult for a propane truck to navigate in Winter conditions. Anyway, wife hates cooking on electric.
We stay here because it is cheap to live here, except for Vermont's property tax system, it does require manual labor, but even in my mid 60's, I don't mind it yet.
Even all of our farm out buildings, milking parlor, cheese plant steam boiler etc. use LPG. And the catamaran uses 500w of solar into type 4D deep cycle batteries and propane for our energy needs.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Yes moving to Nashville Metro. House is already built with gas hook-up for some stuff but not for range/water heater/ or oven. It has a crawlspace and no need for anything upstairs. Was trying to see cost savings going gas for these items.

The cooktop is a touchy one. I like the look of a gas cook-top but from what I read, induction is king.

Again, ask the utility what the TOTAL cost per kWh is including all of those add ons, fuel surcharge, grid fee, demand-if demand if applicable to residential rate structure, taxes and fees etc.. and what that rate is on peak and off peak. On peak will usually be when you want to use those appliances the most and is most relevant to one’s life. I’ve never heard of on peak / off peak for gas appliances.

I also note the link you provided is for the winter rates, December-March, best have a look at summer rates.

If you’ve never cooked on an induction stove then I’d be wary of what you’ve read, Edgar Allen Poe said, “Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”

I still maintain that natural gas cost per BTU is by far going to be the least cost. In terms of efficiency for comfort heating, heat pumps drop off markedly as the temperature drops below 40°F, there is a decline amount of heat that can be harvested from the atmosphere to be pumped into your house, at the very least the system will either need heat strips or gas firing to supplement the heating.