We Saved Money On Our Electric Bill By Switching Rate Plans

For years there was no financial incentive to reduce electricity use during peak periods. Running the dryer &  air conditioning while cooking dinner at 5pm weekdays cost the same as doing them at other times.  With Ameren Missouri’s new smart meters and Tine of Use (TOU) rate plans reducing electric use during peak demand can save money and reduce peak load on the grid.

At the end of June I  posted about signing up for one of the new Time of Use (TOU) rate plans –initially only one was available. Halfway into that billing cycle the other, advanced TOU rate plans became an option for us. I quickly changed plans effective the next cycle.

Now we’ve completed two billing cycles on a basic and an advanced TOU rate plan. Because I’m a spreadsheet nerd I was able to figure out our savings compared to the flat rate plan most still have. The primary savings we realized wasn’t on rates, but on reducing the amount of kWh we used in the billing cycle. Related was a savings on the taxes & fees as all but one are based on kWh. We also saved on the energy used, more with the advanced rate plan than the basic.

Here are some of the details:

Our first TOU billing cycle was the Evening/Morning Savers plan. Like the flat rate, this plan is considered basic. The difference between the peak & off-peak energy is minimal.

This cycle ran from 6/23/2021 through 7/22/2021, the July cycle. We used 652 kWh during this billing cycle. Last year we used 922, in 2019 1,206 — a nearly 30% less than the same cycle last year. Using less energy saved us $31.86 on energy, compared to last year. We saved another $2.31 on additional fees: fuel adjustment, energy efficiency, and renewables.  We saved $1.33 on the St. Louis municipal service charge. Add it all up and just reducing our energy use saved us $35.50 for the July billing cycle.

We used 465 kWh off-peak, and 187 kWh peak during the cycle. We saved another $1.02, which isn’t much. However, being on a TOU plan got me thinking about more ways to save that I wouldn’t have done otherwise.  Added to the above we saved $36.52, nearly 30%!

With the next billing cycle we were now on the Ultimate Savers TOU rate plan.

I was very nervous about what our bill would be, entirely because of the demand charge. Toward the end of the cycle Ameren’s reports improved significantly, allowing me to see we’d save money. Or at least not spend more — a concern I had initially

Like the July cycle, we reduced our energy use compared to the August 2020 cycle (586 kWh vs 978 kWh) — a 40% reduction! We also used less electricity in August compared to June & July.I’m not going to go through the math again to demonstrate the savings compared to last year, but is was 40% less.

We used 529 kWh of off-peak energy, for a cost of $23.12. Our peak energy was 50 kWh, $12.90. Only 8.6% of our energy was used during peak times — this was mostly cooking dinners. Our hour with the highest kWh used was 3.6 kWh. With a rate of $7.03/kWh our demand charge was $25.31 — this was higher than either our peak or off-peak use. Compared to the Anytime flat rate we saved $6.99 before fees/charges, an effective rate of $0.106 vs $0.118 per kWh.

What I don’t is if we’d be better off on one of the other two advanced TOU rate plans, neither have a demand charge. In a few months Ameren will crunch the numbers and let us know the best plan for us.

A smart meter like our, above, is required to change to a TOU plan from the Anytime flat rate. See Ameren’s rate options here. In a future post I’ll share other reports from Ameren that detail where we’re using our electricity — our cooking is as much as cooling!

— Steve Patterson

Mid-70s Downtown Office Tower Getting Needed 21st Century Update

Office vacancy rates are high now, especially in downtown St. Louis.

Office vacancy is up across the metro area, averaging 16.9% in the second quarter of 2021 compared with 11.8% in 2020. Rents for offices outside of downtown declined nearly 4% from the end of 2020 through the second quarter of 2021, according to commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.

Vacancy downtown has risen more than 1 percentage point in the past year, to 20.8% from 19.3% in the second quarter of 2020. And rents have fallen by more than 1% to $19.48 per square foot. (Post-Dispatch)

One downtown office tower, recently acquired by a local fund, is taking steps to reverse years of increased vacancy.

Readers might recall my December 2015 blog post on this building. In that post I suggested connecting the low pavilion portion to the adjacent sidewalks, orienting the interior space to take advantage of the location and views.

I sent the then building owner, a San Diego-based capital firm, my post at the end of 2015. They responded the next month, I met a local property manager on site. They sent me a nice fruit basket from Harry & David.  They didn’t do anything.

According to KSDK more tenants left, the California owner defaulted, and by February 2019 the lender had taken over the property.  A new local owner purchased the tower and apparently recognized the need for major updates to the prominent pavilion, inside & out.

The new owners logically hired one of the remaining tenants to update the interior & exterior:

Larson Capital Management has engaged Trivers to make both interior and exterior building improvements to the 2-story atrium structure and surrounding plazas and streetscape to comprehensively update and reposition the Broadway Tower as a premier office building destination in downtown Saint Louis.

Exterior improvements include removing the “greenhouses” and reimagining the Atrium façade materiality and line of enclosure, updated entrances and entry canopies, surrounding site improvements and landscaping, and public art and placemaking components creating public outdoor destinations.

Interior improvements are geared toward creating an abundance of tenant amenities including a best-in-class conferencing center, co-working lounges with hospitality support, a walking track, and access to outdoor work spaces. The Atrium will also include a new café with indoor/outdoor seating connected to the west plaza along Broadway, a new monumental stair, a large greenwall, building management offices, new security desk and updated elevator lobbies, restrooms to support the proposed uses, and comprehensive lighting, casework, and finishes upgrades. (Trivers Architects)

In 2015 I imagined a few restaurants to fill the space, but tenant amenity space will be critical to filling vacancies. There will be one cafe, on the corner shown above.

I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product, experiencing the revised plazas, eating at the cafe. The upper level features a covered outdoor space on the opposite corner, facing the Arch. Not sure if that will be public or tenant-only. Either way, to pedestrians at 4th & Chestnut it’ll be perceived as inviting.

— Steve Patterson