Unlimited Natural Gas

[themagicman]

This winter a natural gas company is offering me unlimited natural gas to use. Does anyone have any ideas to make or save money on things I would normally buy outside (outside of just keeping the house warmer). I didn't know if you could use natural gas to power some electric devices to save on energy or anything like that? Note- my hot water heater and stove and oven are natural gas as well.

[HPstache]

Maybe it's time to set up a little natural gas power plant! Haha.  Never heard of a deal like this... not sure if there's too much more of a play to make other than converting your dryer to NG?  Our Electric company up here in WA has had juicy rebate offers in the past to convert dyers to NG.

[themagicman]

Yeah it's a pretty sweet deal. $50 a month for unlimited use. Converting the dryer to natural gas is something I didn't think about! Might not cost too much to run a line up there.

[terran]

I'm pretty sure there are whole house generators that run off of natural gas. I think they would cost at least $5k, maybe more though. They also smell, make noise and are probably not as environmentally sound as other ways of getting electricity since even fossil fuel electricity generation at a large plant would be more efficient and have stricter environmental controls.

[former player]

There goes the planet.

[HPstache]

Yeah it's a pretty sweet deal. $50 a month for unlimited use. Converting the dryer to natural gas is something I didn't think about! Might not cost too much to run a line up there.

$50/mo?  Wow... our NG bill is like $150 in the coldest months ... if course you're in GA though so it probably doesn't get too cold there

Make sure to add a CO detector if you're adding a gas appliance to a floor that currently does  ot have one .

[Case]

This winter a natural gas company is offering me unlimited natural gas to use. Does anyone have any ideas to make or save money on things I would normally buy outside (outside of just keeping the house warmer). I didn't know if you could use natural gas to power some electric devices to save on energy or anything like that? Note- my hot water heater and stove and oven are natural gas as well.

Oh god, don’t burn fuel in order to make electricity. That is super wasteful.

Just enjoy having free heat and don’t alter your life.

[ketchup]

[dragoncar]

Did you ever end up doing this deal?

I just got a flyer for “unlimited electricity”.  I assume it’s just a complicated way to do average billing, whereby they lure you in with a low rate at first but it aggressively adjusts based on your usage, contractually locking you in even higher than you started

But I’m still curious and need to look into it. 

Kind of a misleading name since even my regular provider does not effectively limit my usage beyond my service amperage.  They just happen to charge for it

[RWD]

We've been averaging ~$35/month on gas (gas heat, water, stove/oven). $50/month for unlimited would feel wasteful.

[sonofsven]

Like RWD, my nat gas bill hovers around $30/mo for oven, water, and dryer! Gas is really cheap right now.

[themagicman]

Did you ever end up doing this deal?

I just got a flyer for “unlimited electricity”.  I assume it’s just a complicated way to do average billing, whereby they lure you in with a low rate at first but it aggressively adjusts based on your usage, contractually locking you in even higher than you started

But I’m still curious and need to look into it. 

Kind of a misleading name since even my regular provider does not effectively limit my usage beyond my service amperage.  They just happen to charge for it

I did not end up doing it! Turned out pretty good as it has been a mild winter here so I am sure I used less than I would have paid for.

I have gotten the unlimted electricity deal as well. Seems like a great deal but from looking it at, it will just last a year (then will go up significantly when I use a ton)
So I am waiting to get a tesla (within the next 6 months or so) and then I will sign up for unlimited electricity. After the first year, they said I can go back to the normal billing

[ChpBstrd]

My best idea was to get a compressor and arrange for CNG trucks to come to your house. But if gas is so cheap it's free, there might not be much of a profit.

[AlanStache]

Am a bit late but one other option would have been to make a similar deal with your neighbors; you buy at 50$/mon and sell to them at 45$/mon.  Only limit would be the size of the pipe feeding your home.

[yachi]

I got a mailer for one of these unlimited electricity deals.  I think in actual usage it goes like this:

They determine likely yearly electricity use based on house size prior to sending mailer (or maybe they're OK with a teaser rate and don't do this)

Year 1: you're all excited about the free energy!  You switch as much as you can to electric, maybe you buy an electric heater and keep your natural gas furnace turned low so it doesn't run at all.  You do all kinds of fancypants antimustachian things like run a heated blanket on your bed to preheat it for you.  You keep an always-ready supply of hot water by leaving a keruig turned on all day.  Maybe you buy a water pump and outside fountain and run a heater in it for the birds to have a hot sauna in winter.  You stop turning lights off, because who cares!  Maybe go all out on a holiday lights display and leave it on all day.

Year 2:  They use your year 1 usage to determine your new monthly "unlimited electricity rate".  Now you're locked in paying for spendypants year 1 usage even though you've come to your senses and realized that was all bad for the planet even if it was free...

Year 3:  Do they bother adjusting for the lower year 2 energy use?  Maybe not...  But it's always the same predictable payment so people like that.

[TomTX]

My best idea was to get a compressor and arrange for CNG trucks to come to your house. But if gas is so cheap it's free, there might not be much of a profit.

Convert your car to dual-fuel with a CNG tank in the trunk.

[norajean]

Drill a storage well in your back yard and pump in a few billion cubic feet for future use.

[maizefolk]

I got a mailer for one of these unlimited electricity deals.  I think in actual usage it goes like this:

They determine likely yearly electricity use based on house size prior to sending mailer (or maybe they're OK with a teaser rate and don't do this)

Year 1: you're all excited about the free energy!  You switch as much as you can to electric, maybe you buy an electric heater and keep your natural gas furnace turned low so it doesn't run at all.  You do all kinds of fancypants antimustachian things like run a heated blanket on your bed to preheat it for you.  You keep an always-ready supply of hot water by leaving a keruig turned on all day.  Maybe you buy a water pump and outside fountain and run a heater in it for the birds to have a hot sauna in winter.  You stop turning lights off, because who cares!  Maybe go all out on a holiday lights display and leave it on all day.

Year 2:  They use your year 1 usage to determine your new monthly "unlimited electricity rate".  Now you're locked in paying for spendypants year 1 usage even though you've come to your senses and realized that was all bad for the planet even if it was free...

Year 3:  Do they bother adjusting for the lower year 2 energy use?  Maybe not...  But it's always the same predictable payment so people like that.

In Texas right now, at least some of the "unlimited" electricity producers are offering customers bill credits to cancel their service by Monday and switch to a competitor. Electricity providers in Texas are having to pay 2-7 dollars per kilowatt hour to buy the electricity they provide to customers.

[secondcor521]

In Texas right now, at least some of the "unlimited" electricity producers are offering customers bill credits to cancel their service by Monday and switch to a competitor. Electricity providers in Texas are having to pay 2-7 dollars per kilowatt hour to buy the electricity they provide to customers.

Why?  Base price here is just under 8 cents per KWH, or 1% of the price you're talking about.

[maizefolk]

In Texas right now, at least some of the "unlimited" electricity producers are offering customers bill credits to cancel their service by Monday and switch to a competitor. Electricity providers in Texas are having to pay 2-7 dollars per kilowatt hour to buy the electricity they provide to customers.

Why?  Base price here is just under 8 cents per KWH, or 1% of the price you're talking about.

Texas is currently dealing with snow and below freezing temperatures with houses that aren't built for weather nearly this cold (and a lot of those houses depend on electrical heating). The weather is also causing natural gas shortages and forcing the shutdown of some wind turbines which weren't engineered to function in temperatures this low.

Exacerbating the problem, most of Texas is covered by a power grid which is isolated from the two other main grids that cover the remainder of the USA so they're not able to import significant amounts of power. Prices just have to keep rising until demand drops enough to meet the maximum their own power resources can provide.

[TomTX]

In Texas right now, at least some of the "unlimited" electricity producers are offering customers bill credits to cancel their service by Monday and switch to a competitor. Electricity providers in Texas are having to pay 2-7 dollars per kilowatt hour to buy the electricity they provide to customers.

Those prices are only for what they buy on the spot market - which is a relatively small fraction of the market. Prices were way cheaper for those who locked prices in advance.

There's also a patch of negative prices between San Antonio and Corpus Christi, and another along the South Texas coastline. At least for now.

Current spot prices (live updates every few minutes): http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/contours/rtmSpp.html

[TomTX]

I'll note that since I posted that, the "day ahead market" - ie, buying tomorrow's power today (which is still super short timeframe, my co-op has most of their power supply on a 30-year contract) - anyway, it's gone from $2 to $3/ kWh.

Peaker plants are making their profit for the year over a 1-week stretch.

[maizefolk]

Thanks, TomTX! I hadn't realized that so much of many utility's power needs were locked in that far out. That makes much more sense than thinking most of the power was being bought based on where the actual demand numbers were coming in at.

I do feel sorry for the folks in Texas who signed up with "Griddy" which appears to be a service that passes on the spot power prices to its customers to the point where those poor folks really are paying multiple dollars per kilowatt hour at the moment.

https://twitter.com/GoGriddy/status/1360746203080630273

[RWD]

I do feel sorry for the folks in Texas who signed up with "Griddy" which appears to be a service that passes on the spot power prices to its customers to the point where those poor folks really are paying multiple dollars per kilowatt hour at the moment.

https://twitter.com/GoGriddy/status/1360746203080630273

Damn.....

[alsoknownasDean]

I'm going the other way and gradually removing natural gas appliances and replacing with electric. I replaced the NG wall heater with split systems as soon as I moved in, and the next step is to find an induction cooktop that suits my kitchen. Unfortunately white induction cooktops are rare and expensive.

I can always use low carbon/carbon neutral electricity, but that's a bit harder with gas.