GENERATING ELECTRICITY—
...It’s no bargain
My recent excursion through a week-long, storm-caused power failure was simply one more episode that proves generating your own electricity is very expensive. Here’s why.
I live in an all-electric home; furnace, hot water heater, washer, dryer, air conditioner, the whole shebang! My year-round budget is $129 a month or, say, $4.25 a day. I try not to waste electricity but I do live comfortably with the thermostat set at 70 during the heating season and 75 during air conditioning months.
That $4.25 buys me 200 amp service with enough wattage to run everything I own—all at once; I think. Actually, I’ve never tried that but I’ve also never blown any significant circuit breaker.
My generator is a Honda 3500 with a total, rated ampere draw of 25 amps and a rated output of
3,000 watts of continuous load. It will run about four hours on its 1.6 gallon fuel tank.
So, to run it 24 hours it would consume 6 tanks of fuel x 1.6 gallons each for a total of 9.6 gallons of gasoline at, say, $3.75 per gallon for a total fuel cost of $36 per day.
That’s $36 per day for fuel only versus $4.25 daily total cost on the electric company budget.
And, for that $36 I am getting a maximum amperage of 25 versus 200 amps from the power company, or, about 1/8 the power at about 8 times the cost.
And, on top of that I had the capital cost of $1,000 to buy the generator.
About the only thing I do with the generator during power outages is run my refrigerator/freezer and a light just above it. I’ve found I can do that about 3 times a day and keep my stuff fairly cold and the frozen stuff frozen.
That keeps me in ice cubes for the occasional adult beverage necessary in such circumstances. It also gives me electric to charge my cell phone or my laptop computer, which with some creative use of extension cords can get me online from time to time.
The generator does improve the quality of life just a tad, but I sure could replace a lot of spoiled food with the money spent on its operation.
...It’s no bargain
My recent excursion through a week-long, storm-caused power failure was simply one more episode that proves generating your own electricity is very expensive. Here’s why.
I live in an all-electric home; furnace, hot water heater, washer, dryer, air conditioner, the whole shebang! My year-round budget is $129 a month or, say, $4.25 a day. I try not to waste electricity but I do live comfortably with the thermostat set at 70 during the heating season and 75 during air conditioning months.
That $4.25 buys me 200 amp service with enough wattage to run everything I own—all at once; I think. Actually, I’ve never tried that but I’ve also never blown any significant circuit breaker.
My generator is a Honda 3500 with a total, rated ampere draw of 25 amps and a rated output of
3,000 watts of continuous load. It will run about four hours on its 1.6 gallon fuel tank.So, to run it 24 hours it would consume 6 tanks of fuel x 1.6 gallons each for a total of 9.6 gallons of gasoline at, say, $3.75 per gallon for a total fuel cost of $36 per day.
That’s $36 per day for fuel only versus $4.25 daily total cost on the electric company budget.
And, for that $36 I am getting a maximum amperage of 25 versus 200 amps from the power company, or, about 1/8 the power at about 8 times the cost.
And, on top of that I had the capital cost of $1,000 to buy the generator.
About the only thing I do with the generator during power outages is run my refrigerator/freezer and a light just above it. I’ve found I can do that about 3 times a day and keep my stuff fairly cold and the frozen stuff frozen.
That keeps me in ice cubes for the occasional adult beverage necessary in such circumstances. It also gives me electric to charge my cell phone or my laptop computer, which with some creative use of extension cords can get me online from time to time.
The generator does improve the quality of life just a tad, but I sure could replace a lot of spoiled food with the money spent on its operation.
No comments:
Post a Comment