Watt's up with your energy? Using AI to understand your electricity bill.
- Raf Y
- May 30, 2024
- 5 min read
The Trigger: A Long Outage
The fragility of the energy grid came into focus when my family endured a pre-
planned power outage by Xcel (our electric utility) during a high wind event on April 6. It lasted over 48 hours. While the first 24 hours were "fun" in that I was able to hook up some LED Christmas lights to our battery pack, and turn it into a a sort of game for my 3 yr old son, the 2nd 24 hrs of the outage became more distressing. We started to get worried about figuring out where to get hot water for our 1 yr old for formula bottles as well as finding a place to store our perishables before they went bad.
On a deeper level, this outage managed to cut open a healing wound. In Dec of 2021, our home was destroyed in the Marshall Fire. It was caused by downed power lines that arced and caused a brush fire (there was also a nearby trash fire on private property that worsened the spread of the fire). The day of the fire, the winds hit 115mph (equivalent to a category 3 hurricane). Having to go through another high wind event, and without power, hit a nerve.
High wind events are defined as:
Sustained non-convective winds of 35 knots (40 mph) or greater lasting for 1 hour or longer, or gusts of 50 knots (58 mph) or greater for any duration (or otherwise locally/regionally defined). (Source: National Weather Service Instruction 10-1605, PG 50).
These events have become more frequent in Boulder County, Colorado over the years, here is a chart showing the frequency of High Wind events since 1996:
More notably, there has been sustained activity from 2017 Onward. The number of events from 2017 onwards has generally been higher than in the preceding years. Both 2020 and 2022 saw 15 events each, matching the previous peak seen in 2012.
Whether these high wind events are caused due to climate change, global warming, or something else, who knows - but what this data is proving is that these events are becoming more frequent, and that there's nothing stopping Xcel from issuing more pre-planned outages to protect its aging infrastructure.
It also made me realize how we take a lot of our basic amenities for granted - hot water, cooling/heating, refrigeration, cooktops, lights, wifi, etc. So, I've decided to take the next steps on my energy journey - figuring out where the money I'm giving Xcel each month is going and how it's being used.
Decoding my Electricity Bill: Insights into the Grid with ChatGPT
In an era where climate change is testing our infrastructure with increasingly harsh weather, understanding our electricity bill is more than a financial necessity—it's a step towards resilience. When I initially looked at my electricity bill, it felt like I was trying to understand tax codes - a bureaucratic labyrinth without the right navigation tools. AI seemed like the perfect candidate as the right tool to help me better understand the nuances of my electricity bill.
I logged into my paid ChatGPT account and uploaded my electricity bill and started asking questions. ChatGPT was remarkably capable at this. Here are some of the highlights from my conversation with ChatGPT:
ChatGPT's response was very elucidating to say the least. The first bullet point was something of interest to me - "Peak Demand Reduction". Peak Demand translates to the peak demand my house generated during the billing period (usually the last 30 days). Peak Demand and Billable Demand can be thought of the same thing
It grabbed my attention because this is something that's definitely in my control. For this particular billing period, my peak demand came out to 14kW. That's a serious amount of energy! To put it into perspective, my microwave's peak electricity demand is 1kW - 14kW is like having 14 microwaves running at the same time. It got me thinking about how we managed to hit 14kW of peak power, and after some thought, it made sense. We use heat pumps to cool and heat our house. We also have two EV chargers and we run the washer and dryer virtually non-stop (the side-effect of having a 1 yr old and a 3 yr old).
The rest of the points that ChatGPT spit out were pretty obvious - however the Battery Storage component was interesting. Aside from storing energy and using the battery as a backup generator, I can also use it to offset expensive energy during peak demand. This was definitely something I wasn't thinking about when it came to battery storage, and I feel like is something most consumers don't realize is an additional cost saving measure that batteries can provide (even without solar!). Another way to think about this is that you can charge your battery off of cheap energy (either via your own solar panels or via the grid). You now essentially have captured cheap energy to be used later at a time when energy costs are high. Nice!
The "Peak Demand" factor is something that got me thinking about what I can and cannot control when it comes to my electricity usage. I figured, let's put ChatGPT to the challenge and see if it can help me determine what line items are out of my control - e.g. what line items are susceptible to market conditions/fluctuations?
For this particular billing period, the total came out to $247.24. Doing some quick math, the $47.26 portion comes out to roughly ~20% of the total that is susceptible to "market conditions". This is not an insignificant amount! This means if fuel costs go up, or if there's a heat wave, or something else that might impact market conditions, then 20% of my electric bill can increase -- completely out of my control.
All this being said - this is AI and AI has had a history of making mistakes. However, I do feel that this gives me a good baseline of understanding what I can and cannot control when it comes to my electricity usage.
Taking control: Solar Panels and Battery Packs
Prompted by the grid's fragility, our negative experiences around outages, and understanding that 20% of my total bill is completely out of my control, we are actively working to electrify our home and integrate sustainable technologies like solar panels and battery storage. The idea of using a battery as a bucket of cheap storage is definitely appealing and puts a different lens on the perks of battery storage -- regardless of whether you have solar panels or not.