Electricity discounts

[Bookbear]

Interestingly, the information page on the SCE web site says "apnea monitors" are qualifying devices, but the application itself does NOT mention 'apnea monitors, cpaps, apaps, or bi-levels at all.

[OldLincoln]

The PG&E medical discount is very nice. Like SC Edison, it adds 16.5KWH/day (500 per mth) to the baseline which for a lot of us it the same as reducing 500 KWH from the top tier of .31 to the bottom tier of .08 - about $100/mth. If you don;t get into the upper tiers it's less savings.

To qualify you have to have a life threatening condition, certified by your doctor, that being too hot or too cold could kill you.

[DreamDiver]

This thread does beg the question of dealing with power outages.
I've got a UPS for my computer, but it beeps incessantly every 30 seconds, waking you up to turn off the computer, even if it's not on during a power outage.
What do some of the long-timers on the board do about power outages?

[crossfit]

rooster wrote:
Bearded_One wrote:
The power requirements for a CPAP are minimal and they don't warrant any sort of power discount, they are also not lifesaving equipment. Save the power discounts for those devices that really need a discount.

I have to agree this is barking up the wrong tree. It is not worth doing the math. That little blower and heater must be adding maybe $1.39 to the monthly power bill. What do we want a 10% discount or $0.14 per month

Maybe we could hook or XPAP up in the "Caddie" and the government would bring is gas for the tank to run it. If we can't pay for power for our XPAP machine, we probably can't feed ourselves either. Jim

I think you guys are missing part of the point here - its not all about saving money. And for some it really might be a choice of having enough food vs power. I do know people who have to choose between medical payments and food, between utilities/food, etc. Most aren't on this forum. People here can afford computers. But that doesn' t mean they aren't out there and we shouldn't judge.

For me, it is about having myself hooked into the system so they understand that I have special needs when a power outage occurs. I live in the boondocks and while the rest of you have your power on in a few hours max, mine is usually off for 2-4 days. In addition, where I live it goes off more often than the once a year you guys in the city get. I will average about 4 blackouts per winter. In the summer we didn't used to get them but we did this year. That one only lasted a day though.

For PG&E it is the same form for notifying them about needing priority for turning power back on as it is for getting a slightly lowered price on a tiny bit more power (basically bringing the power price to the same I pay for basic needs - I still have the higher price for all the extras).

That said, I do have a number of back up systems at my home, including a generator that runs on propane that can power my whole house for two days. I intend to get a cpap battery set up as well because we all hate the sound of the generator running all night. Its too loud to sleep with.

[CorgiGirl]

I think you guys are missing part of the point here - its not all about saving money. And for some it really might be a choice of having enough food vs power. I do know people who have to choose between medical payments and food, between utilities/food, etc. Most aren't on this forum. People here can afford computers. But that doesn' t mean they aren't out there and we shouldn't judge.

Thank you, Crossfit. Right now, my husband and I don't have to choose between utilities and food, but we have friends on disability with medicaid who do have to make those choices. I'm intending to pass discount information on to them, if it exists. A few dollars a month is a meal or two for them.

I am very interested in the priority list for us, though. Because of the way power companies are selected for housing developments in the state of Washington, we are a tiny island (7 houses) of Puget Sound Energy in a large ocean of two other power companies and by law we can't defect to another company. (We tried.) We routinely have power outages in the winter that go on for days. The last one was an entire week. We have an RV, but the batteries ran out after 2 nights of powering my husband's xPAP using the inverter. The other five nights he went without. I guess that would be one day of powering two now that I have a machine, too. We don't live in a rural area, we're in a suburb of Tacoma. We have a small generator, but can't run it 24/7 due to the size of the gas tank and local regulations. Getting us on a priority list to restore power would be a godsend.

[hobbs]

So Cal Edison does not give a discount but the give you an additional Medical Baseline allocation 16.5 kWh per day.

http://www.sce.com/CustomerService/Rate ... cation.htm

That IS a discount during the summer months in SoCal. Electric rates are a tiered structure. Rate goes up when you go from tier 1 to tier 2. The more you use, the more you pay.
Standard tier 1 for summer is about 465 kWh, with medical baseline for cpap my tier 1 goes up to 976 kWh. This has translated to a 30-40% reduction in my monthly summer electric bill. You get the form from SCE fill it out and have your doctor mail it to SCE ONE time. Then once a year YOU tell SCE that you still are on cpap and the baseline adjustment continues.

[Goofproof]

Using a generator to run a XPAP isn't the way it's done, you charge a battery with the generator, and use it's D/C to run the XPAP. Much more efficient way to use electricy. Also using a battery with a inverter may give you two nights, using it as D/C it will last a lot longer.

Most of the people I know who are in need, are easy to spot, in the winter while we are trying to seal the cracks in our houses to save heat, they have their front and back doors wide open, letting in the fresh air so their Cigarettes will burn better. I won't go into the Drinking,and the police breaking up the resulting fights. Jim

[crossfit]

Using a generator to run a XPAP isn't the way it's done, you charge a battery with the generator, and use it's D/C to run the XPAP. Much more efficient way to use electricy. Also using a battery with a inverter may give you two nights, using it as D/C it will last a lot longer.

That is what I intend to do. I haven't used a battery for my cpap before this winter because I didn't have a cpap before this winter.

[CorgiGirl]

Using a generator to run a XPAP isn't the way it's done, you charge a battery with the generator, and use it's D/C to run the XPAP. Much more efficient way to use electricy. Also using a battery with a inverter may give you two nights, using it as D/C it will last a lot longer.

Most of the people I know who are in need, are easy to spot, in the winter while we are trying to seal the cracks in our houses to save heat, they have their front and back doors wide open, letting in the fresh air so their Cigarettes will burn better. I won't go into the Drinking,and the police breaking up the resulting fights. Jim

We don't use the generator to run an xPAP, we use the generator for several hours a day to run half of the house electricity so that we don't lose a lot of frozen and refrigerated food. If we could run the generator at night, we would likely have enough to power the kitchen and the xPAPs via the house circuits as long as we slept in the living room. My husband had a very old Resmed which he was told had no DC options, hence using the inverter to run off the batteries in the motorhome as long as possible. Now that we both have REMstar APAPs we're planning to buy two battery setups for that model. However, Respironics estimates the battery will power the M series at 12cm for 26 hours and require 10 hours to recharge. The product description doesn't say what type of battery it is, so I don't know if it has to be completely depleted before recharing to avoid problems. At any rate, since we can't run the generator for 10 hours at a time, we still need to have the electricity restored as soon as possible. I'm not sure why that's such a problem for you....

I'm certainly glad my friends are not on this board, since you just insulted them a lot. None of what you described applies to them and you've insulted me by association.

[Bearded_One]

CorgiGirl, On average, in the US, a CPAP machine costs less than a dollar a month to operate. In Canada and the US, the additional electrical cost of a CPAP is insignificant. If you use a humidifier, the power for the humidifier probably costs less than what the distilled water costs.

An electrical power discount for CPAP machines is not warranted; although priority power restoration may be warranted and some sort of arrangements should be made to help avoid power interruptions due to unpaid bills.

When operating, a CPAP draws about as much power as a Wii (19 watts). 19 watts x 10 hours x 30.25 days = 5.8 kWh 5.8 kWh x .11 = .64. That is 64 cents a month.

[roster]

........Most of the people I know who are in need, are easy to spot, in the winter while we are trying to seal the cracks in our houses to save heat, they have their front and back doors wide open, letting in the fresh air so their Cigarettes will burn better. I won't go into the Drinking,and the police breaking up the resulting fights. Jim

Yeah Goofproof, your comments remind me of my grandmother. Grandma, who had a sixth-grade education, taught us by the time we were six years old that "Poor people have poor ways". Later I studied economics from some great professors, but Grandma's lesson is one of the more profound ones I remember.

[DreamStalker]

........Most of the people I know who are in need, are easy to spot, in the winter while we are trying to seal the cracks in our houses to save heat, they have their front and back doors wide open, letting in the fresh air so their Cigarettes will burn better. I won't go into the Drinking,and the police breaking up the resulting fights. Jim

Yeah Goofproof, your comments remind me of my grandmother. Grandma, who had a sixth-grade education, taught us by the time we were six years old that "Poor people have poor ways". Later I studied economics from some great professors, but Grandma's lesson is one of the more profound ones I remember.

Try telling that to the peasant farmer who tends the crops that end up as food on your table or the Asain laborer who works 16 hours/day to make the cheap shirts you buy off the WalMart rack or the African kids that toil under threat of physical harm to dig for the diamonds on your wife's finger. I'm sure that most poor people would jump at the chance not to be poor if given that chance.

No disrespect to your Grandma but perhaps your Grandma meant to say that lazy people have lazy ways or stupid people have stupid ways or something like that. Poor ways are not exclusive to poor people.

[roster]

Try telling that to the peasant farmer who tends the crops that end up as food on your table or the Asain laborer who works 16 hours/day to make the cheap shirts you buy off the WalMart rack or the African kids that toil under threat of physical harm to dig for the diamonds on your wife's finger. I'm sure that most poor people would jump at the chance not to be poor if given that chance.

No disrespect to your Grandma but perhaps your Grandma meant to say that lazy people have lazy ways or stupid people have stupid ways or something like that. Poor ways are not exclusive to poor people.

"Poor people have poor ways".

Oh Grandma was right on a macro and a micro scale. On the macro scale, those Asian laborers and African kids, for instance, are subject to the "poor ways". In this case it is their governments that have "poor ways". Communism, dictatorships, and corrupt governments result in misery for the individuals who life under such systems.

Governments who insure the God-given rights of individuals to live free are the "good ways". Their citizens, on average, live much richer lives. This is why the free world is so concerned about Russia's current incursion into Georgia.

[DreamStalker]

Try telling that to the peasant farmer who tends the crops that end up as food on your table or the Asain laborer who works 16 hours/day to make the cheap shirts you buy off the WalMart rack or the African kids that toil under threat of physical harm to dig for the diamonds on your wife's finger. I'm sure that most poor people would jump at the chance not to be poor if given that chance.

No disrespect to your Grandma but perhaps your Grandma meant to say that lazy people have lazy ways or stupid people have stupid ways or something like that. Poor ways are not exclusive to poor people.

"Poor people have poor ways".

Oh Grandma was right on a macro and a micro scale. On the macro scale, those Asian laborers and African kids, for instance, are subject to the "poor ways". In this case it is their governments that have "poor ways". Communism, dictatorships, and corrupt governments result in misery for the individuals who life under such systems.

Governments who insure the God-given rights of individuals to live free are the "good ways". Their citizens, on average, live much richer lives. This is why the free world is so concerned about Russia's current incursion into Georgia.

Oh ... so you "mean poor people's governments have poor ways" ... right? ... but not the WalMarts or the people who shop there?

Blaming poor people for being poor is ... well, a poor way of stereotyping them.

As for the free world concern about Russia ... I'm wating for the shock and awe ... in a good way of course, if that is possible without mushroom clouds and nookyular winter and all that stuff.

[marshaeb]

In my area of Pennsylvania, PPL maintains a priority list of people who have notified it about having a serious medical need for electricity and does its best to get to those properties first when there are power outages.

PPL also has a short-term list for "serious medical needs"-type people who are at risk for having their power shut off because they were unable to pay their bill. With the proper documentation, PPL won't turn off the power for a specific amount of time. The program has good safeguards against people misusing the program, and even though it's kind of complicated, hopefully no one would need it chronically.

I think that using "the" in connection with any group of people ["the poor," "the (fill in ethnic name)"] puts us in dangerous and unrealistic waters. I have yet to see a single anything that applies to an entire group of people. For instance, "the capaptalk members are a bunch of bigots" certainly isn't true, and I hate seeing it even be a little true. Perhaps if we limited this discussion to electrical company policies that exist, we'd be better off. Just my opinion.

Marsha