Load Management

If you're a Penn Power residential customer and you normally use more than 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each month, you might be able to save money by taking advantage of our load management rate.

An electric load is the amount of electricity that flows into your home at any one time. Management of this load means spreading out the use of your major electric appliances, rather than using them at the same time.

With load management, your monthly bill is based on measurements of both your total consumption of electricity and the peak demand, or the greatest amount of power used, over any 30-minute period.

For example, let's say your home includes an electric water heater, an electric clothes dryer, and an electric range with self-cleaning oven among other appliances. Look at the load over a 30-minute period when all these appliances run simultaneously, compared with the load when use of the dryer and self-cleaning oven is delayed until later:

Limiting the total load is important, because it affects how your bill is calculated. When we figure your bill, your peak demand for the month is multiplied by a factor of 125. This amount is billed at the standard residential rate. Any remaining kilowatt-hours are billed at the load management rate, which is lower. Thus if your highest 30-minute load for the month was 6.0 kilowatts as above, 750 kilowatt-hours would be billed at the standard rate. And the remaining 250+ kilowatt-hours would cost less.

If you can spread out your use of major electric appliances, you can save money on your electric bill through load management.

When you sign up for the load management rate, we'll install a load meter in place of your normal electric meter free of charge. Your monthly bill will include slightly higher charges, because of expenses associated with the load meter. Once you sign up for load management, it will remain in effect for at least 12 months. At the end of that time, we'll analyze your bills and notify you if a change in your use of electricity has made standard residential rates more economical. For Penn Power customers, when your electric usage warrants, a load meter will be installed.

Other options

Electric clothes dryers, water heaters, and heating systems are among the largest users of power in your home. Fortunately, these appliances can be controlled through automatic load control to reduce demand. An automatic load control device is programmed to automatically shut off one or more of the appliances it controls to keep your peak demand low.

There are other special rate options for which you might be eligible.

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