Comment by r3trohack3r | Hacker News Reader

Comment by r3trohack3r | Hacker News Reader

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SRP in Phoenix Arizona has a form of this, I’m currently switching to it.

They have peak/off-peak rates with an additional monthly fee based off your maximum kilowatt usage in any 30minute on-peak interval. They also integrate with an ecobee thermostat (and give a $100 credit for buying them - just got two for $50 a piece) and will automatically adjust your thermostat up by at most 4 degrees during on-peak conservation events where demand is spiking in the valley. They can even pre-cool your house by 2 degrees prior to the event on off-peak rates to try and comfortably get you through the conservation event.

I’ve configured my pool pump to turn off during peak hours and will avoid doing dishes and laundry during peak. I imported last years hourly usage into spreadsheet and ran the numbers. If my math is right, I should save on average between $100 and $200 per month on electric (I’ve had winter bills as low as $150 and summer bills as high as $750!).

What is your $/kwh rate? I've also been a resident of the desert southwest, but that bill seems insane, about 5x what my bills were. At the time, I think we were paying around $0.13/kwh peak and $0.09/kwh off-peak. You may just have a much nicer/bigger spread, though

I’m currently on the Basic Plan: https://www.srpnet.com/prices/home/basic.aspx

Between $0.0829 and $0.1299 depending on peak/off-peak and seasonal. 3k sq ft house built in 2004.

Switching to their Time Of Use Demand plan, which it doesn’t seem like they have a public page for. It’s substantially cheaper per kwh than TOU - as low as $0.03 - but they have a fee for your peak demand in the month as high as $17 per excess kw.

I can't imagine wasting that much water by having a pool in Phoenix, insane

Depends how well they cover it (temporarily with a cover or permanently with a gable/roof or completely indoor pool). Transpiration from lawn grass will evaporate a similar amount of water as an outdoor uncovered pool. At least they don't have to worry about heating it in AZ. Ideally their air conditioner would dump heat into the pool for any heating (no idea if pool heaters are a thing in AZ).

No cover due to its odd shape. During summer months I use evaporative cooling to keep the pool cool enough to swim. To do this, we intentionally run the water feature to increase the evaporation rate - evaporating water takes the higher energy water molecules and ejects them from the pool reducing the temp.

We also use a pool heater about 3 months out of the year. Never considered the A/C condenser as a heater. Initial thought is that the time of year you need to heat the pool is the time of year you aren’t running your A/C.

I don’t (currently) think water is wasted in any meaningful way by my swimming pool. When it evaporates it turns to water vapor. Then it comes back down as liquid water when it rains. There is an argument that we put extra work into this water to transport it and make it potable - but PHX’s water is positive sum. Water demand in the valley is accounted for during construction and sourcing it is part of the project cost. I’m also prepared to pay the cost of continued sourcing of water over time as the valley grows - including projects like desalination.

When the Colorado river starts to reach the ocean again, then maybe this attitude can be tolerated.

Right now, your comments are shockingly ignorant.

Voodoo accounting is all over the west. You can tell by the water levels, which is the "final accounting".

Arizona takes a very practical approach to water management which is part of why I chose to live here. We take a true positive sum approach that I believe in, humans can do this. We find water where it exists and transport it into a desert. We’ve built a human settlement in a space where very little life has chosen to live - distancing ourselves from the biosphere seems like a solid play.

Our approach to water is part of why we are able to give up so much from our pull on Lake Mead during this drought. Nevada is giving up 21k acre-feet, Mexico 80k af, and AZ is giving up a whopping 512k af. Nothing as far as I know for cutbacks from CA's draw.

If it doesn’t work out, I dont understand a worst case scenario less than “move closer to water”

I'm not an AZ resident but this seems the exact opposite of sustainable. It sounds like mining: yes, technically the metal or whatever is still somewhere out there in the world, but no longer usable or accessible to humans after it has been used the first time.

Using water is sustainable - life has been doing it since the beginning - it's where you pull that water from that really matters. Water has a natural cycle where the earth recycles it. Sustainability is making sure your draw from earth's reservoirs are in balance with the rate the earth is replenishing them.

If you pump water out of your groundwater table faster than the water cycle replenishes it - that isn't sustainable. If you draw from lakes faster than the water shed and streams replenish them - that isn't sustainable.

The Salt River Project in Arizona carefully monitors the water shed, reservoir levels, and ground water levels to sustainably provide water to the valley. Arizona seeks out new sources of water that will provide sustainable water moving forward. When we build - we take water demand into consideration and source water upfront. Yes we have pools and water parks, but we plan for those and work to make them sustainable. We don't just let almond farmers tap our ground water and drain our water tables like some neighboring states. It helps that the only solution for us is a sustainable solution; the only way to survive here in the desert is to have a sustainable water supply.

To GP's point, many of these measurements are showing that humans are unsustainably pulling from these reservoirs. The levels are dropping, lakes are running dry, and rivers aren't making it to the ocean. But, when I look at the numbers, I can't say it's Arizona causing that. Arizona seems to be doing it's diligence in sustainably using water. I can't say the same for our neighboring states.

"Arizona seeks out new sources of water that will provide sustainable water moving forward."

We need breathing room!

Arizona is a desert, and there are ... googles ... 7 million people living there that should not be. There are 300 golf courses! There should be ZERO open air heavily-manicured grass golf courses in a landlocked desert.

When people joke that if you want to settle mars, let's settle Antarctica, it's closer and easier to do... well, the REAL settling-mars project is Arizona.

I've also heard that Las Vegas, another middle of the desert atrocity, is also 100% water efficient.

I've also been told about things like "clean coal", "fracking doesn't turn farmers water on fire", "pesticides are safe", "global warming isn't real", and a host of other big fat lies that you'll only discover are wrong in the future when it is too late.

So either you are being mendacious, or you are happily eating the big lie served up to you on a platter.

Humanity is so screwed.

> that you'll only discover are wrong in the future when it is too late

Too late for what? If what you’re saying is true - we won’t be able to reliably move water to the desert over the next 1000 years. Then Arizona won’t have enough water and those people will have to move closer to a water source. But is Arizona reducing the amount of available water on Earth? I feel like you’re referring to a long-term ecological crisis that this is causing, but I’m failing to see it.

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