over the past NUMBER_TOKEN years electricity prices in the us have nearly doubled did you feel it did you notice your bill go up and rates continue to rise without any way to stop them i have and of course this is compounded by switching more things over to electric in fact in california it's illegal now to build a new home with natural gas so everything has to be electric and for me my energy use has actually more than doubled over the recent years because i now have just two electric cars and no gas cars but the good news is i found a solution i found a hack a way to kind of game the system and pay nearly nothing for electricity plus protect my family from blackouts and escape the tyranny of the electric company and today i'm going to share that with you here's how it works at my house i have solar panels that cover nearly all of my energy needs with the exception of my electric cars and then i have two tesla power walls these are home batteries the power rolls are really the key to this whole thing by the way now in my area in southern california we have a thing called time of use pricing which means that during the busiest times of the day the utility company will charge more for that energy it's kind of like surge pricing in uber if you want a point of reference if you've never heard of it before and they do this because it costs them more to provide electricity during those times when demand is high so basic supply and demand economics here nothing surprising but like any system this tou pricing model has a flaw something i didn't expect and something that we can exploit to our advantage a hack if you will and that brings me to today's sponsor raycon i've been a fan of raycon for a long time now i've been using these everyday earbuds for well over a year when i'm on the plane and i'm listening to stuff even when i'm editing footage but mostly i like to use them when i'm working out i can be on the rowing machine or lifting weights or doing anything i want and they do not slip out i've tried a lot of other earbuds out there and these ones by far provide the best quality the most consistent performance and they stay in my ear when i'm lifting weights and the case that they come in is a charging case that gives you up to NUMBER_TOKEN hours of battery life along with this bluetooth pairing that makes it just really easy as soon as you open them up and pop them in you're good to go raycon has a NUMBER_TOKEN day free return policy and they retail for about half the price of other premium audio brands but they sound just as good so if you want to check these out raycon is going to hook you up with an exclusive deal of up to NUMBER_TOKEN off your recon order go to URL_TOKEN ben sullins or click the link in the description below and thanks raycon for sponsoring today's episode so with our setup that includes our own energy generation from solar our own energy storage in the power wall and the time of use pricing i chose a plan that gives me the cheapest nighttime rates as possible for me that is around nine cents per kilowatt hour from NUMBER_TOKEN a.m to NUMBER_TOKEN a.m which is dirt cheap out here in california
START_SPONSOR_TOKEN and that brings me to today's sponsor raycon i've been a fan of raycon for a long time now i've been using these everyday earbuds for well over a year when i'm on the plane and i'm listening to stuff even when i'm editing footage but mostly i like to use them when i'm working out i can be on the rowing machine or lifting weights or doing anything i want and they do not slip out i've tried a lot of other earbuds out there and these ones by far provide the best quality the most consistent performance and they stay in my ear when i'm lifting weights and the case that they come in is a charging case that gives you up to NUMBER_TOKEN hours of battery life along with this bluetooth pairing that makes it just really easy as soon as you open them up and pop them in you're good to go raycon has a NUMBER_TOKEN day free return policy and they retail for about half the price of other premium audio brands but they sound just as good so if you want to check these out raycon is going to hook you up with an exclusive deal of up to NUMBER_TOKEN off your recon order go to URL_TOKEN ben sullins or click the link in the description below and thanks raycon for sponsoring today's episode END_SPONSOR_TOKEN