Electric Hot Water? Or switch to gas?

So I was looking at the newspaper the other day and noticed that my local utility, Piedmont Natural Gas, has just asked the NC State Utilities Commission to lower their rates by 5%.  This is after Duke Energy initially wanted a 17% hike in electricity rates...which the Utility Commission wants to limit them to 7%.  Either way...Electricity Up...Natural gas down. 

This has made me think about my stance on natural gas hot water.  As I've written previously...I'd like to keep my future in my own hands.  I can't make natural gas (ok...maybe a little after a nigh drinking microbrews or my wife's chili...) but I can make my own electricity via solar panels.  And I hope to do so one day.  However, the fact that natural gas is getting cheaper is intriguing.

As of now, I'm using my hot water heater roughly 0.75 hrs per day....note that it is winter here.  So that's equal to ~3.6 kWh/d or $0.306/day  @ $0.085/kWh (note...this rate is current and doesn't include the projected increase). 

Natural gas has a heating value of 1000 BTU/ft3 (it varies, but let's use this for simplicity).  And there's 3415.18 BTU/hr in a kW.  So if I assume a regular gas hot water heater with 67% efficiency, then I'd be using:

3.6 kWh * 3415.18 BTU/1 kW-hr * 1 ft3/1000 BTU * 1/0.67 = 18.35 ft3 of natural gas. 

Since I pay in therms I need to convert it (100 ft3 = 1 therm):  18.35 ft3/100 ft3 = 0.1835 therms. 

The current cost for natural gas is $0.95208/therm.  So...this equals $0.175/day which is roughly half of what I'm paying now using electricity.  If I get a high efficiency condensing gas hot water heater, then the efficiency jumps to 95-97%...let's say 92% to be conservative.  The revised cost is:

3.6 kWh * 3415.18 BTU/1 kW-hr * 1 ft3/1000 BTU * 1/0.92  * 1 therm/100 ft3 * $0.95208/therm = $0.127/day

This is a 27% reduction in the daily cost.  Fantastic, right?

Now...one thing to factor in is that I'd have to pay a crappy "monthly charge" of $10/mo.  That's right folks...$10/mo to have the honor of being a customer.  Yes...I do pay a similar charge to be an electricty customer...but I can't turn off my electricty now can I? 
I'll leave that be...

So the $10/mo over 30 days = $0.333 per day.  So my daily cost is now  $0.46/day (using the high efficiency gas unit).  Could I use natural gas somewhere else?  I guess so...I could switch my cooktop over to gas.  And then there's my grill...natural gas certainly is cheaper than propane.  I'd have to buy one of those $50 conversion kits though. 

If I look back at my former townhome (we had natural gas hot water, heating, and cooktop...we had an electric oven), during the summer months we used about 7.5 therms per month (June through October 2009).  So no heating...this is just hot water and cooking.  And we should asterisk the hot water since I know I don't take long hot showers in the summer. 

Anyway...7.5 therms/month = $7.14/mo. or $0.238 per day.  Add in the monthly charge and I'm at $0.571 per day.

If I recall, my electric cooktop uses about 3 kW.  It varies depending on which burner is uses...yadda yadda.  Cooking generally doesn't take more than 30 minutes.  But let's say an hour/day assuming I finally get my butt cooking more.   3 kWh is $0.255...so adding that in, I'm now at $0.561/day. 

Given that I highly doubt I'll ever be cooking on average 1 hr/day every day, I gotta call this for electricty...at current rates.

What does this all mean?  Well...it means I really need to think about what to do about the hot water heater and maybe get some consulting from my buddies.  While gas would be nice...its tough to justify. 

Any thoughts out there?  Did I miss something?  Yes...there's non-quantitative benefits that I've excluded for now...