Does everyone use Time of Use Electricity rates?

[Beans4Me]

I’m keep going back and forth on adding a tou meter to my evse. Has anyone come to the conclusion that it doesn’t make sense for their use case?

One scenario we have is my wife does work stretches of over night shifts. She often times leaves early to run errands before her shift and she could be home after the window. So I could end up pay double on those weeks she’s working overnight.

Another scenario is just a heavy day of driving, drop kids off, go to work, leave work, pick up kids, home for a quick dinner, off to activities. 2-3 night are like this. I feel more comfortable being able to top up after we get home before we head out for the extra curriculars

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

So TOU for you would be with an extra meter not your whole service?

TOU doesn't prevent you charging when you like, it just changes the price.
Only you would know whether it would pay off on your _complete_ pattern.

Do you have a smart meter already?
If so you can often get your history and use that to find when you're normally charging. (I can download a CSV data file and use a spreadsheet to calculate my usage pattern.)

Also, it would depend on how much you drive as to whether busy days would be a problem. We charge 2 (not winter) or 3 times (winter) per week because I only commute about 43 miles per day. And I have the power in my home charging such that I can essentially fill my battery on a normal overnight charge.

 

[Beans4Me]

TOU for me would be an extra meter on my EVSE circuit. There won't be any additional cost as the electric company provides this meter and I'll install it myself. I'm just concerned about losing the flexibility.
I do not have a smart meter. Up until this week were were on 110 so literally none stop charging whenever the car was home.
I think we've averaged about 500kwh/month of this summer. I'm expecting it to go up as we get into the winter.

Only bringing this up because the inspector told me to consider it.

 

[nicholb]

I use what my provider calls their "storage" plan. It is only active 11pm to 7am, but the rate is 4.4 cents per kwh rather than the normal 13 or so. It works well for me since I have yet to run the car out in one day's driving and am typically home overnight.

For your case, try setting your car to a scheduled charging start time of when the TOU low rate starts and see if you can live with mainly charging during that time frame. Just saw you are on 110 until installed, so you'll have to see how many miles a day you need to add and calculate how much charging time you will need a day.

If you go with it you still have the option to charge at a higher rate if you really need to.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

TOU for me would be an extra meter on my EVSE circuit. There won't be any additional cost as the electric company provides this meter and I'll install it myself. I'm just concerned about losing the flexibility.
I do not have a smart meter. Up until this week were were on 110 so literally none stop charging whenever the car was home.
I think we've averaged about 500kwh/month of this summer. I'm expecting it to go up as we get into the winter.

Only bringing this up because the inspector told me to consider it.

OK, so you are quite a heavy user. But maybe once you're used to the relatively fast charging and maybe not plugging in so much you'll have a better idea of how well it'll fit.

Do you have a link to the tariff?

 

[iamnid]

I don't use TOU. My electrical rates are based on usage. I don't recall the specifics but I get a certain number of Kwh at $.15, the next tier is $.17 and then the last tier is $.20. Every month I make it into the last (most expensive) tier with varying amounts. My utilities' TOU rates are so prohibitively expensive during the day (something like $.35) that I doubt the savings would be made up by charging the car at night -- not to mention the hassle of having to make sure I only charged at night etc. Additionally, they said it would be about $1,000 to have the TOU meter installed and $500 to have it inspected. They also offer a completely separate meter for EVs that gets billed at $.15 or something like that... but again would require the installation of a new meter etc. so I haven't bothered to change from the regular tiered system.

 

[frankvb]

My utilities' TOU rates are so prohibitively expensive during the day (something like $.35)

Not that expensive compared to 82c (SDG&E EV-TOU5 summer between 4 and 9 pm) I only wished I could have your rates (they seem really low for SoCal). This rate does have 15c from midnight to 6AM though (but also a $16/month fixed fee).

BTW: I do have a spreadsheet to compare the various TOU and regular rates, and this specific rate easily wins out even with this very high peak rate in summer (I do have solar panels but these were set up before I had an EV).

 

[Unclepaul]

Edison in Riverside will automatically switch you to Time of use if you get an electric car. California gives a $2,000 cash refund when you buy a Clean Air Vehicle (EV). Edison also gives you a discount for having an electric car.

You can switch to other plans if you wish later on. Their website will show which plans might work out better after you have some history.

Solar used to be a great deal, but since April or so they changed the plan so it has little financial advantage anymore.

By time shifting your car charging, pool filtering, air conditioning (a quiet cool fan works fantastic in Riverside), close washing/drying, etc you have a reasonable way to reduce your power bills.

 

[Mark-YSR]

Here in Ontario, they are rolling out an Ultra Low Overnight plan. I just signed up for it about 6 weeks ago and should get the first bill this week. I've calculated my commodity costs will be about 2/3rds of what they previously were on our old ToU plan.

The new plan is
ULO 2.4c/kWh (11 pm - 7 am every day)
Mid-Peak 10.2c/kWh (7 am - 4 pm, 9 pm - 11 pm weekdays)
Peak 24c/kWh (4 pm - 9 pm)
Off-Peak 7.4c/kWh (7am - 11 pm weekends/holidays)

Old plan was
Mid-Peak 10.2c/kWh( 7 am - 11 am, 5 pm - 7 pm weekdays)
Peak 15.1c/kWh (11 am - 5 pm weekdays)
Off-Peak 7.4c/kWh (7 pm - 7 am, all day weekends and holidays)

We also have a tiered plan, but I'd blow over the limits every month and it's estimated to cost me over $50/month more.

We have never needed to charge during the day - we get all our charging, for 3 cars, done overnight.

Our city just installed a level 2 charger a 6 minute walk from our house that is free to use that we could use in an absolute pinch. I've used it a couple of times on a nice day when I've gone for a walk, but it's literally not worth my time to plug in there with our low overnight rates.

 

[Beans4Me]

My tou plan would be 7c vs 13c I pay now, roughly 50% reduction but then outside of that it would be 22c during peak.

Since we’ve had the car we average about 500kwh/month which was primarily 110 (70%) and the rest a mix of lvl2 with some supercharging. So we’d save $35/month maybe but potentially lose some flexibility. I’m so used to always needing to charge because of 110. I’ll play with the scheduled charging and see how life would be with tou.

 

[GSP]

@Beans4Me - Daily car usage varies for different households. However,I don't understand why your usage requires charging as soon as you get back from work.

In my case, I plug my MYLR in every night after I am done driving for the day. It is scheduled to charge when my $0.04/kWh off-peak rate starts, and is done charging to my 80% daily max before I leave in the morning or off-peak rate ends. Usually the car is at 60-70% at the end of the day, sometimes 40-50% for a high usage day.

GSP

 

[zoomer0056]

In SoCal (Camarillo) I signed up for TOU-D-PRIME. This specific TOU plan is for households with EV charging. The electric company came out to verify EV charging by looking at the electrical panel. Charging early morning or after 9PM works good for us.

 

[Beans4Me]

@Beans4Me - Daily car usage varies for different households. However,I don't understand why your usage requires charging as soon as you get back from work.

In my case, I plug my MYLR in every night after I am done driving for the day. It is scheduled to charge when my $0.04/kWh off-peak rate starts, and is done charging to my 80% daily max before I leave in the morning or off-peak rate ends. Usually the car is at 60-70% at the end of the day, sometimes 40-50% for a high usage day.

GSP

Because I was on 110. Every minute matters on 110. We were never able to fully recharge overnight with our usage.

Today is literally my second day with lvl2, I’m sure our habits will change.

 

[GSP]

Because I was on 110. Every minute matters on 110. We were never able to fully recharge overnight with our usage.

Today is literally my second day with lvl2, I’m sure our habits will change.

That makes sense. I charged with a 120 V outlet for several months, so I know what that feels like. You will find 240 V (L2) to be a completely different experience.

GSP

 

[Mike728]

This is not common in my area. Our rates are static 24/7.

 

[RSpanner]

It varies in Oregon. In the city I live in, the rate is static, just under 10 cents.

 

[Rocky_H]

This is not common in my area. Our rates are static 24/7.

Yeah, it's a little bold of the OP to ask this about "everyone", because it's very location dependent. Here in Idaho, during the 9 months of the year that are not summer, we have the same rates 24 hours a day. During summer, they do have a higher peak rate in the afternoon, but that's it; no special rate overnight.

 

[mjwojtukiewicz]

I am not opting into TOU. My normal rate is 26 cents/kwh. Prime time is 4-7 and is an outrageous 48 cents. We do most of our cooking and watch TV so off peak same me nothing. Instead I bought a bunch of the wireless things that you can control from your phone when to switch on/off. I hook up alot of devices I don't constantly use and either time them or turn them directly on when I need them. I even put my remote PC upstairs to sleep which I can wake up via a program when I need it .My balanced bill went from 228 to $115.

 

[unhyphy]

Good god, these rates make me glad I live in the PNW. Static rate of 8.5 cents. But I have friends in other areas who pay 3 cents.

 

[zoomer0056]

Good god, these rates make me glad I live in the PNW. Static rate of 8.5 cents. But I have friends in other areas who pay 3 cents.

Yup, I pay a lot where I live ... except for gas.