Yeah... I can run the circuit for the HPWC myself, and I have some other siding work I need to do anyway (which is one thing that prompted me to take another look).
Ultimately I have been considering solar, and figured I'd try and get it all done at the same time, but wanted to look a bit to see if phasing the EV plans in would make sense.
Thanks.
We were on the whole house + EV plan, able to shift household loads, precool with AC etc and were happy. We increased our electricity consumption by 40-50% with the Tesla and only increased our electric bill by 10-20%. We chose not to do the EV only plan which requires a separate meter since our garage is detached and would have required significant expense to run a new service from the utility.
Then we decided to go solar which made things very complicated...
Dominion does not permit the whole house + EV plan (which is considered a pilot plan) to be used with any type of solar program.
Their solar programs are either:
1) Their SPP (solar purchase plan) where they buy all of your solar generation from you at a 15c per kwh generated (requires a dedicated meter that solely measures your solar generation). Oh yeah, and one other thing they don't point out is you get
TAXED on the "income" from the SPP. So every 1kWh=15cents paid to you but then you have to pay income tax on that money.
or
2) Net metering where your meter spins forwards or backwards depending on whether you are generating more solar than consuming. No taxation issues here but you want to size your system to not generate more than you use in a typical year.
The separate EV only plan is compatible with either solar plan but you have to be careful about sizing your solar system here. If you generate too much solar, Dominion won't credit you for excess generation on the net metering plan. Since the EV is metered/billed separately, your EV consumption will not be included in your overall household consumption against what you are generating with solar.
We currently have no special EV rate, just net metering for the solar. We actually tried a time of use plan (schedule 1S) for a while but that plan gouges you with very high "demand" charges that penalize you for having a high consumption during on-peak energy times (such as running your AC in the afternoon). So we switched back to the regular rate plan (regular schedule 1) which is about 11cents per Kwh.
The sad thing is, there is now no financial incentive for us to charge the car during the deep night even though it would greatly benefit the grid/Dominion for us to do so. It also creates a disincentive to go solar if you have an EV because you must choose between good EV rates and getting maximum credit for your solar production.
It's complicated, PM me with questions