New PG&E Customer Needing Guidance (Teslas + Solar)

[jimmyz80]

It looks like I'll be making the move from the Raleigh, NC area to El Dorado Hills, CA in a few months, since we're in contract on a house now. I'm old hat to Teslas and EVs but this will be my first ever house with solar, and first time being a PG&E customer in well over a decade. Some data points on the situation:
- From what I've gathered, the house has a 7kW Tesla Solar system installed on it.
- We have both a Model S and Model 3, but don't do a whole lot of driving (maybe 10-11k miles/year combined).
- The house is fairly large (3500sf) and in an area that will need a lot of cooling in the summer.
- I work from home, so the house will be occupied/cooled during peak hours.

Now that I'm signing up for PG&E, my head is spinning on what rate plan to start off with. It sounds like there's tiered, TOU, and EV-2A rate plans. Is there any sort of rule of thumb to help decide between TOU and EV-2A? I assume once I have a handful of months worth of data, I can make a smarter decision, but I'd like to make sure I don't start out on the absolute worst possible option.

Thanks!

 

[cwied]

Depending on whether your solar is contracted under NEM 1.0 or 2.0, you may not have a choice to go tiered. If you end up not offsetting your entire electric bill (and given the size of house and air conditioning needs, it sounds like you won't), TOU will be more beneficial with solar than EV-2A because of the way the net metering credits are calculated. With net metering you will earn credits at the rate that is in effect when you're generating. Because the EV-2A has off-peak until 3pm and peak all the way until 9pm, you will end up getting credited for a large portion of your solar generation at a lower rate than you're using. Powerwalls can help mitigate this somewhat, but even then it might not be worth it with your relatively low EV mileage.

Once you've been in the house for a year, PG&E's website will let you compare available rate plans by telling you how much you would have paid under each plan.

 

[tjkessler]

I ended up settling on TOU-B weekdays it's peak from 4pm to 9pm. I charge the EV's after 9 and I have the air conditioner cool the house down to 70 from 2-4pm, then the thermostat bounces up to 75 until 9pm. There are a couple of TOU options so check carefully. EV-A and EV2-B didn't work for me since I do need to run a fair amount of air conditioning in the late afternoon. The peak rates are very high on those plans. The late night stuff is very reasonable.

 

[thr33xx]

This might be of some use, but I believe PG&E still offers bill protection between tiered and TOU plans. So if you do end up selecting a higher priced plan, PG&E will make the adjustment to your bill for the plan that is cheaper for that year. I don't believe EV plans qualify for bill protection. Something you may want to dig further into.