Official demise of PG&E's E7 rate plan received

[GuyGadois]

Just got my letter today that my beloved E7 rate plan is going away.

I am told that in March I will be changed over to a "new, simpler time-of-use rate plan, ETOU-A." Now, when ever I hear the announcement for a "new, simpler" it never is a good sign. It should read, "more confusing and costly". The problem is I can't find the rate plan for this "new, simpler" plan except for the reference made to the cost going up from 3pm to 8pm. Nothing else. Anyone have an idea what the ETOU-A rate plan looks like?

GG

 

[rxlawdude]

Just got my letter today that my beloved E7 rate plan is going away.

I am told that in March I will be changed over to a "new, simpler time-of-use rate plan, ETOU-A." Now, when ever I hear the announcement for a "new, simpler" it never is a good sign. It should read, "more confusing and costly". The problem is I can't find the rate plan for this "new, simpler" plan except for the reference made to the cost going up from 3pm to 8pm. Nothing else. Anyone have an idea what the ETOU-A rate plan looks like?

GG

Be happy you're not on the EV Submeter Pilot that PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E are in the midst of. So far, about 60% of my EV charging has not been credited to the EV submeter account, due to SCE claiming "the data received from the MDMA [the middleman between the submeter and utility] had errors." For. Three. Months. Net effect? $.31/kWh instead of what I should be paying, $.11/kWh.

Ugh.

 

[GuyGadois]

a little more info from PG&E: Time of Use Plan | PG&E

New Time-of-Use Rate Plans

Beginning March 1, 2016, two new time-of-use rate plans will be available. These new rate plans will be called Time of Day Rate Plans (currently known as ETOU-A and ETOU-B). Below are brief descriptions about these new rates.

• 
  [*=left]TIME OF DAY RATE PLAN 3-8 p.m. (ETOU-A): This rate plan is best if you don’t use much energy and can be flexible about when you use it. If you can reduce your usage from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays this rate plan may be best for you.
  [*=left]TIME OF DAY RATE PLAN 4-9 p.m. (ETOU-B): This rate plan is best if you tend to use a high amount of energy, but can be flexible about when you use it. If you can reduce your usage from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays, this rate plan would be beneficial.

 

[Lloyd]

Check and compare EV -A it may be better than the new plans being offered.

 

[brucet999]

Just got my letter today that my beloved E7 rate plan is going away.

I am told that in March I will be changed over to a "new, simpler time-of-use rate plan, ETOU-A." Now, when ever I hear the announcement for a "new, simpler" it never is a good sign. It should read, "more confusing and costly". The problem is I can't find the rate plan for this "new, simpler" plan except for the reference made to the cost going up from 3pm to 8pm. Nothing else. Anyone have an idea what the ETOU-A rate plan looks like?

GG

If PG&E is like SoCal Edison, you can call EV customer service and ask them to take selected weeks during the past year and tell you what your usage was in each of the TOU time periods and what you would have paid under TOU VS your old plan. Choose representative weeks from both summer and winter (but not December) since rates and TOU peak times may be different.

 

[Wshowell]

We too are E7'ers. We will proactively switch to E6 PRIOR to them closing new enrollment March 1 before we get shoved into that horrible TOU rate. E6 looks very much like E7 but the hours and rates do differ at NOT to our advantage. YMMV.... You'll need to act fast or get what they will give you. Sinister and providing just the right amount of motivation for our solar array this next Fall.

 

[arnolddeleon]

If E-7 made sense for you then you will want to switch to E-6 now before it becomes unavailable. Rates for E-TOU-A are not available yet so you can't do the analysis. You can always switch to E-TOU-A or some other rate later. E-6 closes to new customers at the end of Feb 2016. FWIW the PG&E solar person I talked to was pretty sure I would want E-6. When I compared E-7 to E-6 the differences weren't that large so it will be a fine place to be while we wait for more information.

arnold

 

[aesculus]

If E-7 made sense for you then you will want to switch to E-6 now before it becomes unavailable. Rates for E-TOU-A are not available yet so you can't do the analysis. You can always switch to E-TOU-A or some other rate later. E-6 closes to new customers at the end of Feb 2016. FWIW the PG&E solar person I talked to was pretty sure I would want E-6. When I compared E-7 to E-6 the differences weren't that large so it will be a fine place to be while we wait for more information.

arnold

Yep. No penalty for switching to E6 now and a lot to gain if E-TOU-A is not so sweet.

I am wondering what's going to happen when they support the sub meters for EV? Will they then put everyone on E-TOU-A (who is not grandfathered) and just the car on the EV rates?

 

[Jeff N]

If PG&E is like SoCal Edison, you can call EV customer service and ask them to take selected weeks during the past year and tell you what your usage was in each of the TOU time periods and what you would have paid under TOU VS your old plan. Choose representative weeks from both summer and winter (but not December) since rates and TOU peak times may be different.

At least for typical customers you can log into PG&E's website and go to a rate comparison page that uses your last year of electricity usage records to show how much your account would pay under various common alternative rate plans. I don't have solar and use around 500 kWh a month including overnight plugin charging. My best rate is shown as E6 together with a SmartRate option where you agree to higher daytime super-peak rates ~15 times a year. That's an easy choice since I live in cool summer San Francisco and use almost to power at those times anyway.

There is no publicly available rate schedule detail for the TOU use rates and the rate comparison page does not include billing estimates for those rate plans. I'm curious to see what it will look like.

 

[GuyGadois]

I use the PGE Toolkit for IOS app. It is an awesome app that takes your PG&E data and shows any of your months and the cost for each rate plan. I just got notification that they added this new plan data to the app so you can see how much ETOU-A is going to cost. I have no affiliation with this app but find it just totally useful.

GG

 

[SanCarlos]

I use the PGE Toolkit for IOS app. It is an awesome app that takes your PG&E data and shows any of your months and the cost for each rate plan. I just got notification that they added this new plan data to the app so you can see how much ETOU-A is going to cost. I have no affiliation with this app but find it just totally useful.

GG

+1 Great app. But sadly it shows that E-6 is worse than E-7. But everyone on E-7 definitely should switch to E-6. You can can always switch to another rate later, but you get one shot at E-6.

 

[GuyGadois]

+1 Great app. But sadly it shows that E-6 is worse than E-7. But everyone on E-7 definitely should switch to E-6. You can can always switch to another rate later, but you get one shot at E-6.

Unless you have solar and then go to EV-A. Right? So confusing.

 

[Nigel16494]

E7 was good, I missed it since I wanted E1 to run A/C in the day. Two electric cars later I switched to E6 last year. I also see the E6 is stopped in March for newcomers so I will stick with it. I may just increase panels but I cannot get a good answer whether I am eligible for the Federal 30% rebate since I got the rebate in 2007 when it was capped at 2K

 

[Yombad]

Has anyone taken a look at the new E-TOU rates from PG&E? You can find the rates here:
Pacific Gas & Electric - Tariffs
Look under the second batch "Residential Time-of-Use"

As I read it,
Summer peak is $0.28/kWh for your baseline usage, then $0.40 for anything over baseline during peak.
Summer off-peak is about $0.21 for baseline, then $0.32 over baseline.

Winter is pretty flat for peak/off-peak at about $0.15-0.17 for baseline, then $0.27-0.28 for over baseline.

Peak hours are 3-8pm or 4-9pm, not great for solar.

This rate would be horrible for EVs and doesn't seem like it offers much, if any, advantage over the standard E1/tiered rates for solar customers. That summer off-peak kinds sucks - might work out ok with a SW or W facing array that covers nearly all of your summer usage. I used to universally recommend E-6 (or EV-A, if they have an EV) for solar, but it looks like it will require a little more analysis now. EV-A is still the way to go for EV + Solar.