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PG&E Billing after Powerwall PTO

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miimura

Well-Known Member
Aug 21, 2013
7,770
7,892
Los Altos, CA
I recently received my first PG&E bill after receiving Permission To Operate my Powerwall system. I received a "Black and White Bill" on letter size paper and my regular "Blue Bill" showed that my Service Agreement ID was closed. The service dates of the two bills overlapped, so it looked like I was being double charged. I called the PG&E Solar Customer Service center for explanation. Here is what I found out.

1. When PG&E officially activates your Powerwall when you get PTO, you are changed to the NEM-MT tariff. This tariff is not compatible with the general billing system that generates the Blue Bills. All billing on accounts with Powerwall will be billed on the system that generates the Black and White bills for the foreseeable future. If you had solar more than a year or two ago, you are familiar with these old Black and White bills. The bill calculation rules are actually the same, so I find this a little ridiculous.

2. Because you are transferred to the other billing system, a True-Up is forced and you must settle up your partial year of energy charges.

3. The main billing system is not smart enough to automatically truncate the billing period to when the old Service Agreement was closed. They will have to issue adjustments to back out the charges on the bill after the PTO date, including any CCA charges. Then they will issue a new bill for the second part of the billing period and transfer the charges from the already issued Black and White bill.

4. There are two versions of the Black and White Bill. People normally receive the Summary version which is one sheet, front and back. However, the Summary version does not include any detail about CCA generation charges. I requested the Detailed version for the bill already issued and as the default going forward. The supervisor indicated that these are usually 10 to 12 pages. These Black and White bills are always sent by postal mail because they don't have a way to view or download them from the PG&E web site. That is supposedly being worked on.

So, while these issues are disappointing, they are not at all surprising and really have no financial impact. It just takes a few months to get the billing straightened out. In that respect, it's no different than a new solar PTO.
 
That true-up is going to be really annoying if they do it during the summer when I have a negative balance. That is kind of disappointing. I stand to lose a fair amount of credit depending on when they get around to issuing my PTO.
If you can show that you would have used up the credit and the early true-up did hurt you financially, I would push to have them roll that credit into the new true-up period. You probably won't be successful, but it's may be worth a shot.
 
These Black and White bills are always sent by postal mail because they don't have a way to view or download them from the PG&E web site. That is supposedly being worked on.

You can download digital versions of the black and white bill online. It is buried under a couple menus.
  1. Log onto your PG&E account.
  2. On the dashboard, next to "Hi, <Your First Name>" There is a drop down for account number. Select "My Account and Services"
  3. Under "Gas and electric service information" select your electrical service ID.
  4. Under "Service details", you can download billing details.
 
You can download digital versions of the black and white bill online. It is buried under a couple menus.
  1. Log onto your PG&E account.
  2. On the dashboard, next to "Hi, <Your First Name>" There is a drop down for account number. Select "My Account and Services"
  3. Under "Gas and electric service information" select your electrical service ID.
  4. Under "Service details", you can download billing details.
I went through that on the phone with the Solar Customer Service supervisor, but in my account there are no links. She seemed to think it was a known issue. That's why I said it was supposedly being worked on.
 
Also note that if you get your PTO before you have an EV, you will be on ETOU-A or B. Then later if you want to switch to EV-A, you have to call them and they have to do another sort of mini PTO, then they will switch you. On my black bill it shows ETOU-A for Jan - April this year, then May shows EV-A
 
Also note that if you get your PTO before you have an EV, you will be on ETOU-A or B. Then later if you want to switch to EV-A, you have to call them and they have to do another sort of mini PTO, then they will switch you. On my black bill it shows ETOU-A for Jan - April this year, then May shows EV-A
Changing the rate schedule from E-TOU-A to EV-A should not trigger a True-Up. That is the only thing that has a significant financial impact on the customer in the things I mentioned in the first post.
 
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You can download digital versions of the black and white bill online. It is buried under a couple menus.
  1. Log onto your PG&E account.
  2. On the dashboard, next to "Hi, <Your First Name>" There is a drop down for account number. Select "My Account and Services"
  3. Under "Gas and electric service information" select your electrical service ID.
  4. Under "Service details", you can download billing details.
This is now working for me. I can now download the ridiculously over-complicated 9 page black and white bill. However, the billing remains quite behind. My blue bill dated 7/24/2018 references the black and white bill covering the period 5/18/2018 to 6/17/2018. Way to go PG&E.

The only bright side from looking at these bills is that the Powerwalls managed to help me push 194 kWh into the grid during the Peak rate period. I don't think we ever had a net negative during Peak of more than 20kWh in prior years due to the evening usage until 9pm.