PG&E discontinuing EV-A rate

[astrorob]

How would they know? On E-TOU-B it you are claiming that you will only charge the car on that meter. On E-TOU-A you can use any power you want and they have no idea what is consuming it.

I also am considering moving to E-TOU-B if I get the dreaded letter. But what worries me is that they will next establish the requirement for "virtual or sub meters" on car chargers anyway making E-TOU-B moot.

Electric Vehicle Submetering Pilot Program

i don't see anything in E-TOU that indicates that plan B is a "split meter" plan... but maybe i can't read, or there's some other document that describes what you can and can't do with an EV on E-TOU?

EV-B clearly says you need a 2nd meter for the car right in the tariff document... but all i see in E-TOU is that -A is a tiered plan and -B is a non-tiered plan.

 

[astrorob]

The EV rate is the successor to the "experimental" E-9 rate. That rate plan was even more customer friendly. When I got my RAV4 EV in 2013, I was able to charge during Summer months for less than 4c/kWh. That was the Baseline Off-Peak Summer price. Daytime generation, even at Baseline was earning 10c to 31c/kWh. On annual true-up it wasn't that cheap because I went way over Baseline due to poor solar generation. Incremental EV charging cost was then 20c/kWh in the Winter.

interesting - yeah i forgot about that rate. i remember coming across E9 when i was researching installation of solar... man 4c/kwh. amazing. that seems to be below even midwest electric rates!

 

[aesculus]

i don't see anything in E-TOU that indicates that plan B is a "split meter" plan... but maybe i can't read, or there's some other document that describes what you can and can't do with an EV on E-TOU?

EV-B clearly says you need a 2nd meter for the car right in the tariff document... but all i see in E-TOU is that -A is a tiered plan and -B is a non-tiered plan.

Sorry. Brained out with the B thing.

You are correct. It's EV-B with the separate meter. Can't keep my B's straight.

 

[miimura]

interesting - yeah i forgot about that rate. i remember coming across E9 when i was researching installation of solar... man 4c/kwh. amazing. that seems to be below even midwest electric rates!

I don't think that PG&E thought through the combination of E-9 and solar. It was really too good to be true. BTW, by September 2015, that 3.8c/kWh rate had been increased to 7c/kWh. At that time they were "flattening" the rates across the board so that Baseline rates were gradually increased and higher tiers were gradually reduced. Over time, they also reduced the number of tiers from 5 to 3.

 

[astrorob]

Sorry. Brained out with the B thing.

You are correct. It's EV-B with the separate meter. Can't keep my B's straight.

no biggie - anyway i guess i can call PGE to find out if E-TOU-B is still open but i thought maybe someone here knew... then again probably everyone here is on EVA or EVB!

i already have to call and opt out of the CCA thing - not that i'm opposed to it but i really don't want to do anything that might give PGE the excuse to take me off of EVA prematurely. i feel like calling and asking questions is inviting disaster with these guys.

 

[Ampster]

The CCA thing is totally unrelated to the tariffs. There are a lot of other benefits to being in a CCA.

 

[miket90000]

I'm going to try to move some solar to EVB to offset the 2 EV's. PGE said they will get back to me to see if that's allowed. I have 2 systems on my home and I want to move the smaller array to EV-b.

 

[astrorob]

I'm going to try to move some solar to EVB to offset the 2 EV's. PGE said they will get back to me to see if that's allowed. I have 2 systems on my home and I want to move the smaller array to EV-b.

thanks please keep us posted!

 

[TallCoolOne]

@TallCoolOne Did you have NEM1 prior to your NEM2 enabled in August?

Sorry for the late reply, no I just installed solar this summer, so was never on NEM1 or any other solar plan.

 

[greendublin]

Sorry for the late reply, no I just installed solar this summer, so was never on NEM1 or any other solar plan.

@TallCoolOne Thank you.

I don't have good numbers as I added new solar panels and an EV over the past few months. Need to wait at least a year to get a better feel for generation, usage and costs. Wondering if anyone has done any analysis on the benefits of installing additional solar panels versus adding storage, keeping in mind the new EV2-A rate.

 

[miimura]

@TallCoolOne Thank you.

I don't have good numbers as I added new solar panels and an EV over the past few months. Need to wait at least a year to get a better feel for generation, usage and costs. Wondering if anyone has done any analysis on the benefits of installing additional solar panels versus adding storage, keeping in mind the new EV2-A rate.

It is relatively easy to model what solar will do to your bills on the various rate plans. Storage is inherently more difficult because it allows you to shift usage around to different rate periods. It would take very rigorous simulation to model that because you would essentially have to simulate the behavior of the battery system and track the SOC through the day to determine when it gets full or empty to know when the solar will be exported to the grid or the house will be forced to draw from the grid. It can be done, but the amount of work would be like an undergraduate thesis to get accurate figures.

 

[scrumpto]

I'm totally baffled as to which plan to move to. Here's my situation, any help would be most appreciated. In theory, this would be easier if the PG&E comparison tool was working but it appears broken.

Note: if you're wondering why I'm laboring over this, our PG&E bill runs over $1k/month currently!

Our solar system went live a few days ago and I'm hoping we're going to be producing a surplus (designed it that way). Over time we're going to be adding more electrical though so it will even out. Right now we've been moved to E-TOU-A with an option to move to EV2-A. Wish I'd known about the grandfathering as my solar guy told me not to move plans -- grrr.

Here are the relevant tariff links:
E-TOU-A: https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-TOU.pdf
EV2-A: https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV2 (Sch).pdf

When comparing E-TOU-A to EV2-A I see the following. Note, I"m simply going to refer to these as tou and ev2. Rates are expressed as s/w for summer and winter rates and are rounded for simplicity.

ev2 has a baseline credit with a cost of .08/.08. The amount of baseline credit varies and from what I've seen in our area, it's not much. Still, that's .08/kWh which is half the off-peak of ev2. If I could stay in the baseline, that seems seriously cheap!

ev2 has higher peak pricing.
ev2 has a part-peak zone which is slightly higher than tou off-peak
ev2 has great off-peak pricing (though not as low as ev1!).

While I love the off-peak pricing of ev2, I have to wonder how close I'll be to staying within the baseline credit of tou.

Anyone else think this is all way too complex for what it should be?

 

[miimura]

Anyone else think this is all way too complex for what it should be?

Yes, figuring out what rate plan is best for a specific situation is very difficult, especially when your usage pattern is changing like adding solar. If you designed your solar system to be annually kWh neutral, it won't matter that much which rate plan you choose.

 

[dailo]

Looks like they bumped up the rates some more for EV-A starting 10/1

 

[miimura]

Looks like they bumped up the rates some more for EV-A starting 10/1

Yep, on the EV-A plan they raised Peak about 2c/kWh, Part-Peak about 1c/kWh and Off-Peak about 0.2c/kWh.

EV2 also increased, but the increase is about 0.6c/kWh across the board. EV2 Off-Peak is now over 16c/kWh.

 

[aesculus]

Yep, on the EV-A plan they raised Peak about 2c/kWh

Actually this could be a benefit to NEM EVA customers. My peak is usually a negative value so we will get more money back.

 

[Odiemac]

Yep, on the EV-A plan they raised Peak about 2c/kWh, Part-Peak about 1c/kWh and Off-Peak about 0.2c/kWh.

EV2 also increased, but the increase is about 0.6c/kWh across the board. EV2 Off-Peak is now over 16c/kWh.

Wow, jacking charging rates for EV owners almost 50% over 5 years. Unbelievable.

 

[miimura]

Wow, jacking charging rates for EV owners almost 50% over 5 years. Unbelievable.

Yep. Almost exactly 50% increase in 6 years. EV-A commenced on 8/1/2013. These were the rates then.

Now, this is the rates effective 10/1/2019

That's quite some rate inflation.

 

[Odiemac]

Yep. Almost exactly 50% increase in 6 years. EV-A commenced on 8/1/2013. These were the rates then.

View attachment 462453
Now, this is the rates effective 10/1/2019

View attachment 462454
That's quite some rate inflation.

Could be even worse if forced to switch to EV2. 70% rate inflation!?!

 

[Merrill]

That is why they are called Pacific Graft and Extortion!