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PG&E Electricity Rate Change?

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I'm looking into the PG&E rates for EV cars. Using their calculator, I should be able to save over $900/year, though I'm not sure if that's accurate. Either way, I'm unable to change my rate on their website.

I think this might be because we're exceeding some tier in our current rate, which is the basic tiered rate. Most likely because my car is plugged in and charging off of a regular wall plug all the time.

This month I'm trying to just use superchargers to see if this helps.

Anyone else have this issue?
 
PG&E has a number of calculators on their site, the one your used may or may not be accurate. I just noticed they have a fairly new EV calculator - this could be wildly inaccurate, because it makes broad assumptions. In fact you don't even have to be logged in to use that one, and you only answer a couple of very basic questions. It does seem to mostly assume you're on the basic E-1 Tiered rate, and probably based on what you say is your currently monthly bill, that most of your EV charging will push you into the higher tiers.

The problem is that the EV rates are TOU-based, so this calculator doesn't know when you use your current household electricity, nor when you charge your EV, to make an accurate calculation.

There is another calculator. If you have 12 months of electricity history with PG&E, and your meter is a SmartMeter, then you can log in to your account, and use the Electric Rate Plan Comparison tool. This will use actual 12 months usage by your actual TOU, to calculate your bill on EV or E-TOU rate plans, compared to your current E-1.

This tool can actually work better if you DON'T have much history of EV charging in the previous 12 months. Because after you use the Comparison Tool, there is an add-on calculator called the Rate Simulator with five basic questions - one of the five is buying a new EV. This Simulator still uses your 12 month history, but the EV question will add on additional EV charging and on top will assume you charge at the most advantageous hour (for the EV rate this would be like midnight to 7 am). The other four questions also check if you would modify other behavior like the dishwasher to shift to off-peak periods.

If your 12 months of history already include EV charging, then don't use the add-on Simulator, but your 12-month history won't tell them when you were charging, and how to predict you expected time-shfiting to the Off-Peak periods.
 
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Tariffs - current EV plan is EV2-A.

Rate Plan Options lists the choices.

PG&E sucks. They're expensive as heck (hence Pacific Gouge & Extort). Before COVID-19, I had free level 2 juice at work. However, since mid-March, I'm not supposed to go to the office unless I really have to (long story) due to COVID.

Fortunately, I almost never charge at home and have gotten most of my free juice from Home Page - DRIVEtheARC charging (for my Bolt, CCS free charging got quietly added, was CHAdeMO for free only before), free public L2 charging and a bit of paid DC FC (e.g. Electrify America and ChargePoint, CCS again for my Bolt).

Prior to lockdown, I was on E-6 (closed to new customers). Due to having to WFH, the crazy high rates during the day of E-6 weren't going to work for me, esp. in the summer heat. I'm on E-1 now.
 
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I'm looking into the PG&E rates for EV cars. Using their calculator, I should be able to save over $900/year, though I'm not sure if that's accurate. Either way, I'm unable to change my rate on their website.

I think this might be because we're exceeding some tier in our current rate, which is the basic tiered rate. Most likely because my car is plugged in and charging off of a regular wall plug all the time.

This month I'm trying to just use superchargers to see if this helps.

Anyone else have this issue?
If you charge the car only during Off-Peak hours and don't have much A/C load, you could definitely save $900 per year by changing to the EV rate plan. This may require you to get a more powerful circuit to charge the car since charging a Tesla from a 120V wall plug can take several days of continuous charging if you actually run down the battery.
 
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