For me, the problem was that EV charging was too expensive on E-6, especially in the winter when I would go into the higher tiers due to my relatively small solar system. I went on E-9A as soon as I got my first EV in 2013. Summer charging was dirt cheap, barely over 5c/kWh total. However, they steadily ramped up the prices and by the time the EV rate came around, the lack of tiers in the Winter made it cheaper over the whole year, so I changed to that during the first winter it was open. Sometimes gut feeling about rate schedules is wrong. I always went by the pure math and calculated what each rate would cost based on my actual usage patterns. Now that I have Powerwalls, it's harder to calculate because your behavior on one schedule doesn't calculate the same because you can change the Powerwalls to match the new schedule.
Hmm, I'm late to the party.
If my math is right, I can stay on EV-A until ca. 2022. I'm probably in a different situation than most: west-facing panels, all-electric house, no air conditioning, and NEM2. This time of year my generation peak is at about 15:30. Under previous TOU plans I've been pretty good at shifting usage off-peak, but with EV-A and NEM2 my true-ups have been driven by NBCs instead of net usage. To minimize NBCs I'd have to shift as much usage as possible to off-peak daylight hours: weekends, say 11:00-15:00. The benefits are marginal though, because PCE's annual credit seems to cancel out my PG&E MDC + NBC almost exactly. So I net out close to zero, and at a first approximation my cost is simply the amortized cost of my solar rig and installation.
Switching to EV2-A would mean having off-peak until 15:00 every weekday. Sounds kind of... nice? I like the idea of being able to run the dryer or the charger on weekday mornings. But I'd lose an hour of peak revenue every weekday. In the winter there's another tradeoff: pay less for heat in the morning, and more in the evening. It's tricky to estimate the overall effect. Would NBCs cease to dominate my true-ups? Would the true-ups be higher or lower?
Or maybe PG&E wants me to buy a Powerwall
CHAdeMO is the only DC standard that actively supports DC export from a vehicle. However, I don't see why a bi-directional CCS charger would not work within the charging standard. Same for Tesla. The thing that will get it your way is if the car is monitoring the current flows and actively objects to current flowing out of the battery while an active DC charging session is in progress. The car can always open the contactors to break the connection to the battery and protect itself from anything it doesn't like.
You should get to keep EV-A for a while. It's not specified clearly if you don't have solar. One PG&E rep told me 5 years from when you first took that rate plan.
This specific point should not be under-estimated. IMHO, the biggest positive change in recent years with respect to electric utilities in California is the rise of CCAs. The fact that they are able to source carbon free power and pay distributed generators for the full value of their TOU differentials is a very positive outcome for solar consumers.There are many solar customers who were net positive kWh consumers but had TOU credit balances that were wiped out by PG&E. With most CCAs, they will get to either carry over small credit balances or cash out larger credit balances at true-up for the generation portion of their bills. This will help cover PG&E minimum charges and NBCs, if any. Now, if we can just get the CPUC to sunset PCIA fees, we'll make some really meaningful progress on reducing electric rates through CCAs.
Am I correct in assuming the neck of the duck curve is not as steep as it once was?
You can only change plans once per year, precisely so that you cannot game it to be on different plans in Winter and Summer. However, if you have never taken the EV rate and you get an EV, you can change to it even if you have changed your rate plan in the last year.
