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PG&E rates?
- Thread starter geometro
- Start date
Not really. PG&E is allowed to charge the additional PCIA charge to make up what they are losing. So in the end net net a PG&E customer ends up paying slightly more than if just sourcing and paying to PG&E
DR61
Member
Eno Deb
Active Member
This is not true for my CCA (SVCE). Their generation charges are quite a bit lower than PG&E's, and the difference more than covers the PCIA and Franchise Fee, even though I use their 100% renewable rate (which is about 0.8 cents/kWh more than the regular one).
Eno Deb
Active Member
- Create more competition, which generally results in lower generation rates
- Give local authorities more choices, e.g. in favor of carbon-free sources which stimulates renewable power development
- Give consumers choices (you can usually pick between one or more CCAs and your utility)
can be.. sadly, in the example above (PG&E rates?) one can see the PCIA makes the CCA changes a wash, just about equal in total to the PG&E rates total,
and sadly in MY area on the peninsula, overall its just under 10% higher overall. It's not a big number and I GUESS I'm happier with energy coming from more renewable sources, but it was pushed through without my confirmation and the marketing of "lower prices" was a total mis-communication or downright lie overall. Sure, my alternate energy producer charges a bit LESS per/kWh for generation than PG&E for GENERATION, but PG&E just adds the PCIA and the overall total bill cost for electricity is HIGHER. #sad
Eno Deb
Active Member
PCE? According to their web page your total rate should be about half a cent lower than PG&E's least expensive rate. See table here:
For Residents
wish it were so, sadly it's not. There are a lot of sites and forum postings about the true comparisons. Some areas might have .01-.02 cents cheaper overall, including the PCIA charges. Here, its about .03-.04 cents per kWh overall more expensive. The local PCE site says as much, if one digs into the details and FAQ's.
Eno Deb
Active Member
Here's a detailed comparison of the PCE and PG&E rates:
https://www.pge.com/pge_global/comm...hoice-aggregation/pce_rateclasscomparison.pdf
At first glance I don't see any scenario where the total rate with PCE isn't less expensive. But in any case, you always have the choice to go back to PG&E.
One really has to answer the question about what they iuse IN the house during the day between about 11-2100 on more than basically 10% of annual days. If one works from home at all or if a spouse and or kids are home afternoons in winter running heat and blower or in summer running AC in the afternoons. The price penalty for that time use even just seasonally can overwhelm the savings for the cheap evening charging it it Isn’t at least more than about 250kWh extra a month. That’s about 1000 miles a month charging usage.
Your tier two pricing starts and goes up to about 440/440% of baseline. That’s a lot unless there is a lot of the other elents I listed above.
I range from about 300-725 kWh monthly and couldn’t make the EV time of use plans make any sense unless I was really going to charge A LOT at home or was ready to shift any big wattage uses outside those daily afternoon times. Laundry and drying is fine but sometimes it’s oretty hard to turn off a heater or AC depednfing on the day.
Nice thing about here in CA os that the supercharger fixed rare at .26 is lower than my tier 2 pricing so if I can work it out with regular travel and stops (like at my gym or near work) it makes low sense to charge all at home. Also I have a free level 2 charger nearby that I hit once every two weeks while I work at a client for 3-5 hours. YMMV
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Here is what I did to determine if I should switch to EV-A from tiered. PG&E allows you to compare your past year's worth of electricity usage as if it were changed to a different plan. I paid about $1150 for electricity between Nov 2017 to Nov 2018 while on the tiered plan. Based on PG&E, if I had been on the EV-A plan, it would have been about $1240.. so $90 more. Therefore, I would have to save at least $90 on EV charging per year on the EV-A plan compared to if I stayed on the tiered plan for the switch to make sense.
EV-A off peak is $0.13/kWh (I would only charge the car during off peak). For tiered, the average of tier 1 and tier 2 is about $0.24/kWh (I think it's fair to assume half my EV charging would be tier 1 and half tier 2 if I had stayed on the tiered plan EDIT: if anything, this would be in favor of the tiered plan!)... which is savings of $0.11/kWh. In an entire year, I expect to drive about 10000 miles. Assume I use 240Wh to drive one mile, that's 2400kWh for the year. At a savings of $0.11/kWh, that's about $264 of savings for a year.. which is much more than the estimated $90 extra for non-EV charging electricity usage.
So I switched.
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To get the actual historical compare, did you leave the miles driven amount BLANK for the first round to get the comparisons? And did you select that you would make no other changes as to time of day usages? When I tried it that way, it spit out a plan rate comparison that were all within about 10$ of each other - which made no sense.
The historical comparison I'm referring to on the PG&E website shows up when you click on the "Compare Rate Plans" button on the right side of your account summary page. It brings up a page with a list of all the rate plans available and next to each one, it has a $$$ value of what you would have paid in the past year if you were on said rate plan.
I think we're talking about different "historical comparison web pages"
EDIT: I uploaded a screenshot of the "compare rate plans" button I'm talking about
EDIT PART 2: Wait, I found the webpage you're talking about. I answered "I won't change anything" for all questions except for adding an EV and driving 250 miles per week. The saving are almost double of what I calculated in my previous post, $1760 for EVA vs $2315 for tiered!
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But technically if that compare site really IS pulling in all the historical tiered usage data, and the TIME element of the data and one checks on "won't change a thing" and doesn't add any solar or EV charging, shouldn't it then just provide a comparison of what your historical usage would have cost with an EV (or other) plan? Thats the only way I can think of having the PGE comparison site look back and see HOW/WHEN one used electricity and then calculating what the TOU plan impact would be.
So, when I run it and do it that way - no changes, no EV it spits out about 1475$ for current tiered (says WAS 1510$, but I think rates maybe DROPPED? WTFK) but then it says TOA-A TOA-B, EV-A etc, and the present projections are like 1480, 1495, 1500, 1510$, that's it. So, even though I KNOW I use a lot during the day probably at least 40% of the time during the year, high wattage items like heaters, blower, AC, it isn't really calculating much difference in price. OR, the comparison tool doesn't work that way or well.
If I say "i'll try" and minimal changes and 150 miles a week, it says I'd pay 1740$ with an EV-A plan and 2100$ with my tiered plan.
It's really hard to say, since I KNOW about 20-25 days a summer I'm using high wattage items like AC from 14:00-20:00 at night. And in winter I know I'm using my blower (which is inefficient) for heating and heaters sometimes during the day, which SHOULD re-calculate up pretty higher for at least the alternate rates PEAK and PARTIAL PEAK times. So, it doesn't really seem the calculator tool is doing what it should.
As you can see the "show all rates plans" seems to really indicate that any impact would be negligible, which frankly doesn't make much sense.
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If you look at that pdf, unless one is on the 50% renewable many/most of the PCE rate projections are about 2-3% more expensive. I would also add that this data they used is from March 2018. when they first made the changes it was in June 2018, and from then I started to do the calculations and that is when I noticed the ~10% overall electricity increase in total. so, I'd like to see them re-do this with current data and rates. Who knows if they maybe kept rates constant and PG&E lowered, or the other way around?
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I did not have an EV prior to Dec 2018 so all my usage history is purely home related use. If you already own an EV and have been charging it at home for the past year, then the PG&E comparisons might not make as much sense as mine, even if you enter 0miles for the PG&E questionnaire.
But to take a stab at some of the stuff you're seeing.... maybe if you run your heater or A/C a lot, the times you would use it off-peak based on EV-A rates would balance out the peak rate times. Also, part-peak rates are about equal to tier 1, and even a little less depending on time of year, so if you have a lot of tier 2 usage during part-peak hours, that can also account for less cost when switching to EV-A. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The math is what it is. The PCIA charge is already included and this particular customer on this particular bill is paying $1.58/mo less with the CCA than direct with PG&E. In my case, I have elected to take the Green Prime service from Silicon Valley Clean Energy, so I pay $0.008/kWh more for 100% Renewable power. If you have solar, you get that premium for the power they buy from you. SVCE will also cut you a check if you have a credit balance of more than $200 with them at true-up. Any credit balance on your PG&E portion at true-up will be wiped out. As far as I can tell Net Surplus Generation doesn't apply when you have a CCA, which makes sense.
There has been a big fight between PG&E, the CCA's, TURN (The Utility Reform Network), the CPUC, and an administrative law judge regarding the calculation of the PCIA fees. The core problem is that the CPUC worked with PG&E to establish long term power purchase agreements with (fossil fueled) generators in the aftermath of the energy crisis. The idea was that more stable energy prices were needed. However, now that a significant fraction of the load is moving to CCA's that purchase their own power, PG&E has these uncompetitive long term contracts that are "unfairly burdening" the customers remaining with PG&E's purchased generation. The PCIA fee is supposed to pass those above market costs across all customers. However, from what I've read of the proceedings, there is no end in sight to this fee. PG&E simply has no financial interest in making good contracts for their customers. All of their power purchase costs simply get passed on to customers, no matter what.
cpa
Active Member
Remember, it is PG&E. They are in a whole world of hurt of late, and it appears that it will get worse.
I think what Miimura posited is true: "PG&E has simply no financial interest in making good contracts for their customers. All of their power purchase costs simply get passed on to customers, no matter what."
The chickens are coming home to roost for PG&E. No telling how that bodes for us customers. And no telling whether the CPUC will have the customers or shareholders in mind when push comes to shove. My money is on the latter, not the former.
A good friend of mine works on the environmental clean up aspects after wildfires. He has told me stories about PG&E that are really unsettling.
PG&E should go bankrupt and out of business. Part them out.
****End of ranting editorial.*****
I think what Miimura posited is true: "PG&E has simply no financial interest in making good contracts for their customers. All of their power purchase costs simply get passed on to customers, no matter what."
The chickens are coming home to roost for PG&E. No telling how that bodes for us customers. And no telling whether the CPUC will have the customers or shareholders in mind when push comes to shove. My money is on the latter, not the former.
A good friend of mine works on the environmental clean up aspects after wildfires. He has told me stories about PG&E that are really unsettling.
PG&E should go bankrupt and out of business. Part them out.
****End of ranting editorial.*****
