PGE EV-A rate slashed

[dlieu]

Hi,

So i noticed that my EV-A rates all of a sudden were slashed almost two times down .This is supposed to be 48c peak 13c off peak with summer rates still in effect till the end of October. Yet now it looks like i am charging everything off-peak 6c/kwh.

Can that be some sort of unknown PW2, or EV-related incentive or, perhaps more likely, a glitch? Or there is some sort of baseline allowance now? I looked at the EV-A renewed tariff schedule and can't see anything like that.

(although if that's a glitch i never saw it happen before).

I never received such rates. The best rate i can remember was EV-A off-peak 8c/kwh 5 years ago.

 

[zanary]

Hi,

So i noticed that my EV-A rates all of a sudden were slashed almost two times down .This is supposed to be 48c peak 13c off peak with summer rates still in effect till the end of October. Yet now it looks like i am charging everything off-peak 6c/kwh.

Can that be some sort of unknown PW2, or EV-related incentive or, perhaps more likely, a glitch? Or there is some sort of baseline allowance now? I looked at the EV-A renewed tariff schedule and can't see anything like that.

(although if that's a glitch i never saw it happen before).

I never received such rates. The best rate i can remember was EV-A off-peak 8c/kwh 5 years ago.

View attachment 338191

I saw that last week as well, but then it corrected it self a day after.

I did check out the latest EV-A tariff, and I did noticed that they did increase the price on Sept 1st, 2018.

Here's the latest tariff document for EV-A.

https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV (Sch).pdf

 

[dlieu]

aha. a glitch. that's what i thought. thanks.

 

[dailo]

Not sure if another thread covered this, but I just noticed that the rates were decreased beginning of the year. I hope it doesn't go back up!

 

[SMAlset]

Funny to see this. We just checked with PG&E earlier this month on the EV-A plan and switched to it. The rep. said based on last year's usage we could have save around $100. We were on an E1 plan and figured that was around .28 kWh for us. It was tiered so had two rates that fluctuated based on usage.

Don't hold me to this but these were from my notes we made while talking to them. Don't recall how all the taxes etc figured or didn't figure in to these. Best to call and check for yourself.
Winter: Off Peak (11pm-7am) .12 kWh --- Summer: 12.5 kWh
Partial Peak (7am-2pm & 9-11pm) .20 kWh --- Summer: .26 kWh
Peak (2pm - 9pm) .33 kWh --- Summer: .48 kWh

On Weekends & Holidays: Peak is 3pm - 7pm & all other hours fall into Off-Peak.

 

[miimura]

Not sure if another thread covered this, but I just noticed that the rates were decreased beginning of the year. I hope it doesn't go back up!

Yes, the EV-A rates went down about $0.003/kWh for all periods on January 1, 2019.
The tariff linked by @zanary above always pulls the current tariff and each page of the tariff has its own revision effective date.

 

[zanary]

For those interested, the Tarif document for E-1 was also updated this month.

https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-1.pdf

While TOU hasn't been updated since 2017.

https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-TOU.pdf

 

[miimura]

While TOU hasn't been updated since 2017.

Actually, the prices on E-TOU were also updated on January 1, 2019. Only the first page has gone unmodified since October 2017.

 

[dailo]

Not that I am complaining, but any idea why it was adjusted? With PGE going bankrupt, can we assume the rates will go up even higher than before?

 

[miimura]

Not that I am complaining, but any idea why it was adjusted? With PGE going bankrupt, can we assume the rates will go up even higher than before?

In this round of rate adjustments, the Transmission and DWR Bond charges were reduced. I don't know the reason for the Transmission adjustment, but the DWR Bond charges are the result of the power crisis and the State having to bail out PG&E when the deregulated power market went crazy due to manipulations. They issued bonds to pay for the excessively priced power that was purchased during that period. Presumably these charges will reduce over time as the bonds are paid back.

 

[fresnoboy]

Am I reading this right that the EV-A rates have no banding based on usage? As someone who gets hosed regularly for band 4 and band 5 pricing, it would seem to be a big deal to get out of that curve.

Also, does that mean that if I push power to the grid in the peak hour I'd get paid $0.48/kWH for that? That seems to make a great case for charging batteries in the AM and dumping back to the grid during peak hours.

I think with bankruptcy PG&E will only get more rapacious on pricing.

Mike

 

[miimura]

Am I reading this right that the EV-A rates have no banding based on usage? As someone who gets hosed regularly for band 4 and band 5 pricing, it would seem to be a big deal to get out of that curve.

Also, does that mean that if I push power to the grid in the peak hour I'd get paid $0.48/kWH for that? That seems to make a great case for charging batteries in the AM and dumping back to the grid during peak hours.

I think with bankruptcy PG&E will only get more rapacious on pricing.

Mike

That is correct. The EV rate plan does not have any usage tiers. If you are a relatively high usage household and you don't have high Peak consumption like A/C, you can get a very low effective price for your charging. You also do get Peak pricing for your solar generation during the Peak hours of 2pm-9pm. However, remember that you're paying that same price after the sun goes down and your whole family is at home using power until 9pm. Before I got Powerwalls, that was really eating into my generation credits. Now, for 3/4 of the year, I'm covering all my Peak usage with Part-Peak solar power stored in the Powerwalls.

 

[fresnoboy]

Well, with a hybrid car, you could still get the EV-A rates correct, even if you didn't charge it that much?

We have a Pacifica Hybrid, and charging it at night would be only a modest cost impact, but could still provide access to EV-A rates. Too bad the car can't push power to the grid off peak.

I can see why powerwalls make sense here, and why you would want a solar array optimized for afternoon sun and not morning sun.

mike

 

[Shygar]

Yes, you also get the PG&E rebates for the Pacifica Hybrid so it should also qualify for the EV-A rate. I have a Model 3 and Pacifica Hybrid and I use the supplied level 1 charger with it. I start charging around 10pm (1 hour before off peak) and it usually finishes by noon if the battery is completely empty, which is not hard to do.

Like @miimura said, it all depends on what your usage is after the sun goes down, as the EV-A rate goes all the way till 9pm. We use the powerwall to take most of that usage, and about half of the usage in the summer due to AC (only one powerwall).

 

[Ampster]

..........I hope it doesn't go back up!

Hope springs eternal.
If you look at the unbundled rates the distribution portion actually went up and the generation portion went down. That may be explained by the fact that the cost of purchasing power went down. PG&E is facing a lot of liability for fires caused by their negligence. That alone will continue to put pressure on the distribution portion especially if they get a handle on the costs of maintenance to avoid future risks of losses caused by their negligence.

 

[dlieu]

he EV rate plan does not have any usage tiers. If you are a relatively high usage household and you don't have high Peak

i have two evs (one of which is a minivan) and 2x pw2s to shift the house. Although i don't have a regular commute, we do put around 25k miles on the cars. I consume about a little over 1mwh/mo for the cars and the house. all costs around $150/mo, 100% at off-peak rate ~$0.125/kwh (i have 0 consumption of partial or peak rates, with exception when powerwall glitched, which happened for one day in about a year and cost me extra $4 so far).

I estimate this whole deal of bulk off-peak rate purchase saves me about $5k a year in car gas and house electricity. The powerwall-based attribution of the savings is of course signficantly smaller than the one to be attributed to the cars, but it is hard to estimate how much exactly it saves, as there are several logical paths going about it, as it doesn't only have merit of its own, but also improves the merits of the cars and plans (vs. tiered with/without cars? vs. EVA with/without cars and house?). Given the SGIP rebate and added merits of backup, it is not a bad deal at all.

This is also why further improvements with solar do not make financial sense to me at this point, at least for as long as off-peak rates do not go up appreciably. When i started with EVA for the first time, the off-peak was $0.08, if it lasted by now, i would have had a bill of ~$85! unfortunately, off-peak rate hike was about 50% since then. (and if i had a regular ~50 mile commute which is quite a norm over here, the saving would have been even higher. Bridge toll alone would probably save about $650 a year due to HOV.)

 

[Shygar]

i have two evs (one of which is a minivan) and 2x pw2s to shift the house. Although i don't have a regular commute, we do put around 25k miles on the cars. I consume about a little over 1mwh/mo for the cars and the house. all costs around $150/mo, 100% at off-peak rate ~$0.125/kwh (i have 0 consumption of partial or peak rates, with exception when powerwall glitched, which happened for one day in about a year and cost me extra $4 so far).

I estimate this whole deal of bulk off-peak rate purchase saves me about $5k a year in car gas and house electricity. The powerwall-based attribution of the savings is of course signficantly smaller than the one to be attributed to the cars, but it is hard to estimate how much exactly it saves, as there are several logical paths going about it, as it doesn't only have merit of its own, but also improves the merits of the cars and plans (vs. tiered with/without cars? vs. EVA with/without cars and house?). Given the SGIP rebate and added merits of backup, it is not a bad deal at all.

This is also why further improvements with solar do not make financial sense to me at this point, at least for as long as off-peak rates do not go up appreciably. When i started with EVA for the first time, the off-peak was $0.08, if it lasted by now, i would have had a bill of ~$85! unfortunately, off-peak rate hike was about 50% since then. (and if i had a regular ~50 mile commute which is quite a norm over here, the saving would have been even higher. Bridge toll alone would probably save about $650 a year due to HOV.)

Sounds like you have a pretty similar setup to us. Recently our PacHy hasn't been charging on its schedule. We're just using the supplied Level 1 as it's only a 16kWh battery

 

[dlieu]

you mean something is wrong with it?
i never put it on a schedule, instead i have put the schedule into the hydra evse.. Ours was pretty problem free, surprisingly, given how many issues '17s and '18s seem to have had (knock on wood..). the sliding doors started to creak after 15k a bit but i understand it happens to all minivans, nothing that a little dielectric grease wouldnt' fix..

Sounds like you have a pretty similar setup to us. Recently our PacHy hasn't been charging on its schedule. We're just using the supplied Level 1 as it's only a 16kWh battery

 

[Shygar]

you mean something is wrong with it?
i never put it on a schedule, instead i have put the schedule into the hydra evse.. Ours was pretty problem free, surprisingly, given how many issues '17s and '18s seem to have had (knock on wood..). the sliding doors started to creak after 15k a bit but i understand it happens to all minivans, nothing that a little dielectric grease wouldnt' fix..

Yea we decided not to go with a dedicated EVSE, just using the level 1 cable that came with it and depending on the scheduling in the van itself. I basically have to use the app every night before bed to manually start charging it. We really don't need the EVSE so saving that extra $1k at least (my electric panels are completely full, so adding in another 30-40 amp breaker would be expensive).

We actually had the transmission completely die on us around 4300 miles, but they replaced it with a new transmission and it's been working fine. Really no other issues than that, plus GPS stopped working for Android Auto/Carplay (relies on the phone instead of getting it from the car).

 

[dlieu]

plus GPS stopped working for Android Auto/Carplay

Hm. 2018 Uconnect module really seems to have been less reliable than 17 in general. In many ways '18 seems to be more of a "first year model' than 17 BTW i owned a house in PH area for 10 years before moving to mid bay ten years ago