PGE Rates comparison tool? (E-6 vs EV-A)

[hmmm]

Hello

I've recently added an EV to the family fleet and I thought I would ask before embarking on an Excel adventure...has anyone created a model to compare the benefits of one rate vs the other? I came across an iPhone App that would appear to do the trick (PGE Toolkit), but it doesn't seem to work on the recent iOS releases.

Thanks

 

[aesculus]

You can probably thumb nail it real quick. It will depend greatly on how much usage you can/cannot switch to off peak and if you have solar NEM.

For many EVA cannot be beat but you have to be able to shift as much consumption as you can from the peaking periods. If you live in a hot climate with AC and have a moderate to large family, that may be difficult.

 

[GuyGadois]

I use PGE toolkit and it does work on the most recent apple release for me. LOVE the app. I check it out monthly. It made me make a change to a different rate plan. Love it. Not associated with the developer at all. Just a fan.

 

[miimura]

If you're really into Excel, I created a spreadsheet to do this kind of thing. However, I have not updated it for more than a year. I have not implemented the new E-TOU rate, mostly because it implements a Baseline Credit system instead of tiering. I could probably fit it into the rate scheme I already have, I just haven't spent the time on it.

PGE Electric Rate Calculator_v1.8a.xlsx

If you want to put in today's rates, the easiest way is to go to the link below and download the current XLS and copy-paste in the rate table for the schedules you're interested in.

Pacific Gas & Electric - Tariffs

 

[Khatsalano]

A quick way to determine this is ... are you in a high tier on E-6? If so, EV-A is non-tiered and may benefit you. I was a tier-2 customer on E-6, but what made EV-A super amazing, was having solar on the roof ... the current NEM formula is just ungodly good for rooftop solar + and EV in the garage.

 

[hmmm]

Thanks for all the pointers. @miimura, this is exactly what I had in mind, this will save me a ton of time.

For background:

- no solar
- Usually end the billing period in the 3rd tier on E-6
- No AC and already very disciplined when it comes to shifting usage to partial or off-peak.
- Only a couple of months of EV usage, so not much historical data to work with.

My guess is that moving to a non-tiered plan with a lower off-peak rate ultimately *should* make this work, but we don't have much room to shift more usage to off-peak, so it will come down to the increased EV usage...ie it needs to be high enough to bring our overall blended rate to a lower level than currently since our (pretty much set) peak/partial peak usage which will be billed at a higher rate...just need to find that crossover point

I may still get the app, but the lack of historical data may paint a blurry picture...

 

[miimura]

I think you will find that with Off-Peak EV charging, you will definitely save money on EV vs. E-6. In fact, I'm wondering why you're on E-6 without solar to begin with.

Here is an example where I took my sister-in-law's full year SmartMeter data and calculated adding EV charging to it. This was probably done with 2014 prices, but will give you a good idea of the two rate schedules.

You will notice that without the EV, E-1 and E-6 are nearly the same, but when you add 13kWh/day off-peak, you add $130/month to E-6, but only $25/month to EV. This is a relatively high-usage case, which is why the non-tiered EV rate came out so favorably.
(there is one mistake above. It is not $0.0052/kWh incremental cost to charge, it's $0.0625. I mistakenly divided monthly cost by annual kWh. The $/mile is correct)

 

[hmmm]

Because I know you're all on the edge of your seat, here are my findings (@miimura I ended up building something in-between the super detailed model you first shared and the one you above...I would share it but it's really messy and ugly).

My findings:
- Our current usage patterns on E-6 are very consistent throughout the year (the word routine comes to mind... ), ie 10/20/70 (peak/part peak/off peak)
- Our blended cost/KwH is virtually identical with both plans once you factor in the incremental EV usage, in fact EV-1 is an extra penny/KwH more (ie the benefit of the lower off-peak rate is negated by the rate increase for peak and part-peak of EV-1 vs. E-6).

Caveats:
- I didn't have the will power to model the fact that if we stayed on E-6 the increase off-peak usage would bump us into the last tier for the months where we're not already in it and thus trigger higher rates throughout the day.
- We may drive more than anticipated which would lower our overall blended cost per KwH.

So, when it's all said and done, we will switch to EV-1 as this is the "safest" thing to do. Looking back, my gut feel was actually correct, ie this would virtually be a wash for us.). Since the E-6 rate is no longer available, I wanted to double-check everything make switching, but I feel good doing so now.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[aesculus]

And in the not too distant future all of this will probably be moot when they force sub metering on us and terminate the combined usage plans, but we might as well fight the fight while we can.

 

[JSkrehot]

I do not yet have my EV, reservation holder for the Model 3. Two months ago I added a self install 6.12 kW home solar system from gogreensolar.com. I am currently on the ETOU-A, which has a baseline credit of 10.6 kWh per day at 0.11800 cents/hour, roughly 325 kWh/month depending on days in the month. My solar system is estimated to produce 9,200 kWh/year, roughly 112% of my usage last year, even with AC. I will then have some surplus with PGE NEM to offset some of my home charging, as well as free charging at work. I do not have the option yet to sign up for EV-1, as I am waiting on the Model 3, but I am not sure it will be a better option than the ETOU-A. Any input is much appreciated. When considering any advice on choice of rate plan, know I produce roughly 1,000 kWh with my home solar system (possibly a bit more) and can charge for free 4 days a week at the hospital I work at, and get 400 free kWh for Supercharger access on long trips. Thanks in advance.

 

[FlatSix911]

Because I know you're all on the edge of your seat, here are my findings (@miimura I ended up building something in-between the super detailed model you first shared and the one you above...I would share it but it's really messy and ugly).

My findings:
- Our current usage patterns on E-6 are very consistent throughout the year (the word routine comes to mind... ), ie 10/20/70 (peak/part peak/off peak)
- Our blended cost/KwH is virtually identical with both plans once you factor in the incremental EV usage, in fact EV-1 is an extra penny/KwH more (ie the benefit of the lower off-peak rate is negated by the rate increase for peak and part-peak of EV-1 vs. E-6).

Caveats:
- I didn't have the will power to model the fact that if we stayed on E-6 the increase off-peak usage would bump us into the last tier for the months where we're not already in it and thus trigger higher rates throughout the day.
- We may drive more than anticipated which would lower our overall blended cost per KwH.

So, when it's all said and done, we will switch to EV-1 as this is the "safest" thing to do. Looking back, my gut feel was actually correct, ie this would virtually be a wash for us.). Since the E-6 rate is no longer available, I wanted to double-check everything make switching, but I feel good doing so now.

Thanks for all your help.

I live with the PG&E rates and solar - would you mind sharing your model or PM me? Thanks

 

[hmmm]

I live with the PG&E rates and solar - would you mind sharing your model or PM me? Thanks

Ok, I will upload it here once I have a chance to clean it up a bit.

 

[FlatSix911]

Thank you.

 

[hmmm]

OK, here it is. A couple of things:

- Start with the top LH corner, things will flow from there.
- Blue cells are input cells.
- Red cells are input cells for the respective PGE rates

- The first section compares the 2 rates when adding an EV
- The second section models current usage (no EV) and compares the current rates vs. EV-A equivalent.
- The last table combines both incremental + current usage and cost

- F45 is the cell that gives you the magic number to know what rate makes the most sense.

PGE Comp.xlsx

A couple of disclaimers:

- Use at your own risk. If you find an error, let me know.
- I may have hardcoded a value here or there so make sure to double-check things
-- I ended up not using the information which can be downloaded from the PGE site as I felt it was a bit too detailed. Instead, I manually did the math to get to the usage and $ spent per rate (Peak/Semi/Non), for each billing period. This was "entertaining" and looking back, it may be faster to massage the master csv file you can get from pge directly instead.
- I did not account for the overall usage increase pushing people into a higher tier, so my overall approach is conservative. ie results in favor of EV-A may be higher than they appear.
- Since I don't have solar, I haven't taken the associated benefits into account. If someone wants to add to this, feel free.

 

[GuyGadois]

Here is the printout using PGE Toolkit showing YTD 2016. Pretty slick stuff. On the app you can get very detailed info for each schedule by clicking it.

 

[miimura]

For anyone still looking at this E-6 vs. EV situation, I just noticed that the March 1, 2017 rates eliminated the E-6 Tier 3, over 200% of baseline. So, the highest rate is Summer Peak Tier 2 at $0.43566/kWh instead of the prior Tier 3 $0.56003/kWh that was effective Jan 1, 2017. However, users with solar were unlikely to be in Tier 3 because the solar is generating the most during the Summer rate period. EV charging overnight would also be more expensive in the Summer because the Off-Peak rates increased from $0.15025 to $0.16728/kWh. Winter rates are more than a penny/kWh higher but the Winter Tier 3 is also eliminated.

So, if you last did your rate comparison prior to 3/1/17, you should do it again with today's rates.

 

[Ozarn]

Hello everyone,
I just want to bump up this thread. I have also E-6 plan and I am thinking of switching to EV-A plan. I ran this #'s this morning and it seems that EV plan would be a better option for me. I compared December & August usage. 2 months that we use most energy due to Christmas lights and AC. S0 far #'s are in favor of EV rate. I do have Solar panels as well.
Just want to see if anyone else lately did the math and what is the verdict on EV rate vs E-6? the peak, part peak and off peak schedule is different for both of these plans, that makes calculation harder.
On top of all this, EV-6 is tiered plan. PG&E just does not want to make our calculations simple .

Thanks in advance!