SJCE vs PGE

[NorCalSlrUser]

Any comments on using SJCE vs PG&E? I am having 8.16 kW system installed right now and I may have a bit of surplus production.

San Jose Clean Energy has very confusing plans, where they will true-up in a different month than PG&E. That is two true-ups a year. Since you lose at each true-up, that does not seem like a good deal for consumers. Also going back to PGE triggers true-up. Rate change also triggers true-up at PGE at least. SJCE would be paying 25% more for the surplus, but it is still very low amount.

SJCE does not seem to have clear benefits. It is at most 1% cheaper than PG&E and only has 4% more renewable in the mix.
May be they will have better rebates in the future, e.g. they have something about water heater right now, but those are apparently very noisy and expensive to install.

 

[getakey]

they don't really have 4% more renewable in the sense of what is delivered to your home

 

[woferry]

I'm with SJCE and I only have a single true-up date, not sure where you heard otherwise. I didn't see any reason to stick with PG&E so I didn't. I am jealous of the people in other CCA's that get much better payouts at true-up, but SJCE's is still slightly better than PG&E's as you noted. One thing SJCE doesn't seem to do that based on what others say seems perhaps uncommon, I've never had any NBCs show up on my monthly bill. So the electricity part of my PG&E has always just been the minimum charge and taxes, the NBCs show up on the monthly true-up statement, and were taken care of at true-up. Ends up costing the same either way, but keeps the monthly bill a bit more consistent, and ultimately means deferring payment on them until true-up (or not at all in my case since my over production amount offset the charges, so it just reduced the size of the check I got).