The switchover for my County (El Dorado) is 1/1/2022. It is Pioneer Community Energy. I'm currently on EV1-A, but ill be switching to EV2-A in a year. Here are my calcs for the rate comparison. I need to plug in my actual usage to see how the cost would turn out
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Understanding PGE/SVCE electricity bills/TrueUP
- Thread starter SMAlset
- Start date
Its not really 100% renewable. The CCAs buy up RECs. My problem with CCAs is they don't offset anything that PG&E (or any other utility) does. That business model does not make sense to me. If everyone converted to a CCA, the cost would go up not down.
This is the first CCA that I have seen that significantly deviates from the PG&E rate schedules.
Some CCAs buy RECs. Some buy actual contracts to supply renewable energy. SVCE falls into the latter category. New solar farms have been built specifically based upon PPAs from CCAs. Many of these solar farms include integrated storage so that they can supply power during evening Peak hours as well.
I understand that it may not be possible for a CCA to completely balance their customers' demand 1:1 minute by minute with their supply contracts, but it is easy enough to buy 100% renewable energy to balance all the kWh consumed by their customers. They also differentiate "carbon free" from "100% renewable".
here's something really stupid. This link is accessed from Pioneer's website. All of the Plans show Pioneer is higher, but they are not showing any differentiation between Tiers or TOU. Why would they link to info that is clearly wrong and not in their favor?
That comparison is clearly doing some averaging of tiers and TOU rates. You can get the full table from Pioneer for what they actually charge here:
Don't forget to add the PCIA and FFS when you do the comparison.
FFS = Franchise Fee Surcharge. I don't recall how much it is, but it's quite small. Just another pin prick courtesy of PG&E.
The most BS prick at PG&E is the one that required me to pay $$$ to add PG&E as a named insured on my friggin homeowner's insurance policy.
If I'm understanding correctly, the more customers that leave PG&E for a CCA, the higher the PCIA will be. Do you agree? If so, it proves my point that the CCA business model will not work in the long run
I disagree. PG&E does not own many generating assets. Their job is distribution. All of their fees are for transmission and distribution. The PCIA fee is just to cover for their mis-management of generation contracts. Of course, they would say that they were just following instruction from the CPUC following the energy crisis when they didn't have enough long term contracts to stabilize prices, leading people to manipulate the energy market.
In any case, the CPUC should ensure that the PCIA fee eventually goes away and the CCAs can finally save us some real money and accelerate decarbonizing the grid.
Their mismanagement of generation contracts was somewhat forced upon them and the CPUC was complicit. They were forced into long term solar and renewable contracts long before solar pricing came down. They now own 7,600 MW of generation. That isn't a trivial amount. Of course that number will come down with the closure of Diablo.
But I still say all the CCAs do is insert a middle "buyer" between Generators and IOU's Distribution. If the IOUs were better managed (which is part of CPUC's job as an oversight), then CCAs would not be required. And, in fact, CCA's are creating competition for buying electricity which could drive up the cost of the source generation. Why would a generator sell to a CCA at a lower price than they could sell to an IOU?
Your statement about following CPUC instruction is mostly true
I would argue that the CCAs that are well run are actually looking after their rate payers. That would give them the opportunity to negotiate in good faith for the best outcome for their rate payers. Their customer is not the IOU, it's the customers paying the monthly bill. I'm not saying that these good things are actually happening universally in the CCA space, I'm just saying that it opens up that possibility. When you look at PG&E, they have absolutely no motivation to do the right thing for rate payers. They just go to the CPUC and say "these are the contracts we're stuck with, I'd like my margin now".
I mostly agree. The problem is that CA does not have a surplus of generation. Thus, the generators have more leverage. I understand the IOU is not the CCA customer, but the CCA is another layer
The PCIA rates are based on the year that you leave PG&E and joined a CCA and are updated yearly. These are the numbers right now (effective 9/17/2021)
Power Charge Indifference Adjustment (per kWh)
2009 Vintage $0.03511
2010 Vintage $0.04227
2011 Vintage $0.04417
2012 Vintage $0.04677
2013 Vintage $0.04699
2014 Vintage $0.04703
2015 Vintage $0.04725
2016 Vintage $0.04756
2017 Vintage $0.04760 <- This is me :-(
2018 Vintage $0.04705
2019 Vintage $0.03583
2020 Vintage $0.02887
2021 Vintage $0.02887
So, it went up for a while and is going down now for people that are leaving.
And over time, it has mostly gone up, but it has also gone down (2019) and for Vintage 2020 in 2021.
| Vintage | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
| Vintage 2016 | $0.02323 | $0.02919 | $0.03345 | $0.02695 | $0.04533 | $0.04493 |
| Vintage 2017 | $0.02919 | $0.03346 | $0.02701 | $0.04462 | $0.04506 | |
| Vintage 2018 | $0.03346 | $0.02709 | $0.04383 | $0.04482 | ||
| Vintage 2019 | $0.02979 | $0.04243 | $0.04439 | |||
| Vintage 2020 | $0.04243 | $0.02887 | ||||
| Vintage 2021 | $0.02887 |
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that's odd. This is from Pioneer's website:
PG&E’s PCIA Fee has increased by approximately 600% since 2013, with a 33% increase since 2020, and PG&E is not held to a standard of transparency around calculating PCIA fees, nor subject to auditing to determine accuracy. Pioneer maintains that this lack of transparency demonstrates why Placer County residents and businesses deserve local control of their energy choices.
They are saying a 33% increase from 2020 to 2021. I also found the PCIA somewhere showing $.048. I'll find that
PG&E’s PCIA Fee has increased by approximately 600% since 2013, with a 33% increase since 2020, and PG&E is not held to a standard of transparency around calculating PCIA fees, nor subject to auditing to determine accuracy. Pioneer maintains that this lack of transparency demonstrates why Placer County residents and businesses deserve local control of their energy choices.
They are saying a 33% increase from 2020 to 2021. I also found the PCIA somewhere showing $.048. I'll find that
Found it. It is in those rate comparison pages that I linked before. PG&E PCIA = $.048
I don't think that it should be different by county. The rate is variable based on the year that you transitioned (vintage year). The rate also changes or more times a year, so depending on when a CCA publishes a number that might also explain variations
Look on your black bill and you will see it.
