I would like to help, but I would have to see the whole B&W true-up bill to be of any more use.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Understanding PGE/SVCE electricity bills/TrueUP
- Thread starter SMAlset
- Start date
Thanks, I think I'll wait for the blue bill to see if they're actually charging me that amount. It's helpful to know that in your case this value was the actual net true up amount. I have very little trust in PG&E's billing process because they've made some pretty blatant errors on past bills that I had to have them correct. It seems like their system is just barely able to handle the scenario of solar + batteries + CCA.
One thing I'm pretty certain of is that the $117.20 from Page 1 will show up on your blue bill.
I have never seen a full PG&E NEM 1.0 black bill and the tables that you have posted don't match with my NEM 2.0 black bill. My TRUEUP ADJUSTMENT table has different headings than yours and every enter is $0.00 even in months where I consumed more than I exported. In your table you have multiple rows with 29 days and 1 day as the tariff rate changed on 3/1/2022, so the 29 days are for the tariff rate that was effective from 1/1/2022 through 2/28/2022 and the 1 day is for the rates that went into effect on 3/1/2022 through the next time they change.
The $107.20 should be the based on what you owed for the whole year (imports - exports + NBCs - MDCs). What does your TRUE-UP HISTORY SUMMARY look like that should everything broken out by your monthly bills?
The $107.20 should be the based on what you owed for the whole year (imports - exports + NBCs - MDCs). What does your TRUE-UP HISTORY SUMMARY look like that should everything broken out by your monthly bills?
The True-Up History Summary is consistent with the -92.77 from the first page. I did just notice that the 107.20 is the sum of the E158 CCA DA POWER column and the E118 FFS column, though. I guess understanding these are key to understanding what the amount is. I assume it's the "indifference" charges that they apply to CCA customers. I'm somewhat surprised they're not netted out, though.
Right, the E158 CCA DA POWER is your net PCIA charges per month and the E118 FFS is the FRANCHISE FEE SURCHARGE on all imports. These are netted out against the billing charges leaving you with an annual true-up of $-92.77 (-241.84 + 41.17 + 103.84 + 0.28 + 0.42 + 3.36) which is listed as the "Cumulative Energy Charges or Credits" on the first page and "Total Charges" in the above table.
I am assuming that NEM 1.0 doesn't have NBCs as those aren't listed anywhere.
I am assuming that NEM 1.0 doesn't have NBCs as those aren't listed anywhere.
RKCRLR
Active Member
I just read through the NEM1 Tariff and don't see any justification for why your "E84 BL CHG" can't offset the CCA DA POWER and FFS. NEM1 doesn't have NBCs so if your total charges are negative, you should only be paying the Minimum Charges and the rest of the credit balance should be wiped out.
I would definitely call the solar customer service department and ask why it is billed this way. Ask for specific citation in Tariffs. Escalate as necessary. When I pointed out a billing error once, I actually got an e-mail from a VP level person apologizing for the errors.
Edit: I just went back and reconciled my True-Up Adjustment. I am NEM 1 with positive kWh and positive Bill Charges. The True-Up Adjustment is exactly Cumulative Energy Charges less Minimum Charges. I still can't explain the retarded True-Up Adjustment table.
Last edited:
I should note that my Energy Charge in every month exceeds the Minimum Charge. Therefore, I get full credit for those minimum charges already paid. I am unsure of the specifics of how it is tallied when your Energy Charge is still positive but less than the Minimum or when the Energy Charge is negative. A spreadsheet like the one I did above may clarify it when you have some negative energy charges.
Thanks for doing the research on the tariff. That was exactly the question I was wondering about: is PG&E justified in billing this way?
Pre-CCA I always got full credit for minimum charges even for months when I was a net producer. I don't think that should be affected by the CCA, but sometimes these things don't make sense, I guess.
I'm going to see if the blue bill has any more clarity and then give PG&E a call.
Were you actually billed anything at your annual true-up, because everything that you have posted showed that you had a credit of $92.77 both on the first page (the "Cumulative Energy Charges or Credits" line item) and in the full year summary table (the "TOTALS/TOTAL CHARGES" cell). Since the balance is negative it is just reset to $0.00 for the next year and you since you have already paid all of the monthly MDCs that's it. Any generation credit is based on your CCA's NEM rules and if there is a credit then it would be paid out in April.
I do not think that your PG&E blue bill will show anything other than current month's MDCs of $10.00.
In Post #360 it shows $117.20 Charges Due. I'm pretty sure that will go to his blue bill. That is the crux of his issue. It shouldn't be that way. You should be correct.
I haven't received the blue bill yet. This is my true-up bill so I'm still waiting to see if I'm going to end up being charged the $117.20 or if it will magically fall away on the blue bill (not holding my breath). I also hope the blue bill will have some true-up information that more explicitly describes what happened so I can explain the issue to PG&E customer service if necessary.
Hmm, I missed the part that said "Total Current Month's Energy Charges Due". Taking another look at this and looking at the NEM and NEM2 tariffs the annual true-up is handled differently than I thought it was handled.
There is a section called Special Conditions 2.h Energy True Up and the key here is that is an Energy True Up and not a Cost True Up. The first paragraph states:
So what matters is kWh and not $$. In @cwied 's case the annual charges were negative (-$92.77), but the annual kWhs were positive (6,691 kWh import versus 4,737 kWh export or 2,224 kWh net import).
Then there is this paragraph:
This separates the tariff rate generation portion from the distribution and transmission portion and the MDCs only offset the dist+trans costs and if MDCs are higher then nothing is owed for dist+trans. My guess is that it is written this way as PG&E is supposed to pass along the generation portion with no markup. Since the PCIA and FFS are generation costs that are in addition to the CCA generation costs it is valid for PG&E to collect this amount as the CCA will collect on their generation costs in the CCA April true-up.
So, the bottom line is that if want to pay the minimum amount possible you can't do it just through TOU arbitrage you must actually be a net kWh generator.
Interesting. I guess that makes sense. Seems like a convenient way for them to claw back some of the NEM credits. I find their bill a really poor effort at communicating this, too. It seems misleading that they've been showing me monthly totals include the PCIA and FFS in the cumulative value and now they're telling me that they're charging them anyway. It seems to me that if they're separate, they shouldn't be included in the monthly total charges.
I don't think I'll be in the same position again this year since it's likely I'll be doing more EV charging, but it does seem like this actually might make the CCA a slight financial negative since it results in less ability to use the NEM credits. Had this all been on PG&E's side, I presumably would have been able to use the credits to offset both transmission and generation charges and take me down to the minimum charges.
The same would hold if you were with PG&E and were in the same position with negative dist+trans and imported more than you exported. PG&E usually shows the single bundled numbers, but that is just the some of the unbundled components.
The PG&E black bill has been showing you all of the numbers to calculate your true-up over the year, but it just isn't obvious and there isn't an estimated true-up table. Until a few hours ago I had no idea that this was really it is calculated either.
I think @Redhill_qik has the right answer here - PCIA and FFS are "generation" and therefore are not offset by the negative true-up balance. However, this does not excuse how opaque this is on PG&E's part and how terrible the true-up adjustment table is. If I was in @cwied 's position, I would push the solar customer service department to explain the charges that are forwarded to his blue bill. I am willing to bet that a first level CSR will not give the right answer. They really need to put proper labeling on the table to explain what those numbers actually are and the fact that they don't actually represent charges from only the final true-up month like it appears to be saying.
I have never gotten a PG&E customer service person who could explain the bill details when questioned. I am reminded of some patients who successfully challenged hospitals (to zero!) and the hospitals lost out because they couldn't justify the items in the bill. Different businesses and regulations to be sure, but at some level putting a number in a column doesn't make it so, especially if the column header is meaningless, which the headers clearly are if neither the front line nor the supervisors know what they mean.
Rant over, back to reality.
PG&E can and does put a number on a bill and is secure in the knowledge that it is on the customer to dispute it, and the odds are that a vanishingly small percentage of customers will challenge it and even fewer will prevail. How could you possibly prove that the number in the DDSR column is wrong if nobody knows what DDSR means? (And yes, DDSR here is fictitious.)
I have never seen behavior like this in corporate billing anywhere. At least the hospital bill says "warm blanket---$47.03", or "Tongue depressor---$4.47" and we all know what a warm blanket or tongue depressors is.
All the best,
BG
Rant over, back to reality.
PG&E can and does put a number on a bill and is secure in the knowledge that it is on the customer to dispute it, and the odds are that a vanishingly small percentage of customers will challenge it and even fewer will prevail. How could you possibly prove that the number in the DDSR column is wrong if nobody knows what DDSR means? (And yes, DDSR here is fictitious.)
I have never seen behavior like this in corporate billing anywhere. At least the hospital bill says "warm blanket---$47.03", or "Tongue depressor---$4.47" and we all know what a warm blanket or tongue depressors is.
All the best,
BG
Merrill
Merrill
Unlike most other companies PG&E is regulated and can only charge what was approved by the CPUC. They can't just slap any random fee on the bill and get away with line say your cable company might due.
The blue bull is very straight forward and can be easily matched against the tariff rates. The black bill has many unnecessary tables with a multitude of columns and rows that twice as long every time the billing period straddles a tariff rate change. The only numbers that matter are on the first page and the TRUE-UP HISTORY TABLE on page 2. Everything is just supporting calculations. I can successfully calculate those numbers from the tariff rates within $0.02 (different rounding choices)
The general customer service people really have no clue about the details and the coders that created some of the labels and did a really bad job, but the numbers are valid.
If anyone thinks their bill is wrong, I'd like to see it.
