Yes, I compared the Green Button CSV data (billing period download) to the billed quantities. The total kWh amount, including the "estimated" portion from the outage period added up exactly to what was billed. IMHO, it is not proper to bill for energy that was not delivered. I can understand being allowed to compensate for missing data, but if the data was missing because the meter did not have power, then it should not be billed.
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Understanding PGE/SVCE electricity bills/TrueUP
- Thread starter SMAlset
- Start date
I was a contractor working on their billing system years ago, it was 370 COBOL, I actually had one change to replace a bad home grown binary search routine rejected by the user (business partner) because the built-in function I used produced a correct result that they didn’t like. I was bored due to lack of work and requested my contract to be terminated but told to go relax and read newspaper because terminating my contract would mean less money for their budget the next year.The PG&E black bill definitely looks like it came from mainframe running COBOL or FORTRAN77.
I don't think that you are paying anything extra because you did use that power. This should have been power that you either used before the blackout after the last valid reading or after the blackout before the next valid reading and it was just averaged into that time period. I wanted to say that you can verify this by looking at the meter readings on the blue bill, but I just realized that the meter readings aren't on my blue bill and I suspect that haven't been since I went on a TOU plan sometime in years past pre-solar.
I'm not 100% sure that I'm right about this, but if PG&E is relying on real time data collecting from every single meter every single hour and the meter doesn't store this information for a daily upload I would be very surprised as it would be a massive risk.
I understand what you are saying here. There should be a counter in the meter and they should be reconciling the interval data against the counter. For a relatively short outage that only spans 2 or 3 intervals, it would be possible for it to be filling in partial data. However, my recollection of the data suggests that their "estimate" was out of character for the surrounding intervals, but was more similar to the prior day when there was notably higher usage.
In any case, next time this happens, I will have the Tesla Grid usage data to compare to the PG&E interval data. I can compare a normal day and the outage day along with the whole billing period to see where the discrepancies lie.
Yeah ,I don't know about that. We have the occasional 1-2 hour power outage, and always see estimated usage that is pretty close to previous days. For a 15 minute outage, sure, I'll buy that there might've been a spike in usage before or after to account for it. But for 2 hours with no power, no way I could've had a spike of 3 hours worth of usage immediately before or after with no anomalous spikes in preceding days. Not to mention Wattvision (or the Eagle site) show realtime smartmeter data at 15 sec intervals, plus 5 minute historic data logged on pvoutput from Wattvision - there was no anomalous usage to account for 2 hours worth of usage before of after.
These short outages happened frequently during summer heat waves, the hot, dry spell causes trees to drop old branches onto the power lines. So I'm often running a portable AC whose usage dwarfs anything else that could be consuming around the same time, and ends up as large, phantom "estimated" usage.
EDIT: Scratch the last part about the counters, I must've imagined that's how it works given what the meter's display shows. I think looking at my Eagle's API's it is getting "instantaneous demand" in kw from the smartmeter with every poll request....
Merrill
Merrill
For some reason this month I have not received my black and white bill for February yet, normally I get that a few weeks into the next month.
Merrill
Merrill
No I usually just wait for the paper bill in the mail, I guess I will go on line and look at it.
Merrill
Merrill
you go to Manage Accounts at the top of the Home page. There's a drop down. Select your account and a new page comes up. Look for your electric account and drill down until you see Documents to download.
The instructions are in this post:
Latest PG&E Bill
well there was absolutely no electric section for my home with powerwalls on the blue bill. just the gas and the new place. that's what's bothering me. is that normal? or are you saying that i won't see any paired storage home activity on the blue bill until a true-up occurs? is the black and...
teslamotorsclub.com
Merrill
Merrill
So I have 2 meters, one on EVB and the house on ETOUC the only one that shows on my bill is the EVB.
This is like when you go to the grocery store and your item is missing the price tag. It's free right? No energy bill!
But for real, just call PG&E's solar line. If the bill isn't showing online they can email it to you. 1-877-743-4112
Merrill
Merrill
Ok, I figured it out had to tap on our account # then information associated with our account popped up and one of the numbers said available when I tapped on that our paired storage account magically appeared. Just like the paired storage bill they make it as hard as they can for you to find anything.
I have had a new large 17KW Tesla solar system installed recently with 3 x Powerwalls, the Solar inspection was completed this week, awaiting confirmation of date for date to operate and sell back to PGE.
I am in California on EV2A rate plan, I own an EV which I very rarely charge at home (once every 1-2 months). I have checked the PG&E portal and it advises me that the cheapest rate plan for me is the plan that I am currently on.
My utility hours are:
Off-peak: 12am - 3pm
Peak: 4pm - 9pm
off-peak: 3pm - 4pm & 9pm - 12am
I am looking to configure my power walls to make best use of my power walls, there are options for time based control and self powered, also to keep a backup reserve, how best is it to configure this? How much should I keep in backup reserve?
I am in California on EV2A rate plan, I own an EV which I very rarely charge at home (once every 1-2 months). I have checked the PG&E portal and it advises me that the cheapest rate plan for me is the plan that I am currently on.
My utility hours are:
Off-peak: 12am - 3pm
Peak: 4pm - 9pm
off-peak: 3pm - 4pm & 9pm - 12am
I am looking to configure my power walls to make best use of my power walls, there are options for time based control and self powered, also to keep a backup reserve, how best is it to configure this? How much should I keep in backup reserve?
- Should I use time based control or Self powered? if so how best to set this.
- What backup reserve should I keep?
I thought with batteries and or an EV, that EV2A was the only plan one could be on?
Thats all very personal, there is no "best how much to keep in reserve". It depends on your own risk tolerance, how much power your own house uses, etc.
I think most people on those plans use time based controls to configure peak time to run off powerwalls.
There are some configuration tips in the stickied thread on the topic, here:
Tesla App Utility plan configuration: Multiple Peaks, Buy/Sell Behavior, etc
Starting a thread to document behavior I'm seeing using the new multiple peaks configurations (really multiple of any type). Maybe this information exists elsewhere but I couldn't find it when I first had my system go live a couple years ago, and I'm not really seeing if for the multiple peak...
teslamotorsclub.com
As stated above, to really answer there are individual based details needed on your solar production vs usage, time of your use of major electrical loads, and desire to have backup and to what extent.
Self powered is going to be like being off-grid. This would be fine if you using less than generating overall and powerwalls cover your time of use when not creating enough solar to power home directly (?? 5pm to 9am or so, depending on your system). I assume most solar users use the balanced time based control to at least cover the 3p to 12a peak & partial peak time frames. That way, you are only using the cheapest PGE electrical rate available (off-peak on EV2A) compared to all other rates and transmit to grid during peak rate during solar production. If you find at some point during the year that you are consistently over-producing and covered by power walls, then can switch over to self power mode.
Recommend you look how much energy you generally use during the 3p to midnight. Your 3 power walls are storing 40kWh. Determine then what you left over to keep in reserve and whether that is good for you. Basic starting point and then tweak from there.
