PG&E Rate Plan selection for EV charging

[sfsoundguy]

Seems off about every month. I did billing cycle and compared it to the actual bill. In March of 2016 it states a bill of $124 but it was $10 and my current bill for January is $619 and it states $534

I found this video from the guy who made the PG&E Toolkit app https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ4bosgTywQ

I will get the bids on adding a EV-B and hopefully end up with a E6 / EV-B setup the best of both worlds however if its too expensive I'll switch the house to EV-A

 

[BarryMW]

How did you have a march bill of $10 ?

 

[sfsoundguy]

Back in March we only had 1 EV and produced more power than we took from the grid so we just paid the daily minimum.

 

[BarryMW]

If you're NEM'ed, then every PG&E electricity bill will be $10 until annual True-up ?????
+or- $10'ish if NEM2.0

Barry

 

[miimura]

Based on the PG&E tool kit app Id save 45% by switching from E6 to EVA Its numbers seem a bit off as it thinks I pay more than I do

Maybe I should just move the whole house to EVA and save money I would have paid for a second meter which would be thousands.

I just wish there was a place I could go with my past 12 months of bills and history for 2016 and do a side by side for each month of Solar, power usage, and tiers E6 v EV

If you are good with spreadsheets, try this one. I've just updated it with 2017 rates and historical rates are available for copy-paste. You just need to download your SmartMeter data from PG&E in CSV format and paste it into the spreadsheet. Download the XLSX from the Google link below.

PG&E Electric Rate Calculator V1.9

 

[sfsoundguy]

Barry, correct there is a minimum monthly delivery fee of 32cents a day. Some months like Dec or Jan my bill is $high other months its -$$$
Our house with a solar system was running ate net zero +/- our NEM was around $100 a year then PG&E re did the tiers on E6 and our NEM went to about $300 a year now with two EVs its close to 2k a year still cheeper than an ICE. I have the contractor here on Friday to give me a bid on a second meter I am hoping he is 2 to 3 k and we can get it done and put the cars on EV-B

 

[miimura]

You are billed the monthly minimum charge on the regular "blue bill" with your natural gas, if you have it. When they do the true-up, they subtract the minimum charge from your energy charges for any month where your accumulated charge/credit was above the minimum because you've already paid it.

My total energy charges on my true-up statement in December 2016 were $1,020.26 and my billed amount was $909.86. The difference was the minimum charges that I had already paid because I only had two months that were below the minimum charge.

My total annual net kWh consumed was 8,178 kWh. So, the net energy that I took from the grid cost me less than 12.5cents/kWh. Considering that Off-Peak Summer is 11.8c/kWh and Off-Peak Winter is 12.1c/kWh on EV-A, that's pretty good. My solar offset almost all of my energy usage and cost except charging my two EVs.

 

[sfsoundguy]

I am going to just put the whole house on EVA and call it a day! I found out that if I do EVB besides the up front cost of nearly 3k to add the second meter I would only have E6 for 4.5 more years and then would go ETOU at that time, if I wanted to put the house on EVA in the future I would have to remove the EVB meter.. I don't see PG&E coming up with a better option for solar in the future and so decided to lock it all down now! Thank you all for your input it was very helpful.

John

 

[BarryMW]

John
I expect I will be joining you on EV-A just as soon as my next bill arrives.
Who knew PG&E rates could be so much fun.

Barry

 

[sfsoundguy]

Barry,

Fun indeed.. I found for me there is no silver bullet... On E6 the EVs are just killing me between 12AM - 6AM pretty much 30Kw a night at 0.37cent!!! My solar produces enough power to off set the home but this off peak demand was just eating up my credits. ON EVA the EVs will cost 70% less to charge but I will have to adjust the house to compensate for the extra peak hours between 7pm - 9pm Yes I'll be making more while I give back to the grid via credits we but those two hours will eat a lot of that up... I am projecting the switch from E6 tor EVA will in the end save me about 30%. Of corse there was one other option which was to add more solar but that would be about 10k and just did not make sense at all.


John

 

[johnnylingo]

On E6 the EVs are just killing me between 12AM - 6AM pretty much 30Kw a night at 0.37cent!!!

This happened to me too. I was blissfully unaware there were quotas associated with the E-6 tiers, and just assumed I'd always get $0.15 / kWh between 9 PM and 10 AM. Ooops. The first month with the e-Golf I blew through tier 1 and tier 2 and went from a "real" bill of $50 to $125. Considering I'd been spending no more than $65/month on gasoline, this was a real face-palm moment

Fortunately Santa Cruz has several free L2 charging stations, so I'm able to use them once a week to supplement home charging. This has been a huge money saver since I stay within the quotas and pay at worst $0.21 / kWh. My "real" bills are only now $30 more than prior to getting the car, which is about what I expected. However, it's become increasingly a hassle and I'll likely switch to EVA in May when I can look at the true-up amounts.

 

[jeffy1021]

I just put my deposit down for solar so hopefully I'll be joining the club soon. After solar, I still plan to stay on E6 as long as I don't hit tier 3 rates mainly because E6 is closed and there's no going back once you leave. If you charge overnight daily or every other day, I think EVA will always be cheaper since the off peak rate is almost four times cheaper than the peak rate. Since I only drive about 150 miles/week it's not as clear cut for me and I'll just need to see how it goes on E6 post solar.

Fortunately, there is a free level 2 charger about a mile away from home. I'm actually beginning to see the same cars there, presumably other people that live in the neighborhood. Even if the spots are occupied, people are respectful and have good etiquette and will plug in your car after they are done charging if you leave it there. With that being said, I do not want to rely on using that charger long term.

 

[sfsoundguy]

Dont forget E6 goes away completely in 2022 (5 years) and will be replaced with ETOU It totally made sense for us when it was a four tier rate plan but when PG&E changed it to a three tier rate it was still good but of corse our credit dropped then when we added the two EV's it just didn't work. I only see us using the cars more and so our demand will increase too. EVA worked best for us but each person will have different usage so it really needs to be worked out case by case, I think its a shame PG&E do not offer a way to calculate all this for solar customers since they have all the data and we pay them a daily usage fee... I will also watch what the PUC & PG&E do over the years and if a better option comes along I will re crunch the numbers again at that time.

 

[jeffy1021]

I just read this, but starting this week there will be no more tier 3 and the rates for tiers 1 and 2 will go up 9% and 14% respectively. Lower usage customers will pay slightly more and higher usage customers will pay slightly less. Pure TOU plans are unchanged.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Energy-saving-PG-E-customers-will-pay-more-10963682.php

 

[BarryMW]

I believe these changes are for schedule E1

Barry

 

[BarryMW]

Glad you enjoyed reading it.

Even though I can't return to E6 I ditched it in favor of EV-A.
It was defiantly the right choice for me.

8KW solar banging all day earning $0.44/ KWh
Nobody home during the day
Charging cars at night @ $0.14/KWh

Don't think I'll ever miss my E6

Barry