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PG&E TOU Customers: E-6 Closing, E-7 Disappearing March 1

Discussion in 'Gen 1 Prius Plug-in 2012-2015' started by bilofsky, Feb 10, 2016.

  1. bilofsky

    bilofsky Privolting Member

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    At the end of this month, PG&E is terminating its E-7 rate and closing its E-6 rate to new customers.

    If you are on E-7 you will get a letter that they are switching you to the new ETOU-A and you can choose ETOU-B instead. Neither of these rates is posted anywhere on their website yet. But they're pretty horrible.

    If you're interested in time-of-use rates and are not sure you are on a good rate now, or are on E-7, you might want to call PG&E and switch to E-6 before it closes on March 1. It's a cheap rate in winter (November through April) and that will keep your options open while you find out what other alternatives PG&E is offering.

    If you're on E-6 already you don't have to do anything.

    If you use a lot of electricity you might be better off on the non-tiered EV-A or EV-B rates for electric vehicle owners.

    PG&E's website lists all their rates (except the ones they're shoving people onto) in tariff sheets and in spreadsheets (TOU rates further down the page).

    <rant>PG&E's letter gives the Public Utilities Commission all the credit for this new rate structure, without mentioning that PG&E proposed all these rates and has the PUC in its pocket. Talk about adding insult to injury. </rant>
     
  2. devprius

    devprius /dev/geek

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    I know at least one user on E7 who says they are being moved to E6 automatically, and not ETOU-A, at the end of this month.
     
  3. Barbara R

    Barbara R Junior Member

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    I think I'm on E-6, need to check. But I don't even see it on the spreadsheet, just in the tariff sheet. Everything is so opaque with PG&E!
     
  4. CharlesH

    CharlesH CA HOV Decal #5 on former PiP

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    When the E-9 rate was terminated not too long ago, PG&E sent me a letter saying that they had run a "what if" for the various available rates, and based on that, suggested that I go to E-6. They had my smart meter data with which to make this calculation.
     
  5. Barbara R

    Barbara R Junior Member

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    I've asked them to do similar calculations for me and they haven't done so. I think I'll try again.
     
  6. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Pacific Gas and Electric?
     
  7. CaliforniaBear

    CaliforniaBear Clearwater Blue Metallic

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    My account opening page. Can you find my rate plan?
    [​IMG]
     
  8. Jeff N

    Jeff N The answer is 0042

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    Looks like E6, according to the "My Rate Plan" box in the upper right hand area of the page.
     
  9. CaliforniaBear

    CaliforniaBear Clearwater Blue Metallic

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    Right, easy not opaque :)
     
  10. Jeff N

    Jeff N The answer is 0042

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    How can you possibly know "they are pretty horrible" if PG&E hasn't released the rate plan?

    Yes, based on historical precedent, it's a good guess that ETOU A and B leave something to be desired but I'm going to wait for the details.

    The real outrage here is that PG&E hasn't published the details of these new rates and yet they will take effect in less than a month? That's crazy.

    I agree with your advice that people on E7 should make sure to switch to E6 immediately. That way they can grandfather themselves onto a known rate schedule and then evaluate the new ETOU rates when the details finally become available and then switch to ETOU if it offers them a better price.
     
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  11. bilofsky

    bilofsky Privolting Member

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    There are "illustrative" rates in the decision, at the end of the Appendix. That's what the PG&E reps are quoting if you call them.
    Go down the page to Residential Time of Use.
     
  12. Jeff N

    Jeff N The answer is 0042

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    Thanks. I'll have to sit down and compare ETOU-B with the EV-A non-tier rates.
     
  13. devprius

    devprius /dev/geek

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    How does the baseline credit work in ETOU-A? It's not discussed from what I could see.
     
  14. bilofsky

    bilofsky Privolting Member

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    Look at the last three pages in the settlement. Page B-1 shows baseline quantities in kWh/day depending on your geographic district, which is shown somewhere on your bill. There are two sets and it's not clear which of these would apply, or whether they will have something different. So, making your best guess (I'd say the left hand set), multiply the days in the billing cycle by the baseline quantity to get the baseline kWh for that bill. Those kWh get the baseline credit, per kWh, and anything over that doesn't.

    The ETOU are non-tiered rates (except for the baseline tier in ETOU-A), so might work out reasonably for heavy users. I have solar, the main benefit of which is to keep me in lower tiers, so it's not so great for me, and probably for most solar customers. And I bet that doesn't bother PG&E one little bit.
     
  15. devprius

    devprius /dev/geek

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    So I would get an 8 cent discount on the first 250 kWh worth of electricity I used from the grid. That's kind of what I figured. The question is, does my Solar production also get discounted the same amount?

    We probably qualified as heavy users since we went into Tiers 4 and 5 on a regular basis before getting Solar 3.5 years ago. I rarely make it into Tier 3 these days, even during Winter months with low solar production. I don't think I ever had a production month where I was *earning* credits at Tier 2 levels. I don't know if that's even possible. We're on E6 and will remain on it until it goes away in 2022. Or at least until we have an actual concrete idea of how the new rate schedule actually works. Or we get an EV and our usage starts to go up (the Chevy Bolt is looking mighty tempting) and ETOU-A or EV-A makes more sense.
     
  16. bilofsky

    bilofsky Privolting Member

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    If you're on Marin Clean Energy, then yes, you're getting paid exactly what you would pay them if you were a net user instead of a net generator. And you get the penny for selling them 100% renewable energy, even if you didn't elect to pay it on the buy side.

    AFAIK PG&E computes production differently for the purpose of (not) paying you, so you are unlikely to get anything for your production unless your array is way oversized, and even then you'll get screwed. (Edit - Even on Marin Clean Energy, this would apply to PG&E's portion of your bill, but they have jiggered the way the rate splits so that you are unlikely to have a surplus on the PG&E side.

    Although people who sign up for solar dream of getting paid for top tier summer production, the reality, as you've seen, is that the main benefit of solar is keeping you out of those expensive top tiers, even in most winter months.
     
  17. devprius

    devprius /dev/geek

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    I'm down on the coast below SF, so no Marin Clean Energy option for me.

    I am getting "paid" for excessive summer production in the sense that the ~34 cents a kWh I earn for excessive summer production goes to offset the 22 or 14 cents a kWh I would be charged for electricity I use at night/early-evening/early-morning when my array isn't producing anything. At the end of my true-up period last year, I had an excess of monetary credits, but not kWh production credits. I'm under no illusion that PG&E would be cutting me check for those monetary credits. So I had to walk away from about $55 in those unused monetary credits. Sure beats paying them ~$3K a year. Previous year we had to pay a whole $5 to PG&E for all the power we used. And the year before that was something like $95 to PG&E.