PG&E EV-A Plan

Mike I wrote this same information on a conversation but seeing as how it is now the topic I will copy it here.

Before I signed up for the PG&E ev rate I was mostly in the tier 1 with some into tier 2 and my bill was around $75. Tier 1 for me is $.183 and Tier 2 is $.242. At $.24 it was cheaper to by gas. EV rate is $.11 or .12 making it like $1.25 per gallon gas. Sounds good so far. EV rate drops off peak from 24 to 12 cents or 12 cents drop in price. But it raises the peak rate from 24 to 44 cents summer or 31 cents winter. So in summer I will be paying 20 cents more than my old rate of mostly 18 and some 24 cents. Seems like I am only going to save 10 cents on a fraction of my bill and pay 20 cents more on the larger fraction of my bill. Winter rate is a little better. Information comes form : http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV.pdf

I will see but I may have gotten myself into more expensive plan and I can only charge at night.

 

Charging at $.24/KWH makes no economic sense whatsoever. But it is kind of fun to drive around in an electric car.

 

Here are some ways to drop into a lower tier:

1. Conserve electricity elsewhere
2. Home PV
3. Community Solar Garden
4. Improve efficiency
5. Swap heating/hot water to Ngas

My home uses 150 - 200 kWh a month not including EV use.

 

Prime's Charge Mode - Fast Charge? | PriusChat

Says ~ 9 kW, so it must bypass the on-board charger and act more like an old Prius that would rev up the ICE to charge the battery when the SOC fell below a certain level.

 

I just put in the PG&E request to switch to EV-A from a time of use plan. Appears that it will take a month before it takes effect.

Everyone will have a different plan that nets them the most savings based on their specific usage. PG&E has a compare plans section that will compare your exact past usage (from your old monthly bills) to determine what the cheapest plan is going forward. Luckily for us, the EV-A plan is projected at about $100 cheaper per year, even if we never plugged in. With the cheap overnight rates, we'll have a lot more incentive to plug in now.

 

I think for those of you who might have Solar Panels, that might be the biggest change factor since changing to the EV-A plan will get your higher kickbacks from PG&E as well during the peak hours. But it is definitely harder on the household in general having to deal with the Partial-Peak and Peak Time usages.

 

As I have solar, switching to EV-A will mean that I will have a surplus NEM compared to E-1 where I will pay an extra $240 per year with car charging every night. The higher day rates for the solar make a huge difference!

 

Yes, looking at the rates for ETOU-A vs EV-A, it appears at least from a quick glance that EV-A is still a better deal for us, with or without Solar. The off-peak rates are much higher for ETOU-A as compared to EV-A.

Convenience-wise, it might be better to go with ETOU-A, but not sure it is a better choice when compared to EV-A.

 

I think our homes would always use more than the car, especially if we have a family.

I guess you will have to analyze the peak/part-peak/off-peak rates and hours and figure out what is better for your household.

Or you use the Chai Energy app (Free) or install the Chai Energy PRO device ($50) with your utility and see realtime data. Or install the SENSE monitoring device ($300) to see realtime data and use this info to help you decide.

PG&E allows 2 rate plan changes within a 12 month period, and then you are stuck with the plan for 12 months each time.

 

You can download all your hourly data from PG&E to an excel sheet. I did that and then put in the hourly rates and also added in car charging overnight to simulate car charging.

 

I got the Chai app to work without issues, but it does not provide much useful data. I even bought the Chai Energy Pro device for $50 and had to contact PG&E to get it activated, and now I can see realtime data (with 7 seconds delay) but it still does not provide much more data to me.

The SENSE monitor I installed with electrician is much more useful and provides realtime data and it is started to collect data for specific devices now that it has learned the whole house usage more.

Although it still will not provide much info by simply viewing the charging usage. It does however, allow me to monitor the realtime usage and start to identify devices in the house that might be using too much energy and allow me to address them or change our usage behaviors.

 

I am in the similar but worse situation. My tier 1 rate is 20C and tier 2 is 27C. During winter/summer I would sometimes reach tier 3. For rest of the months I would use all tier 1 and start to use tier 2.

EV rate is not a good option as peak time rate is 45C, which would simply won't work due to AC usage! 45C peak time price is really outrageous. PG&E is very stubborn that they should simply give us like 250Kwh monthly at 12C rate if we use between11pm-7am.

It is discouraging me to use electricity instead of gas!