California Electric Vehicle Submetering Pilot Program

[fromport]

You guys need to start installing bigger PV arrays!

I am in a rental with shade in my backyard.
I have 3 panels installed on a little shed that gets sun untill 2pm to offload part of my daily usage.

Moving soon, with more space so will put up a big solar array that has been in storage for 2 years ;-)

 

[sqwalker]

I jumped on board with this pilot program, and was the first in San Diego to have it installed. I've now had it for 3 months and am very happy with the results.

Before this program I was on SDG&E TOU-2 rate, so my household had peak rates between 12-6pm everyday. This wasn't too much of a problem, except on weekends in which we are around a lot during these hours (.44 kWh rate between noon-6pm). Ouch!

By changing to this pilot program, my household electricity is now back on the typical domestic tiered rate, while my Leviton 40a EVSE is connected to a separate meter, which only charges at my off peak rate (.17 kWh) - since I only charge between midnight-5am.

So even though I'm not a heavy peak time user (especially during the week), my bill still decreased from ~$160 month to around ~$130 - a savings of at least $30 a month. Your results may vary, but I would imagine that most housholds will save substantially more than this.

Regardless, I'm very satisfied with the pilot program so far, and am also very impressed with the folks at eMotorWerks. I highly recommend them.

I hope this helps, as I would certainly like to see this program be successful, and perhaps extended to phase 2, and then phase 3, and then phase 4....

Darren

 

[dstjohn99]

I jumped on board with this pilot program, and was the first in San Diego to have it installed. I've now had it for 3 months and am very happy with the results.

I'm glad to hear this, thanks for sharing. I signed up with Ohmconnect / SDGE last November, but then the delay due to UL certification hit. I am finally receiving a Wattbox (today?) and I look forward to the trial and rebates. I'm on TOU SES and I have a significant solar surplus during the day, but I'm looking forward to lower rates to charge the RAV.

Looking to the future I should be able to support a second EV and still zero my SDGE bill with the house / solar on TOU SES (or similar) and the EV(s) on super off peak rates.

 

[dstjohn99]

FINALLY!! After 9 months I finally have everything in place for the Pilot program. Wattbox installed and connected last night, agreement signed and submitted today.

I believe that my EV usage will be billed outside of my PV net metering agreement, though the agreement states that "All charges and provisions of the customer's current tariff shall apply...PEV (Pilot EV?) usage...will be billed on the applicable PEV rate schedule."

So, it should be offset by PV generation, but I've also heard otherwise. I mainly got involved to get the rebates and offset the cost of my Juicebox purchase. So if billing is unfavorable, I'll just charge once a month on the sub-metered EVSE, and use my other charger the rest of the time.

Anyone else with SDGE and net metering have information on how the billing works?

 

[Dsinned]

I agree the savings will probably be very little real dollars. I guess this gives the Utilities like SCE an opportunity in the future to control when our car charges. Assuming they have a lot of electrics out there they might want to spread it out over the entire evening/morning. I took a look yesterday at our inverter and it shows that we have generated over 42,000 kwh over the last 5 years. That is pretty good.
Manny

Yes, this is yet another potential "benefit" to JuiceBox users, not necessarily in terms of monetary savings, but also in terms of reduced GHG emissions.

The latest JuiceBox EVSE just announced on June 25th, is the JuiceBox "Green" 40, in partnership with WattTime, a non-profit CA company doing CO2 avoidance research related to Electric Grid energy market providers and TOU EV charging. This new JuiceBox can be remotely controlled (currently from eMW servers) to operate during lower periods of fossil fuel power plants emissions, thus shifting the load on the grid to more renewable energy sources (wind, hydro, solar).

If you are not interested in (or eligible for) the CA PEV Submetering Pilot, perhaps this "GREEN" alternative is worthy of consideration.

 

[Tadol]

OK - just got my wattbox today, and plan on getting my electrician over shortly to get it installed. But I'm still not sure what I'm doing here, so maybe someone can help me -

We have had PV on the house for many years, and are grandfathered in on an old PGE rate E6(?) - essentially its tiered with 2 time periods. noon to 6pm, and 6pm to noon. Everything was great, and then I got my Rav4. We still did ok, we have been replacing a bunch of our lighting with LED, and the boys went off to college, so our electric bill went up, but was still extremely reasonable. Then we got a second Rav4 for my wife, and now we are realizing our electric bills have gone thru the roof - her work, which had said they were going to put in a charge station has backed down, and we can't add to our existing solar array (Solar City won't even return my call) and PG&E can offer extremely little information about our usage - so much for "smart" meters.

So on this grandfathered rate we are using enough to push our off peak up to the highest rate, which is like .26 - so I ordered the wattbox to see what we really use for the cars and what we can do -

So I'm looking for advice - do I sign up all our service for the EV-A, which has more tiers, but has an off peak max of under .10, or do I try for some submeter rate for charging the vehicles, or is there some other option - like a secondary solar array with microinverters. I hate to say it, but even the people at eMotorwerks weren't reallly able to explain how to go about evaluating all this, or even what the WattBox would really do for me, but I figured at the very least it would give me more info on just what I am using to charge our vehicles. I am frustrated that all this requires such an huge investment in time and effort to try to make heads or tails of all the plentiful but poorly explained options -

If anyone has a better grasp of this, and can offer any advice, or even point me to resources to get the information to do the analysis - I'd really appreciate it -

 

[dstjohn99]

Have you applied for the PUC trial to get the EV charging at super off-peak rates? You will need to set up an account with Ohmconnect (free), submit some paperwork, etc. but there should space be space available in the PUC trial. https://login.ohmconnect.com/register/create_account?pev=emw

 

[Incredulocious]

We have had PV on the house for many years, and are grandfathered in on an old PGE rate E6(?) - essentially its tiered with 2 time periods. noon to 6pm, and 6pm to noon.

So I'm looking for advice - do I sign up all our service for the EV-A, which has more tiers, but has an off peak max of under .10, or do I try for some submeter rate for charging the vehicles, or is there some other option - like a secondary solar array with micro inverters.

If anyone has a better grasp of this, and can offer any advice, or even point me to resources to get the information to do the analysis - I'd really appreciate it -

Yeah, sign up for a rate plan that gives you low overnight rates for charging your cars. The overnight rate can be many times less than the normal rates. Take a look at PG&E's pages:
http://www.pge.com/en/myhome/saveenergymoney/pev/rates/index.page?

Or the EV schedule:
http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV.pdf

And similarly the solar-oriented ones. I'm actually still on my solar E6 time-of-use plan which still has decent overnight off-peak rates (.13) for charging that run longer (9 pm to 10 am weekdays) but better peak time period (1-7 pm weekdays in summer @ .32) to maximize credit from solar production. (Partial-peak is the shoulder time between peak and off-peak. And in winter, it's all off-peak except weekday evenings 5-8 pm.)

By comparison, the EV-A plan is peak from 2-9 pm and partial-peak 7 am - 2 pm and 9-11 p.m – so more partial-peak time (.23) but the peak rate is higher at .42 and off-peak is lower at .10.

And can't you see your usage via your SolarCity monitoring? With my SunPower system, I can see production and consumption over the course of the day (and week, month, year).

Also, you can guesstimate how much you're using to charge the car by thinking about roughly what percentage of a full normal charge (about 35 kWh ) you use and then adding it up, rounding up for charging overhead.

Here's the thread on this topic in this forum (PG&E Rates - Solar E-6 vs EV-A):
http://www.myrav4ev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=574

 

[drmanny3]

I finally got my first bill using the sub metering plan. I was really surprised that it was so high. They added many fees that don't show up on my regular bill. The fees added up to almost $20. The total bill was $54.75. To say the least I was surprised. Not sure what I am going to do. My regular bill was a net negative $11.00 So that offsets some of this. The extra $20 in fees is a real bummer. I need to find out why they are charging me so much.
Manny

Details of your new charges
Your rate: TOU-EV-1
Billing period: Jun 2 '15 to Jul 1 '15 (29 days)

Delivery charges
Energy-Summer
Off peak 366 kWh x $0.04868 =
$17.82
DWR bond charge 366 kWh x $0.00526
$1.93
Monthly Meter charge
$2.64
Service Connection charge
$6.00

Generation charges
DWR
DWR energy credit 366 kWh x -$0.00172
-$0.63
SCE
Energy-Summer
Off peak 366 kWh x $0.06651
$24.34

Subtotal of your new charges
$52.10
Santa Ana UUT $46.10 x 5.50000%
$2.54
State tax 366 kWh x $0.00029
$0.11
Your new charges
$54.75

Your Delivery charges include:
· $4.49 transmission charges
· $9.46 distribution charges
· $0.10 nuclear decommissioning charges
· $2.71 public purpose programs charge
· $3.61 new system generation charge

Your Generation charges include:
· -$0.71 competition transition charge

Your overall energy charges include:
· $0.42 franchise fees

Additional information:
· Service voltage: 208 volts

 

[miimura]

I finally got my first bill using the sub metering plan. I was really surprised that it was so high. They added many fees that don't show up on my regular bill. The fees added up to almost $20. The total bill was $54.75. To say the least I was surprised. Not sure what I am going to do. My regular bill was a net negative $11.00 So that offsets some of this. The extra $20 in fees is a real bummer. I need to find out why they are charging me so much.
Manny

Your total usage charge is $42.16 for 366kWh. That is really quite fair at below 12c/kWh. The "extra" charges are $12.59, not $20. The fundamental question you have to ask yourself is how much those 366kWh would have cost if they stayed on you main meter.

Also, do these charges have to be paid now, or are they rolled into your annual true-up for your net metered energy?

 

[drmanny3]

This morning I had a new bill from SCE. It now shows that I had a credit of $43.74 rather than the $11.00 I had seen earlier. Perhaps initially they kept the Rav4EV on both accounts. So that helps a lot. My overall cost was around $10. As for the extra charges. On my regular bill I saw the following:


Your Delivery charges include:
· $1.71 distribution charges

Your overall energy charges include:
· $0.02 franchise fees

Please note on the month earlier same charges. So I am getting hit with a lot of service fees on the new sub metering account. My new bill has $9.46 for distribution charges compared to my regular bill that only charges $1.71 Not sure why there are so many charges on the new bill. Still close to $20
Manny

 

[drmanny3]

To address your comment on how much would the costs have been to have the 366 kwh on my original bill. That original bill did in fact have the 366 kwh on it and overall cost was -$11.00 So I am being charged a lot for extra charges on the new bill.
Manny

 

[Dsinned]

drmanny3, you're "submeter" plan does not appear to be related to the eMW/Ohmconnect CPUC PEV Submetering Pilot this thread is discussing. There should be no "meter charge" for this pilot plan, because the "meter" is either the WattBox or soon-to-be UL approved JuiceBox EVSE, not a meter installed by your utility company. I was able to get a WattBox for only the cost of shipping and $100 credit payable to an Electrician for its installation. The JB once delivered will be heavily rebated under this same pilot program. I believe the deadline for CPUC PEV Submetering Pilot enrollment is fast approaching. September 2015!

 

[drmanny3]

Yes I am using a WattBox with my Leviton charger. I am not sure what you mean by your comment. I think this is the way it is supposed to be?
Regards,
Manny

 

[Dsinned]

Have you applied with your WattBox for pilot enrollment with Ohmconnect?

 

[drmanny3]

Yes, I went through the entire process with Ohm Connect. They helped me apply through SCE. I am in the program. Perhaps they incorrectly charged me those fees. I will contact them tomorrow to see.
Manny

 

[drmanny3]

I contacted SCE. And she said my rate is $0.12 kwh. They broke out some of the fees that I referenced in the previous post. She did tell me that a $6.00 charge was a one time only fee. So next month it will not be on my bill. That still leaves about $4.00 in charges. I guess that is not too bad. I am hoping that the JuiceBox will receive UL approval soon. Has anyone heard anything?
Manny

 

[Dsinned]

My first submetered bill from PG&E imposed a "meter charge" of ~5 cents per day. Not significant, but still unwarranted. I called this past week but got the usual runaround and I'm still waiting for some who knows about this pilot program to call me back.

 

[drmanny3]

I got an email the other day from SCE that said I had to drop out of the Save Power Days program if I wanted to remain in the Pilot. I agreed. Still waiting on JuiceBox UL approval. Has anyone heard anything?
Manny

 

[Dsinned]

Still waiting too and because UL is such monopolist safety agency, we have to wait till Hell freezes over! I'm so glad I got a WB as an alternative to use while this neverending wait continues.