Understanding PG&E E9A Electric Vehicle Electric Rates

[miimura]

PG&E Advice Letter 3910-E-A dated May 9, 2012 proposed the following:

All Year Schedule:
Peak: 2pm-9pm M-F, 3pm-7pm Sa,Su, Holidays
Part-Peak: 7am-2pm M-F 9pm-11pm M-F
Off-Peak: All other times

EV-A Rates:
Summer:
- Peak: $0.35656
- Part-Peak: $0.19914
- Off-Peak: $0.09712
Winter:
- Peak: $0.26694
- Part-Peak: $0.16472
- Off-Peak: $0.09930

EV-B Rates for EV dedicated metering are fractions of a penny per kWh less.

 

[miimura]

After I typed all that into the forum, I really wanted to see what it would look like for people who don't have solar. However, it introduces an additional time slot, Winter Peak, so it's not a quick and dirty change.

Anyway, it looks like the prices fall between E-9A Tier 2 and Tier 3, like about 150% of baseline. So, it should produce a much smaller bill for the high household usage non-solar scenario I posted earlier.

 

[miimura]

Wow. All I can say is wow. I knew that Schedule EV-A would bring down the bill for people without solar, but I had no idea it would be this low.

As you recall from the previous page, the E-1 Bill without any EV was over $213. Now it's barely over $124. So, the bill is reduced by 41.85% when the total usage increased by 43.56%. Crazy.

 

[miimura]

Here's the new version of the spreadsheet with all the changes required to implement Schedule EV-A on top of to all the others.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2boNz94iJHhTXI4WF9VY0VqTHc/edit?usp=sharing

Not only did Schedule EV-A add a Winter Peak time period, but it also added Weekend Peak, but no Weekend Part-Peak. Those 4 hours on each weekend day are a really severe jump up from the whole rest of the weekend.

 

[miimura]

My billing cycle just closed for this period 4/19-5/18. That will be the last bill for me on E-6. From here on out I will be on E-9A. Just for kicks, I calculated what the E-6 Energy Charge should be and what it would have been on E-9. I got the RAV home on 4/28 and had it plugged in with the included 120V EVSE for most of the hours I was not at work through the morning of 5/3. I installed the EVB40 on that Friday evening and haven't touched the "trickle charger" since then. Summer Rates started on 5/1, so the Summer usage reflects my "normal" EV+PV usage. The E-9 Summer Off-Peak is basically all EV charging, which would cost only $10.78 for those 18 days. There are quite a few more hours on E-6 Off-Peak, so you can see the usage for that time bin is substantially more. You will also notice that the E-9 does not have any negative "bins". This is because our nighttime usage from 7-9pm eats up the surplus generated during the other peak hours. E-6 Peak is 1-7pm while E-9 is 2-9pm M-F. In any case, the super cheap off-peak more than makes up for this.

 

[miimura]

Just a quick follow-up to the last post. My solar monitoring system says that I generated 694.2kWh during that billing period. So, my total consumption was 1091.47kWh. On E-1 without solar, that would cost $271.89.

 

[dipper]

Just for thoughts. Would anyone think to stay on E9A until end of April 2014 to take advantage of better pricing (no peak hours). Then change to EV-A for May 2014 without paying $0.56/kwh on the top tier during peak hours & only $0.10/kwh at night instead of $0.20/kwh.

I am thinking of doing this.

 

[miimura]

I look at it this way:
The Proposed EV rate has no tiers. If your usage falls in Tier 1 & 2 because you have solar or your household use is extremely low, stay on E-9 as long as you can. If you don't have solar and are into Tier 3 and above, your bill could be substantially lower on the EV rate because they bill ALL your usage at a rate equivalent to about 150% of baseline. See my Winter analysis above for a high usage scenario.
In any case, I will be using my spreadsheet to calculate my bills from here on out on both rate schedules whenever they start to offer the new EV rate.

 

[srl99]

According to PG&E you can switch rate plans more than once a year if your current rate is no longer applicable, or a new more applicable plan is available. This opens things up once EV is available. If you are using a lot of peak kWH you might even move back to E-1 (but don't expect to move to EV when winter rates come back into effect.).

Sign this petition against PG&E's rate increase: https://action.aarp.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3341

Just for thoughts. Would anyone think to stay on E9A until end of April 2014 to take advantage of better pricing (no peak hours). Then change to EV-A for May 2014 without paying $0.56/kwh on the top tier during peak hours & only $0.10/kwh at night instead of $0.20/kwh.

I am thinking of doing this.

 

[dipper]

Wow. All I can say is wow. I knew that Schedule EV-A would bring down the bill for people without solar, but I had no idea it would be this low.

As you recall from the previous page, the E-1 Bill without any EV was over $213. Now it's barely over $124. So, the bill is reduced by 41.85% when the total usage increased by 43.56%. Crazy.

Did you add the cells incorrectly? $124.12 = 46.5 + 77.62

It should read $194.62, no?

 

[miimura]

Wow. All I can say is wow. I knew that Schedule EV-A would bring down the bill for people without solar, but I had no idea it would be this low.

As you recall from the previous page, the E-1 Bill without any EV was over $213. Now it's barely over $124. So, the bill is reduced by 41.85% when the total usage increased by 43.56%. Crazy.

Did you add the cells incorrectly? $124.12 = 46.5 + 77.62

It should read $194.62, no?

You are 100% correct. I forgot to adjust the formula for the total to include the Winter Peak time period. The new EV rate is the only one that has it. This is the updated summary for that particular Winter rate comparison.

E-1 Without EV  925.07kWh  $213.46
E-1 With EV    1328.07kWh  $354.97
E-9A With EV   1328.07kWh  $258.59
EV-A With EV   1328.07kWh  $194.62

So, in this high usage Winter scenario, the Proposed EV rate will save nearly 25% compared to E-9A for exactly the same usage. Your bill on EV-A would also go down by nearly 9% by adding an EV and its charging usage compared to this "typical" non-solar house without any EV charging on E-1.

 

[miimura]

The spreadsheet is updated with the above "bug" fixed and some additional notes were added. The EV-A scenario shown is the one being calculated in the Time of Use Bin Calculation tab and the Bill Calculation tab.

PGE Electric Rate Calculator_v1.3.xlsx

Edit: Be aware, the Winter Off-Peak has 13kWh/day coded into the formula in 'Bill Calculation'!C43. This is to add the EV usage to the Off-Peak Bin Calculation from the other tab.

 

[miimura]

Well, all of my May 2013 SmartMeter data was available on PG&E My Energy, so I decided to do a comparison between E-9A and the Proposed EV rate schedule. This month is significant because it is the first month of the Summer rate schedule and the first whole month of my RAV4 EV ownership and resulting home charging electric usage. This was calculated using the spreadsheet linked in the post above and my actual usage from May 1, 2013 to May 31, 2013.

This is not really what I expected. The surprising thing to me is the difference in actual usage by period. The Peak and Part Peak surplus in the Proposed EV schedule is significantly higher than on the E-9 schedule. The cause is the treatment of weekends. In E-9, Weekend evenings are in the Part Peak period, so that whittles down the solar generation from the Weekday Part Peak periods. Conversely, the proposed EV rate schedule has no Part Peak on the weekend, but instead has Peak from 3-7pm on weekends. This actually boosts the surplus during the peak period slightly because that period is early enough in the afternoon that it is net exporting. This must be true because the M-F hours are the same as E-9.

In the end, I should probably stay on E-9 as long as possible, as I suspected.

 

[eschatfische]

A quick question for those on E-9A with PG&E. We just got switched over to the new rate plan this weekend, but on the web site, where it used to list rate plan E-1, it now lists rate plan HEA9 (where I expected E-9 or E-9A). Is this PG&E's internal name for E9-A, or did we accidentally get put on a different rate plan?

 

[miimura]

My actual billing was E-6 through May 19, so I also ran E-6 for the full month just like E-9A and EV above.

As you can see, the Peak hours of 1-7pm vs. 2-9pm of the other two makes a big difference in how much solar generation falls into that period. I'm not that eager to go back to E-6 just based on this data point. I think the winter will balance this out because the lower solar generation will skew it less and the lower E-9 pricing will win out. I may go back and calculate my YTD True-Up as if I had the RAV and compare E-6 to E-9A. It's really not clear to me which will be cheaper over the full year.

 

[miimura]

I can't find the post now, but someone recently posted that they had a hard time getting PG&E to change them to E-9.

You can find more information at PG&E's site: http://www.pge.com/electricvehicles/

When I called the number listed on that page (1-877-743-7782) someone promptly answered and was able to help me straight away.
I would imagine that calling the main number instead would lead to quite a bit of runaround.

 

[edmc]

...someone recently posted that they had a hard time getting PG&E to change them to E-9.

Not me... a simple phone call (during their business hours of course) made the switch retroactively. Indeed, the agent was able to pull up my data and tell me whether the retroactive aspect was a win or a lose for me (it was a win).

 

[miimura]

I have updated my spreadsheet that calculates energy charges for PG&E rates. It now calculates for E-1, E-6, E-9A, and EV simultaneously so you can see the estimated charges at a glance.

You can use the spreadsheet two ways:
1. Download your SmartMeter data from PG&E MyEnergy using the Green Button to download a CSV file. Paste a month of CSV data into the "Time of Use Bin Calculation" tab. On the "Bill Calculation" tab, find the total energy charges in the Red shaded cells for each rate schedule.
2. Enter your own kWh usage values on the "Bill Calculation" tab in the Yellow shaded cells.

PGE Electric Rate Calculator_v1.5.xlsx on Google Drive.

Please let me know if you find any bugs.

Special note for this thread: Schedule EV is active as of August 1, 2013, so no new enrollments should be allowed in E-9. Since E-9 was labeled "Experimental" they will eventually kick everyone off this rate into another currently available rate of the customer's choosing. Solar NEM customers will probably be better off on E-6, but normal customers will surely be better off on the new Schedule EV. In any case, this spreadsheet will help you figure out what is best for your situation. Don't forget to do at least a couple months in different seasons.

 

[dipper]

When did PG&E move to EV-A? I looked this morning on their website and EV-9 is officially gone.

 

[miimura]

When did PG&E move to EV-A? I looked this morning on their website and EV-9 is officially gone.

Schedule EV became effective August 1, 2013. That terminated new enrollments to E-9. You can still find the E-9 tariff at http://www.pge.com/tariffs The actual E-9 PDF is here and the new EV PDF is here.