Warning! PG&E E-9 Massive Rate Increase

[miimura]

I just reviewed the January PG&E rate increase and I must say PG&E is really trying to screw EV owners that have elected to stay on Schedule E-9. This is the "Experimental" rate schedule that was developed to encourage customers to charge their Electric Vehicles Off Peak. This rate plan has been closed to new customers since Schedule EV was introduced. The tariff has stated that customers would eventually be kicked off this rate plan around this time. It looks like they are getting some resistance to kicking people off, so they just cranked up the rates to encourage people to leave. Let me tell you, it looks like it will work. If you don't have solar, don't even think about it. Call PG&E and change to Schedule EV immediately.

Here is the problem.

Let's look at Winter for a moment. You can see that they increased the Part Peak rates by about 1c/kWh across the board. No problem, they do that all the time. The problem is the Off-Peak rates. They increased the Tier 1 and Tier 2 rates by about 2c/kWh, but they increased the Tier 3, 4, 5 rates by 12c/kWh. They more than doubled Tier 3 from 11c/kWh to 22.7c/kWh. Summer is similar, Off-Peak was increased more than 10c/kWh in Tier 3, 4, 5.

I calculated my January usage on E-9A and EV and this was the result.

Since I have solar, I will be running a comparison of my full year 2014 usage at then-current rates and these new rates. I'm pretty sure I will be calling PG&E to change to Schedule EV.

 

[srl99]

I always appreciate your thorough analyses.

E-9 was a bargain if you were able to keep billing in the low tiers. This customer behavior is probably not what PG&E rate design expected when they engineered the plan. On a rough basis, EV is better (vs the old E-9) tier 4+ (I believe the cross-over is roughly in tier 3). It was a good bet that charging a full EV on a regular basis would push the rate victim into higher tiers (PHEVs, not so much).

PG&E has been mumbling about many customers not paying the cost to serve them, while on the other sides of their "mouths" they tell you that they don't make money selling energy, they only get an allowed return on their capital.

For my dollar, EV makes the calculations a lot simpler, and was a bit less expensive on an annual basis than E9 given regular EV charging.

The change of rate plan does change optimal local generation, and I would expect many more changes to that. It's a very unusual market where you can buy and sell a commodity at the same price.

PEV sub-metering changes the game yet again, but it's surprising how much the utilities are fighting this. It seems to allow them to discount the loads the CPUC actually wants to incent ( off-peak EV charging ), without giving rate victims an opportunity to run their pool pumps, wine cellars, laser-fusion experiments with cheaper kWH.

 

[Dsinned]

I'm still on E-9A. I have been on that plan for about two years. I have solar too. So, I have managed to become a zero net consumer of electricity.

I believe PG&E customers MUST change to another plan by March 31st, which is the sunset date for E-9 rate payers. I was going to change a couple months ago, but that didn't happen because at the time, any other plan would have been less advantageous. However, I am also on the waiting list (with OhmConnect/eMW) to join PG&E's EV-B rate PEV Submetering Pilot.

The pilot has unfortunately suffered from lengthy delays. I have been waiting since September. eMW's pilot "JuiceBox" EVSE has had numerous setbacks and has gone through several redesigns, each one in turn rejected by CPUC (and their publicly owned utilities) do to electrical safety "certification" requirements. eMW has been jumping through hoops trying to satisfy these mandatory requirements. Their R&D costs must be skyrocketing, but still plans to offer "FREE" JuiceBoxes to pilot participants by sometime this Spring!

I was going to wait till March to change to E-1 to become eligible for the submetering pilot. But now, I may change to EV-A instead, or just wait and see if E-9A gets extended since it is still the most financially beneficial to me (with solar).

 

[Bassman]

PG&E called me last Friday. The EV-9B rate goes away after March 31st. I'm switching to EV-B, TOU with no tiers. I have solar also, so I think I'll be net zero or better for both the house and the car, but they still haven't got the meter aggregation billing worked out yet. I also switched to E-6 TOU for the house. Producing power during peak times and using it at off peak for the car should work out nicely.

 

[miimura]

I recalculated my entire 2014 usage with the rates that were in effect at the time and with the January 2015 rates. Here are the results:

So, you can see that E-9A was five bucks a year cheaper for me than EV was. Now, it's $213/year more. I'm calling tomorrow to change to Schedule EV.

The full analysis is on Google Drive in PDF format here: CY 2014 Comparison

 

[miimura]

It was pointed out to me on MyNissanLeaf (where I also posted this) that I made a mistake and was reading the E-9B rates for January 2015 thinking it was a rate increase on E-9A. My bad.

This is the corrected figures:

So, sorry for the false alarm. This is just your run-of-the-mill rate increase.

If anyone is interested, my PG&E rate calculation spreadsheet is updated with January 2015 rates and the 5 different rates from 2014 that can be copied and pasted into the active calculation. I also added a table so you can see the baseline quantities for most of the regions. You do need to know what region you are in though.

The spreadsheet is here: PGE Electric Rate Calculator_v1.7a.xlsx

 

[Dsinned]

So, the E-9A rate has gone up since January 1st, but not as much as EV-(A) went up? With solar, which would be cheapest now? Also, is E-6 still available? I though I heard recently that E-6 is now CLOSED.

The other factor here with respect to changing rate plans, especially for solar rate payers, is how soon will it be time for the next annual true-up? Next month for me, so I am planning to wait till the end of March before changing.

 

[miimura]

So, the E-9A rate has gone up since January 1st, but not as much as EV-(A) went up? With solar, which would be cheapest now? Also, is E-6 still available? I though I heard recently that E-6 is now CLOSED.

The other factor here with respect to changing rate plans, especially for solar rate payers, is how soon will it be time for the next annual true-up? Next month for me, so I am planning to wait till the end of March before changing.

For me, EV-A only went up by $5/year. That's insignificant. On the other hand, E-6 and E-9A went up by almost $50/year. All of the rates were updated effective ON January 1st. There may be a rate change on March 1. In 2014 there were new rates effective 1/1, 3/1, 5/1, 8/1, and 10/1.

E-6 is the general TOU rate. It is not closed. E-9 was specifically for Plug-In Electric Vehicle customers (or customers that had a NGV compressor) and is closed.

You should be able to run your last 11 months of data through the PG&E Toolkit app and get a pretty good idea which one will be cheaper for you. However, it's hard for me to imagine a situation where a customer with solar and an EV charged during Off-Peak hours could do better than Schedule EV.

 

[kiwiguy]

Here's my PG&E Toolkit analysis. I've only had an EV for 6 months so that might make a difference.
I've charged for 9000+ miles.

I also have a large solar array generating 23500 kWh last year and using an additional 6300 kWh (see sig.). So I use lots of power also. Currently E6 is best for me but that may change.

 

[Michael Bornstein]

I have a solar system on a NEM rate and my car is on E-9B. Just checked with PG&E and their estimate of costs for me would be $360/yr on E-9B and $490/yr (a 36% increase) on EV-B. My max usage last year was 441 kWh in December with a minimum usage of 165 kWh in September (I was on vacation for 2 weeks in September, hence no driving). It seems that the EV rate will be worse for me than the E-9 rate.

 

[miimura]

Here's my PG&E Toolkit analysis. I've only had an EV for 6 months so that might make a difference.
I've charged for 9000+ miles.

I also have a large solar array generating 23500 kWh last year and using an additional 6300 kWh (see sig.). So I use lots of power also. Currently E6 is best for me but that may change.

It would be interesting to see the results just for the period where you were charging your EV. I would expect EV and E-6 to be closer together if you are charging only during Off-Peak.

 

[kiwiguy]

If I look at August 1st through Feb 11th, then EV is slightly cheaper by about $100, but the cost for E6 is now $1637 for 6 months. So I'm missing the peak generation period of Apr thru July when I get all my on-peak credits.

I'm interested to see what a full year with EV charging will look like. I don't know if more off peak usage will help generate on peak credits in higher tiers. I can generate 100kWh in a day if conditions are right!

Are all the EV rates also NEM compatible?
Also are the EV on-peak times now 2pm to 9pm, so you miss max solar generation?

 

[miimura]

If I look at August 1st through Feb 11th, then EV is slightly cheaper by about $100, but the cost for E6 is now $1637 for 6 months. So I'm missing the peak generation period of Apr thru July when I get all my on-peak credits.

I'm interested to see what a full year with EV charging will look like. I don't know if more off peak usage will help generate on peak credits in higher tiers. I can generate 100kWh in a day if conditions are right!

Are all the EV rates also NEM compatible?
Also are the EV on-peak times now 2pm to 9pm, so you miss max solar generation?

All residential rates, including the EV specific ones, are NEM compatible. The problem with E-6 is that Off-Peak vehicle charging is relatively expensive. The EV rates do eat up what little solar that does make it into the Peak time period with your evening household usage. I have observed that as long as you don't have a lot of A/C usage during Peak, the cheaper vehicle charging will usually make the EV rates win out.