PG&E Rates - Solar E-6 vs EV-A

[srl99]

http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV.pdf

There's no holiday schedule. Also note their definition of daylight savings time/standard time may vary from the rest of the country's.

 

[miimura]

Since today is MLK day, is today on holiday schedule for PG&E?

What are the "official" holiday schedule days anyways?

http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_EV.pdf

There's no holiday schedule. Also note their definition of daylight savings time/standard time may vary from the rest of the country's.

Schedule E-6 is the only residential rate schedule I found that observes holidays. I checked E-7 and E-9 and as srl99 said above, EV does not either. Rate schedules like E-1 that have no Time-Of-Use feature have no need for holidays either.

“Holidays” for the purposes of this rate schedule are New Year’s Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. The dates will be those on which the holidays are legally observed.

 

[dipper]

-----------
TIME PERIODS: Times of the year and times of the day are defined as follows:
All Year:
Peak: 2:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. 3:00 p.m. to 7:00
p.m. Saturday, Sunday and Holidays.
Partial-Peak: 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Monday
through Friday.
Off-Peak: All other hours.
---------------

This is taken from the EV-A Tariff pdf file. It referenced holidays hours for peak time, but no reference anywhere what is considered PG&E holidays. That is why I am asking.

 

[miimura]

I just noticed that the Schedule EV tariff that is effective May 1, 2014 now lists the holidays.

HOLIDAYS: “Holidays” for the purposes of this rate schedule are New Year’s Day, President’s Day,
Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day.
The dates will be those on which the holidays are legally observed.

 

[srl99]

EV respects holidays - that's a real shocker. That's about 10 (err, 8!) days a year PG&E can't otherwise soak us. I still can't get over the PEAK charge for dinner prep time on Sat and Sun.

 

[miimura]

EV respects holidays - that's a real shocker. That's about 10 (err, 8!) days a year PG&E can't otherwise soak us. I still can't get over the PEAK charge for dinner prep time on Sat and Sun.

Yeah, it's kinda shady that it jumps from Off-Peak for most of the weekend all the way up to Peak from 3-7pm, skipping over the Part-Peak rate. E-9 doesn't have any Peak rate on weekends, but goes to Part-Peak from 5-9pm. I'm not getting any solar into that period so the solar doesn't earn me much on the weekends.

 

[miimura]

PG&E rates were revised August 1, 2014. This is not unusual, it happens all the time. However, this is the first time in 3 years that the baseline quantities have been changed. For example, territory X which includes all of Santa Clara County and most of the temperate zone up and down the state has been decreased from 11.0kWh/day Summer and 11.7kWh/day Winter to 10.1 Summer and 10.9 Winter. That will push people into the higher tiers with less usage. Tier 3 (130% of Baseline) where the rates really start to go up used to start at 429kWh/mo, but now start at 394kWh in the summer. E-1 rates now jump from 17c/kWh to 26c/kWh at that level. They have actually made the ramp less steep by raising Tier 1 & 2 rates and lowering tiers 3, 4, and 5. Tier 3 used to be 32c/kWh and 4 & 5 used to be 36c/kWh.

PG&E Baseline Territory Map

Schedule E-9, the old EV rate plan was changed in a similar way - the rates on the lower tiers were increased and the rates in the higher tiers were reduced. The cheapest Off-Peak rate is now slightly over 5c/kWh while it used to be slightly under 4c/kWh. The tier 4 & 5 Off Peak rate is now just under 17c/kWh, down from 21c/kWh.

In any case, if you're on Schedule EV, the baseline changes do not affect you since that rate schedule does not have tiers. EV rates were reduced across the board. You will now pay slightly under 10c/kWh Off-Peak in Summer and Winter, a reduction of about 0.1c/kWh.

 

[miimura]

Version 1.6b of my spreadsheet which includes the above mentioned rates effective August 1, was uploaded to Google Drive here.

 

[srl99]

Isn't it amazing that PG$E can update their billing system for the rate increase, but after HOW MANY YEARS? they can't update the dates that savings time starts ?!? When PG$E dines with the CPUC who picks up the check? [Trick question - the ratepayers!]

 

[dconway]

Does anyone know if there's a public ICS calendar (to subscribe to from Google Calendar or you iOS device) which has all the PG&E Time Of Use dates? They're published here out through 2020:
http://www.pge.com/tariffs/toudates.shtml

HOLIDAYS: “Holidays” for the purposes of this rate schedule are New Year’s Day, President’s Day,
Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day.
The dates will be those on which the holidays are legally observed.

 

[srl99]

Warning to EV rate payers - you changed your clock, but PG$E didn't (until next week)! The time periods "start one hour later" until next Sunday.

 

[eschatfische]

Are you sure that wasn't last week? From the Sept. 30th revision of Schedule EV:

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME ADJUSTMENT: The time periods shown above will begin and end one hour later for the period between the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in April, and for the period between the last Sunday in October and the first Sunday in November.

 

[DevinL]

I would also think it was the previous week, which would be consistent with the old daylight saving time law.

Starting March 11, 2007, DST was extended another four to five weeks, from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_time_in_the_United_States#DST_2007

 

[dconway]

That's completely ridiculous. How can they possibly justify not changing it with everyone else (at 2am --> 1am this past Sunday morning)? Seems like a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen...

 

[srl99]

U R right. I'm a week late. Could someone smarter post a warning for spring forward!?!

 

[srl99]

That's completely ridiculous. How can they possibly justify not changing it with everyone else (at 2am --> 1am this past Sunday morning)? Seems like a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen...

They're in bed with their "regulators". It's a state-sponsored monopoly - they can do as they please. They also charge about double the national average for residential kWH, hardly the mark of a well-regulated monopoly.

 

[miimura]

This actually would be very easy to fix if the tin-foil hat folks would let them purge their entire territory of dumb TOU meters. If they had 100% coverage for SmartMeters, at least for all TOU customers, they could make an arbitrary cut-over date and the problem would be gone. The problem with the dumb TOU meters is that they are pre-programmed for the TOU schedule and accumulate the usage for each period internally.

 

[srl99]

There are TOU meters that don't report usage in time intervals? This should all be in the billing system, they didn't have trouble changing the rates.

Of course, PG&E can always "estimate" - as they are apparently allowed to by their state-sponsor, CPUC. They can just remove all the meters and "estimate".

BTW - I looked at the "one hour later" period for spring-forward - four weeks! Did I get that right? Mar 8 until (ends early on) Apr 5.

 

[miimura]

There are TOU meters that don't report usage in time intervals? This should all be in the billing system, they didn't have trouble changing the rates.

Yes, the original TOU meters that were read door-to-door just report a single kWh value for Peak, Part-Peak, Off-Peak, as applicable. Those meters are the obstacle to fixing the problem. If SmartMeters were universal, then it could be fixed completely in the billing system. How much they charge you for those kWh can of course be changed at will.

Of course, PG&E can always "estimate" - as they are apparently allowed to by their state-sponsor, CPUC. They can just remove all the meters and "estimate".

BTW - I looked at the "one hour later" period for spring-forward - four weeks! Did I get that right? Mar 8 until (ends early on) Apr 5.

Yes, you can thank Congress for that. Total of 5 weeks difference, 4 weeks in the Spring and one week in the Fall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time_in_the_United_States#2005_revision_to_dates_of_observance

 

[srl99]

7 years isn't enough time to swap out the meters for ones with new dates?

I'm sticking with my theory that the rate plan game strategists at PG&E modeled this scenario and calculated they would get extra revenue. Also, the EV plan probably has more rate periods than the ones in vogue 7 years ago, another meter swap.