iOS iPhone/iPad App to compare PG&E rate plans

[Dsinned]

This App should be indispensable to EV owners (especially those with PV). It's called, "My PG&E Toolkit", currently on sale from Nidilli Technologies for $4.99, which includes a one year subscription to cloud accessible data backup and storage. A "Lite" version is available as well for only $0.99, with a free 15 day trial subscription. To use this App, the user must provide a valid online PG&E login account.

Aside to Miimura, I'd be particularly interested in your review of this App.

 

[miimura]

This App should be indispensable to EV owners (especially those with PV). It's called, "My PG&E Toolkit", currently on sale from Nidilli Technologies for $4.99, which includes a one year subscription to cloud accessible data backup and storage. A "Lite" version is available as well for only $0.99, with a free 15 day trial subscription. To use this App, the user must provide a valid online PG&E login account.

Aside to Miimura, I'd be particularly interested in your review of this App.

I had not tried it before reading this post. The app was last updated June 28, 2013. Review from October 3, 2014 says "Won't work on iOS 8.02 on iPhone 6 Plus. Must be a bug. Hangs on start screen. Waste of money so far." I just got an iPhone 6, so I installed it on an iPad that is still running iOS 7.

My quickie review:

The app is simple enough with tabs at the bottom for Analyze, Documents, Settings, Help. The most useful part of the app is the Analyze tab. You can choose a time scale [day/month/year/lifetime/billing cycle/custom date range] and it will use your PG&E data to calculate your bills on all residential rate schedules [E-1/E-6/E-7/E-9A/E-9B/EV-A/EV-B] and present it first in one table showing the billable dollar amount for each rate plan, then the detail for each rate plan with the kWh per TOU period per tier (if applicable) and the dollars for each period and tier. The information is presented in a simple way without much thought to user interface design, but it does work and is simple to use.

However, there are some things that are a little off. The billable amounts, when compared to my actual PG&E billing are within $1 and TOU kWh values could be rounded to the integer values reported by PG&E for the limited cases that I checked. That's no so bad, but when I verified my methods when I created my spreadsheets to do the same job, I was always within $0.10/month. In addition, when I spot-checked some specific calendar months that I had previously analyzed, some TOU kWh values were off from mine by up to 11kWh and billable amounts were all $1-$2 off. I'm not saying my calculations are gospel, but I carefully verified my methods. There are also links to the actual tariff documents, but these are all at least a year old. One must also assume that the rates used for billing calculations are also that old. I would be much more impressed if there was the option to calculate based on the rates in effect at the time, or today's rates for any time scale chosen. Also, the app lacks any ability to do what-if scenarios. For example, the app can calculate what your electric bill would have been on a different rate schedule, but can't calculate how much your bill would have been if you had added a certain amount of EV charging to that period.

In summary, if all you want to know is the approximate amount your historical usage would be on another rate plan, then this tool is worth the $0.99 to get that quick answer. There is no need to buy the full version for $4.99 since I doubt most people will continue to use it after they have that quick answer. The Lite version is basically a 15 day trial.

Please do yourself a favor and change your PG&E password after you are done using this tool.

 

[Dsinned]

Miimura, thanks for the review. I value your opinion since you have created your own analytic spreadsheet. The nice thing about this tool is it loads (and stores) all your consumption data from PG&E which would be laborious to do yourself. However, I found it hard to distinguish between "consumption" and "[generation]" data. Color coding these would have been helpful.

I know this developer, Nidilli Technology, from an Enphase PV Monitor app I got about a year and half ago. I believe this developer is one of our members here, so I went ahead and purchased the unlocked app for my iPhone 5S.

I read the same App Store bad review and was hesitant, because I already upgraded to iOS 8.02. Nevertheless, it worked fine. I think bad reviews may be because of how long it takes to initialize the data in the Analyze mode. It is not really obvious that is what its doing, so a first time user might think the app has crashed.

The only "bug" I found was when I tried to link to the subscription "help" page, the app shuts down. From what I read about in the "Lite" version, an in-app purchase to upgrade to a 10 year subscription cost $100 with much lesser amounts for 1 year ($25), 6 mos, 3 mos, etc. I will probably use this app several times over time, so getting the full version for only $5 up front which includes a one year subscription seems quite fair.

I'm still on PG&E's E9-A (old EV) rate plan which is no longer available. I heard that it will be retired by the end of this year, at which time I will have a choice to switch to another rate plan. That was my main motivation for buying this App.

My PG&E account database goes back to 2010, but not that full year. I did not have my first EV (VOLT) until August 2012, adding my RAV4 EV three months later. After that in Februrary 2013, I added solar, so I have yet to have an entire calendar year with both EV and PV combined. This app allows you to set custom time periods, as well as "billing cycles" in sync with PG&E. It also allows time periods of one day, one month, one year, and "lifetime".

There are "charts" in graphics form, which are linked to for so-called "daily" reporting, but they actually correspond to time period preselected. When I selected "years" I was able to see my total annual consumption (without solar) for calendar years 2011 and 2012, which were over 4MWh for each year. This corresponds to a monthly average of about 350kWh; exactly right!

For 2013 my total annual consumption dropped significantly to ~1MWh, which also corresponds to what I have seen using other analytic tools (e.g. Bidgely.com). So far, for this year (2014), my total consumption turned negative at -750kWh, so I am now consistently over generating for at least the first nine months of the year. PGE's Killowatt-hour Smartmeter reads -553kWh, which as I recall was replace and reset to zero by PG&E sometime last December.

I need to study this more, but that extra month could be the reason there is a mismatch of ~200kWh. (My average kWh consumption should have decrease substantially in December because A/C is always off that time of year, and all our heating comes from NG. Solar production would be less as well, but may turn out to be the month of the year that I over generate the most.)

Anyway, this App is easy to use and has serious potential. I'm sure others here will find it interesting if not worthwhile to try out. If you do, please post your comments here.

 

[NTechInc]

Hi all,
We are the developers for this app. Also an avid 'EV' owner (currently own 3 Rav4 EVs - two first gen, one second gen). And also have an 8.75KW PV solar array. So this app was thoroughly 'self-tested' and proved during development.
The app was updated earlier today to incorporate the latest PG&E rate schedules which were just released this month - October 2014. Note that this app/service still retains previous rate schedules to enable accurate calculations for time periods before October 1, 2014, when the new rates went into effect.

Dsinned is correct: the app is compatible with iOS 8.x. The contrary review was likely due to a user's interface timing out on the first-time initialization.

Glad to answer any questions regarding this app.

 

[miimura]

Feature Request:
- Option to use current rates for all the data in the selected analysis, or the rates in effect on the dates of the underlying data. If the data is from a time period outside those available to the app, pop up a warning to indicate which rates will be used.

 

[NTechInc]

Feature Request:
- Option to use current rates for all the data in the selected analysis, or the rates in effect on the dates of the underlying data. If the data is from a time period outside those available to the app, pop up a warning to indicate which rates will be used.

DONE. Your feature request has been implemented and is live now.
The calculation mode toggles, as follows:
- if you perform an analyses query that spans a "Rates Change" date (eg: since both E-1 and EV rate schedules change on October 1, 2014,perform a query that includes a start date before October 1, 2014, AND an end date on or after October 1, 2014), then your first calculation will use "historically accurate" PG&E rate schedules (ie: the correct schedules in-place for each epoch).
- if you repeat the same query, you will get results calculated based solely on the latest (current) PG&E rate schedules.
- your next query goes back to the 'historically accurate' calculation mode...
Additionally in both cases, you will get a notice/warning indicating which calculation mode was used, and advising you to repeat the query if the alternate calculation mode is desired.

 

[Dsinned]

Thanks!

 

[miimura]

Feature Request:
- Option to use current rates for all the data in the selected analysis, or the rates in effect on the dates of the underlying data. If the data is from a time period outside those available to the app, pop up a warning to indicate which rates will be used.

DONE. Your feature request has been implemented and is live now.
The calculation mode toggles, as follows:
- if you perform an analyses query that spans a "Rates Change" date (eg: since both E-1 and EV rate schedules change on October 1, 2014,perform a query that includes a start date before October 1, 2014, AND an end date on or after October 1, 2014), then your first calculation will use "historically accurate" PG&E rate schedules (ie: the correct schedules in-place for each epoch).
- if you repeat the same query, you will get results calculated based solely on the latest (current) PG&E rate schedules.
- your next query goes back to the 'historically accurate' calculation mode...
Additionally in both cases, you will get a notice/warning indicating which calculation mode was used, and advising you to repeat the query if the alternate calculation mode is desired.

I looked at the app again today and don't see any change at all. In addition, the E-9 Tariff linked in the app has rates from October 2013. Based on your notes above, I thought it was a server side update. Can you explain why I'm not seeing it or post some screen shots that show the effective rate indications?

 

[NTechInc]

I looked at the app again today and don't see any change at all. In addition, the E-9 Tariff linked in the app has rates from October 2013. Based on your notes above, I thought it was a server side update. Can you explain why I'm not seeing it or post some screen shots that show the effective rate indications?

The changes are indeed server-side, so although the app on your iPhone/iPad looks no different than before, when you run a calculation it will apply the new process outlined earlier. Note: the updates will only be triggered when you run an analyses that spans a Rates Schedule change (eg: select a start date before October 1, 2014 along with an end date _after_ October 1, 2014).

The "My PG&E Toolkit" app is tied to the very latest rate schedules available from PG&E's official rate schedules pages here: http://www.pge.com/tariffs/ERS.SHTML#ERS
Note that not all the schedules were modified. From this PG&E site you can see that the latest E-9 tariff is dated 2012. No changes since 2012 for E-9. Why you may ask? E-9 has been closed to new customers for a long while now, and is actually being retired. It was replaced by the EV schedule. So no need for PG&E to update it. The October 1, 2014 changes only affect E-1 and EV, not E-9.

 

[miimura]

I looked at the app again today and don't see any change at all. In addition, the E-9 Tariff linked in the app has rates from October 2013. Based on your notes above, I thought it was a server side update. Can you explain why I'm not seeing it or post some screen shots that show the effective rate indications?

The changes are indeed server-side, so although the app on your iPhone/iPad looks no different than before, when you run a calculation it will apply the new process outlined earlier. Note: the updates will only be triggered when you run an analyses that spans a Rates Schedule change (eg: select a start date before October 1, 2014 along with an end date _after_ October 1, 2014).

The "My PG&E Toolkit" app is tied to the very latest rate schedules available from PG&E's official rate schedules pages here: http://www.pge.com/tariffs/ERS.SHTML#ERS
Note that not all the schedules were modified. From this PG&E site you can see that the latest E-9 tariff is dated 2012. No changes since 2012 for E-9. Why you may ask? E-9 has been closed to new customers for a long while now, and is actually being retired. It was replaced by the EV schedule. So no need for PG&E to update it. The October 1, 2014 changes only affect E-1 and EV, not E-9.

This is plainly wrong. No new customers are allowed to enroll in E-9, but they keep changing the rates. Each page in each tariff has its own effective date. In addition, you can download the historical rates from PG&E here (link is for electricity rates - residential tiered rates from 2001-present and residential TOU rates from 2006-present are available). October 1 makes the 5th different residential rate effective in 2014.

As you can see above, this crop of the E-9 Tariff, Page 2, shows that there are new rates effective October 1, 2014. Each and every rate has "(I)" next to it. That means that each of those rates were Increased. If it was Reduced, it would have an "(R)" next to the specific rate. That did actually happen in the August 2014 rates when they flattened the tiered rates a little. At that time, they increased the rates for Tiers 1 and 2 and Reduced the rates for Tiers 3-5. At the same time, they reduced the baseline quantities so that people would move through the tiers faster.

I hope you have also implemented the baseline quantities change for all rates.

 

[Dsinned]

Miimura, I don't recall there being a "Meter Charge Rate" for E-9A when I first got on that rate plan about two years ago. Is that charge something they added along the way? Also, do you know anything more about the "California Climate Credit" that occurs semi-annually? I think that must be something fairly new also. A total credit of $58/year on my PG&E bill tends to make me think I should continue to stay on E-9A for as long as possible. Comments?

 

[miimura]

Miimura, I don't recall there being a "Meter Charge Rate" for E-9A when I first got on that rate plan about two years ago. Is that charge something they added along the way? Also, do you know anything more about the "California Climate Credit" that occurs semi-annually? I think that must be something fairly new also. A total credit of $58/year on my PG&E bill tends to make me think I should continue to stay on E-9A for as long as possible. Comments?

Page 1 of the E-9 Tariff has the following statement:

Ongoing daily Time-of-Use (TOU) meter charges applicable to customers taking service under this rate schedule will no longer be applied if the customer has a SmartMeter™ installed.

So, you have likely never been charged the daily Meter Charge Rate under this rate plan unless you Opt-Out of SmartMeter.

I don't know much about the Climate Credit, but there is a FAQ at the Energy Upgrade California site. You should receive this credit regardless of what rate plan you take. It is also given to SCE and SDGE customers along with a few other smaller utilities. LADWP is notably absent from the list.

 

[NTechInc]

This is plainly wrong. No new customers are allowed to enroll in E-9, but they keep changing the rates.

Miimura: You are correct, I was wrong, my apologies! Missed it by looking at the "Effective Dates" on Page 1 only.
The app "My PG&E Toolkit" has now been updated with the very latest rates available (effective October 1, 2014), for all the PG&E Rate schedules, including:
E-1, E-6, E-7, E-9 (A&B), EV (A&B).

Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[miimura]

This is plainly wrong. No new customers are allowed to enroll in E-9, but they keep changing the rates.

Miimura: You are correct, I was wrong, my apologies! Missed it by looking at the "Effective Dates" on Page 1 only.
The app "My PG&E Toolkit" has now been updated with the very latest rates available (effective October 1, 2014), for all the PG&E Rate schedules, including:
E-1, E-6, E-7, E-9 (A&B), EV (A&B).

Thanks for pointing that out.

There are 5 different rate tables, for each of those rate schedules, just in 2014. Do you have all of those in your system so that a year-to-date calculation will accurately reflect what PG&E actually billed? What about prior years? This is a large undertaking which is why I was surprised that you took it on so quickly.

 

[NTechInc]

There are 5 different rate tables, for each of those rate schedules, just in 2014. Do you have all of those in your system so that a year-to-date calculation will accurately reflect what PG&E actually billed? What about prior years? This is a large undertaking which is why I was surprised that you took it on so quickly.

We currently have in all the very latest rates (effective October 1, 2014), as well as the earlier (original set), but not the mid-year fluctuations. It is indeed a large undertaking: it takes awhile to update just a single schedule (eg: E-6), taking into account the meticulous care needed to input the accurate updated rates for the various tiers (baseline through tier 5), for each of the various time-types (off-peak, partial peak, on-peak), for each of the seasons (summer vs winter) . Fortunately, the fundamental software architecture and database structure of the "My PG&E Toolkit" app is already in place to accurately handle the varying rates, so its just a matter now of inputing rates. Current (latest) is accurate and over time we plan to input and update our tables to track every single rate change, major or minor, past or present.

 

[miimura]

Just to be clear, you captured the new Baseline Quantities that went into effect August 1, 2014 too, right? Those had been unchanged since about 2011 if I recall correctly.

 

[NTechInc]

you captured the new Baseline Quantities that went into effect August 1, 2014 too, right?

The Baseline Quantities have also been updated (very recent update) to the latest ones that went into effect August 1, 2014. The app also retains a historical record of the accurate Baseline Quantities from as far back as 2008 till present, to enable accurate historical calculations using the baselines in place at the historical time of usage.