Sacramento SMUD Reduced Rate - Makes Zero Sense

So I had a call with SMUD on Friday to better understand the reduced rate for electric vehicles. Apparently, they are working on a publication to give further guidance and it will be posted to their site in the next 2-3 weeks. The way it was described to me makes zero sense. They plan to give a reduced rate for charging - reducing the fee by $.02/kwh. Sounds good, the only problem is - they make you buy an additional meter to connect to the charging station and it costs around $250! I asked the guy - does this make any sense to anyone at SMUD?? He said, it certainly will for those who put in more miles....then I started to question my own thinking...be ready, this is SMUD I thought...

From my perspective this is idiotic. I drive about 40 miles a day. So, if 23kw = 100 miles, then I'm looking at about 9kwh/day. So, with the meter installed, I can save about $.18/day or $5.40/month. Hmmm....so the payback on the meter alone is 46 months or about 4 years. So, I have to drive for 4 years to be able to buy a meter that is supposed to incentize the use of electric vehicles. Is this just a way for SMUD to sell meters?

This kind of crap is seriously causing me to question public utilities...and the state of politics in Sacramento...

rowdydoody said:

So I had a call with SMUD on Friday to better understand the reduced rate for electric vehicles. Apparently, they are working on a publication to give further guidance and it will be posted to their site in the next 2-3 weeks. The way it was described to me makes zero sense. They plan to give a reduced rate for charging - reducing the fee by $.02/kwh. Sounds good, the only problem is - they make you buy an additional meter to connect to the charging station and it costs around $250! I asked the guy - does this make any sense to anyone at SMUD?? He said, it certainly will for those who put in more miles....then I started to question my own thinking...be ready, this is SMUD I thought...

From my perspective this is idiotic. I drive about 40 miles a day. So, if 23kw = 100 miles, then I'm looking at about 9kwh/day. So, with the meter installed, I can save about $.18/day or $5.40/month. Hmmm....so the payback on the meter alone is 46 months or about 4 years. So, I have to drive for 4 years to be able to buy a meter that is supposed to incentize the use of electric vehicles. Is this just a way for SMUD to sell meters?

This kind of crap is seriously causing me to question public utilities...and the state of politics in Sacramento...

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If I were a PGE customer I would do this, some of us pay $.32 per kwh and more! In your case it may not, do you not have a tiered pricing schedule? For some of us it is almost $8 for a fill VS your proposed $.48. If you always pay a low fixed rate regardless of usage then it is pointless for you.

Did you ever get your 2nd meter from SMUD? I am in the process of gathering information to have mine installed. So far I have gotten a quote from H & D Electric. I was given another contractor to contact for a 2nd estimate. I have contacted SMUD, they did come out to my house and they "think" there is enough clearance for a 2nd meter. But there was no mention of a cost for the 2nd meter. I ordered my Leaf in Feb. At the time there was a 4 - 6 month wait. But now I am think'n it will be more of a 7 - 10 month wait. I am still trying to figure out my way through all of this.

Thanks,

We made the investment for a second SMUD meter. YMMV ... or said another way, your ROI will vary. The meter itself is free, but not the installation and permit cost thru a licensed electrician. The discount the OP talks about seems "miniscule", but it's a little more complicated than that (and yet much simpler than other utilities).

1. You can choose to keep your house on a standard rate which now has only two tiers (we chose to continue this option), or switch (if you're not already) to one of two TOU rate choices.
2. The second meter may be used only for EV charging and requires choosing the same as SMUD's first TOU rate choice. Whereas Summer/Winter regular TOU OnPeak rates are 24.01/10.80 cents/kWh respectively, and OffPeak at 11.11/9.97, with the second meter for EVs you get discounted OffPeak rates at 8.40/7.54 respectively (OnPeak stays at 24.01/10.80 for Summer/Winter).

For comparison ... if you are on StandardRates Summer/Winter Tier2 runs 18.59/17.94 -- that's the Tier you'd most likely be in even if you are frugal with your energy use for the rest of the house AND charging your EV. For info, Tier1 baseline (which is pretty quickly exhausted for most households) runs at Summer/Winter 10.45/9.67 cents/kWh. So ... with the likely case that a single meter situation pushes you to Tier2, you in essence get EV charging for HALF-PRICE. That's what happens for us, because whole-house TOU won't work well in our situation. If TOU works for you ... yes, then it's down to the approx 2.5c/kWh discount for EV charging. But in our case the 50% savings (think 15,000miles/year divided by 3miles/kWh = 5,000kWh/year * 10 cents saved) = $500 saved per year just in electricity cost if you install the second meter.

(Again, if TOU works for you the ROI will vary a lot.)

Yes, some of those rates are hard to figure out. There are all kinds of spreadsheets floating around.

Are you sure they are only asking $250? PG&E also asks $250 for the meter but installation cost is well over $1000 - thus making it a really hard choice as well.