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I called the SCE net metering number to inquire about the fluctuating "delivery charge" and "balance of minimum" charge on page 3 of my bill. Last month the delivery charge was $6.84. The previous month there was nothing at this point in the bill.

I was told that the delivery charge has and will constantly fluctuate. It is not just changes in policy. He gave me some BS about costs of processing the bill, etc. He also said there is a threshold of 168 kWh per month of power drawn from the grid. If you draw more than 168, this minimum charge goes away. I am not sure how to calculate the 168, whether it is net or total.

I also asked about whether I might lose my grandfathering status if I added more solar panels soon, well before SCE is predicted to exceed their cap for Net Metering 1.0. He would not answer that question, only referring me to to call the CPUC at 1.800.649.7570. I have not done that, figuring I would just get a recording.
 
More thoughts on Net Metering and the price for exported power

While the January CPUC decision settles things for the moment, I keep asking myelf, as solar penetration gradually increases over the next few years, what is the fair price to pay us for exporting power to the grid?

Solar power varies throughout the day and season, so being able to "park" our excess instantaneous power in the grid is effectively making a deposit in the grid like making a deposit in the bank. Getting fair value for this deposit is essential for development of solar power.

The economics of the grid depend upon both the peak power the grid must handle and the volume of kWhs being transmitted. When solar penetration was low, the peak in utility power usage was usually in the daytime, so we could claim that our rooftop generation was reducing the peak usage. However, solar penetration in California, especially from grid-scale solar projects in the desert, now often follows a "Duck Curve" usage pattern, where the net natural gas generation peaks just before the sun rises, and several hours after the sun sets. For more on the Duck Curve, see the separate thread
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=19398

This means that further solar penetration will not contribute to further reduction in the peak power that the grid must be sized to deliver.
At the same time power consumed behind the meter will continue to reduce the total kWh flowing through the grid. Commercial scale solar projects will replace a lot of power behind the meter that is consumed in malls, warehouses, etc throughout the day.

If the grid is supported primarily by usage and not demand charges, the cost of supporting the same size maximum power grid with fewer billable kWh in front of the meter will result in an increase in distribution charges per kWh. Everyone, with or without solar, will pay these higher distribution prices for the power they need from the grid. This increase will be modest, but I don't see anyway around it. In my opinion it would be unfair to burden just the solar customer with the cost of this decrease in net grid utilization.

However, the more subtle and controversial question is how to price exported power, which is an especially important question for the residential customer whose usage during the day may be low while the family is at work, school, shopping, etc.

Right now in California, with penetration levels at the utility level approaching the 5% cap, most exported power is consumed close to home. At best your exported power is consumed by your immediate neighbors sharing the same neighborhood backyard transformer with negligible loss. At higher penetration the net power through your local transformer may be reversed, so your exported power has to go through that transformer onto the medium voltage distribution circuit, and back through another nearby transformer whose power is not reversed. The loss for this case is typically 2 to 4 %.

Your exported power delivered to your neighbor is billed to them at full retail price, but this power did not require the full grid hierarchy to get to its destination. In addition, the portion of the grid that is used is used in a negative fashion that reduces the day time load of both your backyard transformer and the transformer that feeds it at the substation. This seems to be the two key reasons we as distributed generators should be credited much closer to retail than wholesale for our exported generation.

In an earlier post I discussed the idea of selling your exported power to your neighbors at a discount price from retail, as part of a "virtual micro gird." Your neighbor would be happy to get that discount, proving its value above wholesale price. They would benefit from increased solar penetration without investment of their own. However, non-solar folks living in an upscale neighborhood with lots of solar would benefit more than folks on a different circuit in a different part of town with little distributed solar to share.

Penetration would have to be very high before power would reverse at the substation level. A few circuits in Hawaii have apparently reached this status. The efficiency of such power drops because it has to go through two more levels of transformer to reach a consumer.
 
Brief return to an old subject: marginal rate for charging car under SCE TOU.
I know many of you have been over this many times, but it still gets to me how crazy it is.

Lately I have been telling folks that I charge my car during SuperOffPk for $.11/kWh, but now I see that that has been true only for Aug and Sept of 2015.

The actual rate depends upon your net usage, NU, relative to your Max Baseline Credit, MBC.

NU = net usage (pos or neg) summed over all 3 TOU periods. For Aug and Sept, with large A/C usage, I have a positive NU (consumption) that exceeded my MBC, which caps my BC, and my SOP rate went to $.11/kWh.

However, for the rest of the year, it looks like my NU is going to be positive but less than BC, so the BC is scaled, subtracting $.10 from each additional SOP kWh, leaving me with a marginal rate for charging my car of $.01.

For March my net OnPk was -60 kWh, and my net OffPk was -250 kWh, and their sum -310 kWh.
I believe my MBC for my area is about 450 kWh. Therefore I could have consumed 310+450 = 760 kWh in SOP before my BC would be capped.
760 kWh * 3mi/kWh = 2280 miles a month at only $.01/3 per mile.

When we last discussed this many moons ago, I believe that Boomer23 was in a different situation with negative NU, and he was "rewarded" for that by having his baseline credit reverse sign. All very crazy.

<Edit>
I was planning on adding more solar to especially cover the shortfalls in Aug and Sept. Now I see that unless I also scale up my consumption other months of the year, my NU will turn negative (net production), and my Baseline Credit will flip sign just like Boomer.

Having NU barely positive seems to be the "sweet spot" yielding most of the Baseline Credit with the normal price reduction. A negative NU with its higher prices is the penalty for over producing, irrespective of the different TOU prices or the month-to-month credit/debits in $.
Very clever disincentive from SCE.
 
Despite being a net-consumer I'm ending my first 12 month period with a $400+ credit, so there's a big enough cushion to absorb this the overall rate increase. It's interesting the baseline credit was bumped up a bit as well. One has to wonder what drives these small changes.
 
I have no issues with TOU-A rate increase. Seems to work well for me. Better than expected.

After 10 months net usage 5,281 kWh costing $70 or 1.3 cents per kWh. :D
 
Yes, I also seem to be doing much better than I expected with the change in TOU times made last year, so the recent rise in TOU rates may not hurt me.
My latest SCE statement includes -$38. CA Climate Credit, which we have been getting once in spring and sometimes once in fall. This, together with a sunny month gave me an Energy Charge Total for the month of -$94.80, my largest ever monthly credit.

I keep forgetting that in the winter months OnPeak and OffPeak prices are virtually the same, so no need to sweat weekday afternoon and early evening usage. That will change on June 1 with start of summer rates.
 
tbleakne said:
SCE Time of Use (TOU) prices are going up a little for 2016: (sorry for long link).

On Peak summer 2016 -> $.48,
SuperOffPeak summer -> $.12

Updated rates AGAIN for TOU-D-A, starting to flatten the rates some:

On Peak Summer -> Down to $.44
SuperOffPeak -> Up to $.14
Baseline credit drops from $.11 to $.10
 
TOU-D-A-Rate-Table-r2_wd.gif
 
smkettner said:

Thanks for your heads up on new TOU pricing. The most dramatic difference for me is the change in Super Off-Peak which of course is where we mostly charge the cars.

Within the window of
[- Max Baseline Credit] < Net total generation over all TOU periods < [+Max Baseline Credit]
all marginal rates, OnPk, OffPk, SOffPk are reduced by the Baseline Credit of $.10/kWh.
For SOffPk the marginal rate in this window has risen from [12 cents - 11 cents = 1 cent]/kWh to
[14 cents - 10 cents = $.04]/kWh.

This is still very low, but it does subtract from the bragging rights.
 
I haven't been following this thread for a while because it's gotten so convoluted with all these rate changes. I will say this: I can't use up my credits fast enough. I've been running my AC non-stop, charging my Volt, running the pool pump and I am still at $280 in credits with $7-$20 summer electric bills and 4 months left in my relevant period. Whatever they are doing, keep doing it. Happy to not have to worry about running the AC when as it's been a blistering hot spring/summer. BTW, I'm on TOUT-D-A with 6k solar on my roof in OC, CA.
 
voltiar said:
I haven't been following this thread for a while because it's gotten so convoluted with all these rate changes. I will say this: I can't use up my credits fast enough. I've been running my AC non-stop, charging my Volt, running the pool pump and I am still at $280 in credits with $7-$20 summer electric bills and 4 months left in my relevant period. Whatever they are doing, keep doing it. Happy to not have to worry about running the AC when as it's been a blistering hot spring/summer. BTW, I'm on TOUT-D-A with 6k solar on my roof in OC, CA.

Yes, it is good to see others doing well on TOU-D-A. I am surprised how well I have done this year with the new TOU rates moving On-Peak to [2pm to 8pm] weekdays, even though I have been running my A/C at various levels around the clock during these hot spells. However, I am cheating a little with my new super-efficient ductless mini-split A/C system.

I believe many more folks with solar and a EV would prosper under TOU as currently structured, but they are never told about it by their solar installer. As a consequence, they are sold a larger solar array than they really need. A friend of mine in PG&E territory reports that when he got solar several years ago, his solar installer told him TOU was the default plan they recommended to all their customers. My friend does not have an EV and he has been happy. Much of PG&E territory has lighter A/C loads than SCE, but they also have Sacramento and other cities that get very hot in the summer.

Today the NYTimes had another story about the push-back against Net Metering. I was expecting to see stuff about NV or HI, but instead I was surprised to see a disgruntled EV driver from PG&E territory in the story lead. I was going to post this comment in a PG&E thread, but I can't find any thread that is not stale.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/b...olar-panels-no-longer-pay-in-some-states.html

The story relates how tariff changes can quickly reduce solar payback. In the PG&E case, the On-Peak time has shifted to either 3 to 8pm or 4 to 9pm, with no super-off-peak. Right now I break-even during On-peak 2 to 8, but make my profit during off-peak. A change to 4 to 9pm would hit me hard.

https://www.pge.com/en_US/residenti...e-of-use-base-plan/time-of-use-plan.page#toua
 
A larger solar array is not necessarily a bad thing unless it is too large, i.e. one that make one a net producer. Even 0-offset is probably too large, 80-90% offset is the sweet zone. A bigger system can protect from future rate changes, they will happen sooner or later and chances are they will be structured to hurt solar customers. But yes, installers will try to sell you as big of a system as they can. I scaled down the proposal by 1kW and still ended up with $700 credit after first 12 months on TOU-D-A and about 1000kWh net usage. I suspect this year will be worse as the temps are higher, which affects solar output and increases consumption due to AC, not to mention my panels are dirty and I'm lazy to wash them. Also don't forget the degradation, 5% output loss due to the first year burn-in is not unusual.
 
Total annual consumption 11 mWh

From solar 5 mWh
From SCE 6 mWh

Net annual cost for 6 mWh from SCE TOU-A about $70 with the annual settlement at $29.54
The amount paid is just over one penny per kWh net :D

3 kW system nailed it for me. Payback 5 yrs or 20% return on investment.
 
My air gets some off-peak, mostly super-off-peak and no on-peak.

Runs just about flat out from 1a to 6a chilling the house like a fridge. This allows us to cruise through the day kicking on a bit upstairs at 8pm and strong at 10 pm to get to sleep before the deep chill. We sleep better too and that is worth something. All automatic on the thermostat. Actually creates a natural warming and cooling environment like a natural day. I am certain the air conditioners are more efficient using cooler night air vs heat of the day. And yes wife and kid are home during the day.

Dishwasher runs every night at midnight. Laundry only on weekends as no one seems to get up at 6 am to start the machine. Electric oven is primarily weekends only in Summer.

I wish the fridge compressor would have a timer to minimize cooling during on-peak. Lighting is all LED and CFL.

Best part is getting the A/C cycling discount from 2 to 8 pm when we never run the thing anyway :)
 
Man this is an epic thread for a new Leaf owner on SCE. Considering spending the next 3hrs of my life reading all 70 pages. Was using 14kWh per day before Leaf, first 10 days of ownership is looking like 22-23kWh per day with Leaf. Have a few solar quotes coming in and trying to figure out which TOU plan to switch too. Had thought of the TOU-D-T one but seems most people on this thread on the TOU-D-A one.

I'm probably going to use about 700kWh per month.

36% for the Leaf in the middle of the night.
28% for the pool pump, could run off hours in winter, would like to use in day in summer for our solar water heating system.
36% for basic house. We don't have A/C.

Some quick math if we don't do solar shows $140 bill on Standard plan, $169 on TOU-D-T plan and $130 on TOU-D-B plan. I don't understand the "baseline credit" on the TOU-D-A plan so didn't do the math.
 
SurfHawk said:
Man this is an epic thread for a new Leaf owner on SCE. Considering spending the next 3hrs of my life reading all 70 pages. Was using 14kWh per day before Leaf, first 10 days of ownership is looking like 22-23kWh per day with Leaf. Have a few solar quotes coming in and trying to figure out which TOU plan to switch too. Had thought of the TOU-D-T one but seems most people on this thread on the TOU-D-A one.

I'm probably going to use about 700kWh per month.

36% for the Leaf in the middle of the night.
28% for the pool pump, could run off hours in winter, would like to use in day in summer for our solar water heating system.
36% for basic house. We don't have A/C.

Some quick math if we don't do solar shows $140 bill on Standard plan, $169 on TOU-D-T plan and $130 on TOU-D-B plan. I don't understand the "baseline credit" on the TOU-D-A plan so didn't do the math.

TOU-D-A works best with solar if you can shift your main consumption to off-peak due to the larger difference in rates and lower daily charge. As you don't have A/C the TOU-D-A is likely going to work best for you with the Leaf and solar, especially if you can run the pool pump at night even if only during the winter. Chances are you'll be well served by a solar system that only covers 60-70% of your total annual consumption on the TOU-D-A and have a minimal monthly bill.

If you're the analytical type and want to be more precise in sizing your solar system, you can crunch hourly solar production estimates from http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ against your hourly consumption history for the last 12 months that you can download from SCE corrected for the added usage due to the Leaf and nightly pool pump operation. Need MS Excel or programming skills for this. You will need to understand how NEM works with TOU as well.

Baseline credit w/o solar is simple, you get 10c credit per kWh up to your monthly baseline allocation, check with SCE what that number is for your area. It gets slightly more complicated with solar, as you may end up paying this money to SCE if you system generates more than you consume per pay period.
 
Baseline credit is easy. It shows as a separate line on your bill. Baseline is different depending on location but maybe 250 to 350 kWh per month. Net usage times the credit (10 cents?) slaps right on your bill.

My net usage is always a credit for both On Peak and Off Peak so in my mind the credit is all for super off peak. This nets to the baseline costs to 1 or 2 cents per kWh. Absolutely amazing. Of course over the baseline you will pay the full super off peak rate of about 12 cents.

Aim to cover 50% of your usage with solar for maximum return on investment.
 
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