pksd1 said:
I am currently on one the EVproject’s experimental rates from SDG&E. I think I pay something like $0.07/kWh at night. Now I am looking into adding solar panels to my house.
Will adding solar effect my experimental rates in some way ?
Are you looking to zero out your total usage (including the car) with your solar system, or just use the solar system to keep your home usage out of the higher tiers?
We are in the EV project and have a solar system which we sized in hopes of zeroing out our actual consumption, so we remained on a single meter on schedule DR (flat residential) for everything, because, as has been described, if we had the 2 meter setup we'd be paying anywhere from .07 to .14 super off peak for the car (more for any non-super-off-peak charging), and if our solar produced in excess of our non-car (ie the rest of the house) usage, we would only be paid back (via SB920) at about .04 per kWh. We'd be paying out of pocket even if we used no net electricity.
In the future, for example if we had a second EV and our total actual usage did exceed our production, we might be better off going to a TOU-based net metering schedule where we would get solar credits during peak hours and then charge our cars at off peak - we could in theory still have a close to zero bill (except for the mandatory connection charge of .17/day) while being a net consumer of some amount of electricity, but right now since we are just about at zero net actual consumption, no need, as they don't pay for excess TOU credits, only actual raw overproduction.
Anyway - your best solution again depends on how big of a solar system you are going to get. If it's not going to actually produce MORE than you use for just your house, then the two meter solution may be your best configuration - keep the house on DR and use the solar to stay out of tier 2+, or maybe put the house on TOU, particularly if you don't use air conditioning during the day, and build up peak credits then use them at night (for the house), and leave the car on its own.
If you are going to get more solar than you can use for the house, that's when it gets trickier.