Official California PG&E Thread

[gascant]

I still don't have my Leaf, or solar, but I do have a month for delivery finally (April). I've now had three bills under E9A and all three have been for more usage than last year and less cost. I realize it is dangerous to generalize, but for those without solar in Bay Area, if you can get it, it looks E9A is the way to go. Of course rates change in the summer, so do your homework, but the savings in not having to install a separate meter (which means a separate panel in my case) alone make it worthwhile.

I did the calculation for winter rates--my usage is fairly consistent November-April here in the SF Bay Area. During those PG&E Winter months, E9A + LEAF wins out over E1 + Prius (at $3.50/gal). I'm nervous about summer, but in 2010, I averaged 28 kWh/day in the worst month. So it might not be so bad. At a cost of $3500 to install a 2nd meter, I'll take my chances for the first year on the single meter.

 

[csriram45]

I am in SF Bay area and my peak electricity usage has been in Jan and Feb and then in June/July. I don't have solar yet although I have been contemplating. My leaf will be here in April. I did not think I could get E9a without the Leaf. Are you guys saying now I can get it?

If so I would definitely want to try that.. More info is appreciated..
Tks

 

[DeaneG]

I think you can get E9a if you believe your Leaf is coming soon. Call PG&E at 877-743-7782 and see what they say. This is the "new construction" number, but they also handle E9 rate switchovers.

 

[Spies]

Has anyone on the E9 rate been able to get a smart meter yet? I sure would like to be able to save the $0.21881 per day charge on the meter I have and I might even like the features of the smart meter to boot.

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.

 

[Rat]

Has anyone on the E9 rate been able to get a smart meter yet? I sure would like to be able to save the $0.21881 per day charge on the meter I have and I might even like the features of the smart meter to boot

They took my smart meter out when they put me on E9.

 

[Spies]

They took my smart meter out when they put me on E9.

Well that is discouraging

I have a call into the PG&E Clean Air Vehicle Hotline and will report back when I hear from them.

 

[Ready2plugin]

Has anyone on the E9 rate been able to get a smart meter yet? I sure would like to be able to save the $0.21881 per day charge on the meter I have and I might even like the features of the smart meter to boot

They took my smart meter out when they put me on E9.

They took my old smartmeter out as well when I switched, but replaced it at the same time with a new smartmeter that can do net metering based on the E9a (I have solar). It's even written on the front lable that it's for E9a only. Funny thing is that I just received my monthly statement and it still states I'm on E1. Time for another phone call :roll: .

 

[Spies]

They took my old smartmeter out as well when I switched, but replaced it at the same time with a new smartmeter that can do net metering based on the E9a.

Cool! When did you have your meter installed? Perhaps Rat got his before the E9a smart meters where ready.

 

[Ready2plugin]

They took my old smartmeter out as well when I switched, but replaced it at the same time with a new smartmeter that can do net metering based on the E9a.

Cool! When did you have your meter installed? Perhaps Rat got his before the E9a smart meters where ready.

They switched my meter on Jan 24th and I received my car on Jan 8th. Unfortunately PG&E shows that I'm on E9a but the billing computer (why it's different, I have no idea) still had me on E1. They are going to go back and update my billing record...hopefully it will be less .

 

[Spies]

I decided to be a little more proactive with getting a E9A smart meter installed. It turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant experience all things considered.

I called the main PG&E number and almost immediately got a hold of an actual person who in turn transfered me to the proper department that handles my meter request. I did not take note of the department be I did take down the number of 1-877-743-7782.

Almost immediately Theresa answered and I told her my story of being on the E9A rate and I would like my meter changed to a smart meter since it was not changed out when my neighborhood was done last Summer. I also mentioned that I liked the idea of having the extra features of the smart meter and no longer having to pay the daily meter charge. She essentially said no problem and scheduled the smart meter to be installed this Monday! I asked her when they first started deploying E9A rate smart meters and she seemed to recall it was sometime between October and December of last year.

I will report back when the meter is actually installed.

 

[greenleaf]

LOL. PG&E must love you after all the complaints of people and cities putting moratorium on Smartmeter installations.

 

[Spies]

LOL. PG&E must love you after all the complaints of people and cities putting moratorium on Smartmeter installations.

:lol:

That explains why it went so smoothly. They must have known before I even made the call! Of course the meter is not acutally installed yet so they have plenty of opportunity to still make it unpleasant for me :|

 

[Long4Leaf]

They switched my meter on Jan 24th and I received my car on Jan 8th. Unfortunately PG&E shows that I'm on E9a but the billing computer (why it's different, I have no idea) still had me on E1. They are going to go back and update my billing record...hopefully it will be less .

I have the opposite problem. I had a second meter installed for E9b rates. The installation went very smoothly. But when we got the bill, our main house meter was swithed to E9a rates and they have no record of the second meter. So for now I get the cheaper E9a rates for my house AND free electricity on my new dedicated EV meter. Been trying to get it fixed since January.

 

[Bassman]

I installed a second TOU meter and I'm on E1 for the house and E9B for the EVSE. No LEAF yet, so I'm getting charged about $11.00 a month for the meter since it's not using any juice. I figured charging semi-offpeak and offpeak will run about 1.35 to 1.70 per charge, depending on how long I charge during the 9:00PM to 12:00AM semi-offpeak time period.

 

[Bassman]

Has anyone on the E9 rate been able to get a smart meter yet? I sure would like to be able to save the $0.21881 per day charge on the meter I have and I might even like the features of the smart meter to boot.

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.

When I had my TOU meter installed by PG&E in December, they told me that the smart meters don't do Time of Use. They only use the older digital, non-smart TOU meters that have to be read by a meter reader. My regular E1 meter for the house is a smart meter although.

 

[Googler]

I tried sending email to [email protected] today but it bounced. That's what is listed on http://www.pge.com/about/environment/pge/electricvehicles/fuelrates/index.shtml but I guess I should not be surprised.

 

[DeaneG]

When I had my TOU meter installed by PG&E in December, they told me that the smart meters don't do Time of Use. They only use the older digital, non-smart TOU meters that have to be read by a meter reader.

I just called PG&E to ask that my older kV2cs TOU net meter be switched to a net-metering smartmeter. They said that I'd have to wait until (most?) other homes were switched to smartmeters. I explained that I had a smartmeter before the net-E9a TOU meter was installed, and the answer was still "sorry, you'll have to wait".

Maybe a new net-TOU installation would be able to get a smartmeter directly.

 

[Spies]

They said that I'd have to wait until (most?) other homes were switched to smartmeters. I explained that I had a smartmeter before the net-E9a TOU meter was installed, and the answer was still "sorry, you'll have to wait".

Fascinating! Did they even give you an eta? Is it possible there is a difference between the E9A smart meters that can do net metering and those that cannot ? I don't have solar myself and I hope if I do get solar I will not have to change out my meter again.

It really makes me wonder what criteria they are using. My whole neighborhood has both gas and electric smart meters now however when they came though they left my E9A meter alone. Perhaps they let my request to get an E9A smart meter go though since I did not have a smart meter before.

 

[Ready2plugin]

They said that I'd have to wait until (most?) other homes were switched to smartmeters. I explained that I had a smartmeter before the net-E9a TOU meter was installed, and the answer was still "sorry, you'll have to wait".

Fascinating! Did they even give you an eta? Is it possible there is a difference between the E9A smart meters that can do net metering and those that cannot ? I don't have solar myself and I hope if I do get solar I will not have to change out my meter again.

It really makes me wonder what criteria they are using. My whole neighborhood has both gas and electric smart meters now however when they came though they left my E9A meter alone. Perhaps they let my request to get an E9A smart meter go though since I did not have a smart meter before.

I was told that my E9a smartmeter does track everything by the hour, but does not transmit the information automatically to PG&E, so I cannot track it on their website. They will be downloading the information and adjust my bill back to when they installed the meter. If I read between the lines, it sounds like they are not having problems with the meters but with the way the Smartmeters communicate remotely with PG&E. I heard that there was some potential health effects with the microwave transmissions...this could be be the reason things are currently on hold.

 

[DeaneG]

To my knowledge, the kV2cs net meter I have for net-E9a must be read by a person in a truck. The newer smartmeters are read remotely by their RF connection.

When I first had a smartmeter, it would "spin backwards" due to my solar production but this did not get reported to PG&E correctly. I think there must have been a software update recently to make smartmeters work properly in a net-metering situation.

About smartmeter safety - PG&E's operate at around 900MHz, the same as cell phones and many cordless phones, and at roughly similar power levels as these devices. If you have a microwave oven in your home, use a mobile phone or iPad (even with a bluetooth or wired extension), or any cordless phone, or wifi router, etc, you should probably be more worried about those, since you'll stand closer to them. My own estimate is that none of these appreciably affect my biology, certainly far less than the hazard of a drive to work, a glass of wine, or a doughnut (gasp!).

So for those people who don't want a smartmeter installed in their house because they are concerned about health issues - fine, but they should eliminate the other "intentional radiators" first, stop eating the occasional grilled hamburger or doughnut, and probably stop driving.