PG&E closing enrollment to EV-A plan; now EV2-A is out

[cwerdna]

Thanks to a thread over at TMC (https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads ... te.153520/).

https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/ ... 0(Sch).pdf says

Regardless of the level of
participation, Rate A of Schedule EV will be closed to new enrollment on the later of July 1,
2019 or the date the new electric vehicle charging rate adopted by D.18-08-013 is
available for enrollment.
Beginning on the later of July 1, 2019 or the date the new electric vehicle charging rate
becomes available for enrollment, customers taking service on Rate A or Rate B of this
rate schedule cannot exceed 800% of their annual baseline allowance, measured as the
total usage for the customer over the last 12 months divided by the total annual baseline
allowance using the approved baseline allowances for those months. Customers at
premises with total usage in excess of 800 percent of baseline over 12 months will be
moved to Schedule E-TOU-B and will be prohibited from taking service on any electric
vehicle rate schedule for 12 months. Customers must have 12 months of consecutive
usage on this Rate Schedule before being subject to the requirement of being moved from
Schedule EV to Schedule E-TOU-B as a result of exceeding the 800 percent of baseline
12-month threshold.

I don't know any more details as I don't follow and am not on EV-A now.

I will look into whether or not it makes any sense for me to switch from E-6 to EV-A myself via their compare tool and the time/date bands.

[Nubo]

I wonder about the actual percent of residential customers who consciously receive and appropriately act upon the "signals" PGE think they are incorporating into their rate structures.

[cwerdna]

I've edited the title now that EV2-A is out.

You can get the tariff sheet at https://www.pge.com/tariffs/index.page. Right now, it's at https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/ ... 0(Sch).pdf.

https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/r ... -plan.page got updated to point to the right rate sheet.

A TMC thread on this is at https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads ... rs.158153/.

Interestingly, their comparison tool now tells me EV2-A would be the cheapest for me even though I almost never charge my EVs at home. I'm currently on E-6. I will need to study the wacky differences between the rates and time bands of E-6 vs. EV2-A to see if I really want to switch. It seems like off-peak prices for E-6 have gotten worse over time.

The estimator's currently saying on E-6, my current estimated annual cost is $690 for electricity. For EV2-A w/my usage patterns, they estimate $630. The worst for me is E-TOU-B at $815/year.

[PianoAl]

We'll be automatically switched soon. Here's the difference at a glance:

EV-A (weekdays then weekends). Note that this plan has 25 hours in the day!



EV2-A (Seven days a week)



I can't tell whether it will cost us more.

[danrjones]

SCE is doing something similiar.

Right now I'm on a old time of use that they are going to get phased out. My lowest cost is from 10pm to 8am. Moderate from 8am to 2pm. High from 2pm to 8pm. Moderate again 8pm to 10pm.

The "new" time of use is low until about 4pm then very high 4pm to 9pm.

My take on this is that is more a way to punish solar customers. Right now I get to put in at a moderate rate and even high rate for a few hours. Under the new system I'll put solar into the grid at a low rate, then just as my system winds down, the rate goes way up. So you then take out at the high rate.

It's going to cost me a lot more.

[Randy]

Unfortunately, Dan, with the explosion of solar in California, the previous peak load that used to occur in the afternoon has now been pushed to the evening hours. The wholesale power market has adjusted accordingly, hence the high prices in the evening.

It's conceivable that as more and more people add storage batteries to their homes, the evening peak we see now will be pushed later or perhaps to the early morning hours, and then THAT will be the higher priced period someday. The purpose of the peak price is to discourage usage during that time period, whenever it might be.

[danrjones]

Unfortunately that's when we use the most.

Lights in the evening, computer, cooking, if we go swimming the pool pump comes on for the time we are in, and my swamp cooler is running full.

Only thing to do would be add a lot more solar.

[iPlug]

Looks like there are a few PG&E customers here and at least a couple grandfathered into the old E-6 rate plan, self included.

E-6 customers can technically remain on that plan through 2022. Starting next year, 2020, the plan will begin transition to a 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. peak period. This is quite fair as the E-6 rate plan is overly generous for where we have advanced to.

It was reasonable in the early days of solar PV to incentivize such customers heavily, including with the old overly generous rate plans, but now we deal with the duck curve:





https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2018/ ... curve.html

Solar PV is much cheaper now, and the grid has little to no need for solar PV on a cool sunny spring day. On the other hand, many old plans like E-6 allow customers off-peak or partial-peak rates in the late summer afternoon and early evening when they are generating little or no solar PV but consuming gobs of electricity from the grid to run their AC.

California is still quite generous to solar PV customers on all rate plans, with no current plans to annul net annual metering. So adding more solar PV would be effective for a least a few more years with the current rate plans.

The CPUC and grid operators are appropriately working to "flatten" the duck curve, by shifting solar PV supply and demand to meet loads. This is being solved by:
a) adding energy storage: PG&E and other utilities are already doing this with utility scale batteries; customers can install home batteries too, and there are incentives, although these are currently phasing out, and home batteries are too costly for most residents and rarely cost effective
b) demand response: the newest rate plans require solar PV customers to do their part by more appropriately compensating the real time value of their solar PV production and more appropriately charging them for their real time electricity use

In terms of demand response, almost everyone could do a lot more. Washing machines, electric dryers, pool pumps, pool electric resistance and heat pumps, spas, dish washers, electric resistance and heat pump water heaters, etc. can easily be shifted to off peak use on these plans. AC and home air heat pumps can be run more deeply on off-peak and partial-peak hours then throttled back during peak hours.

In a few years, home batteries will hopefully be reasonably affordable enough to do load shifting by several hours such that solar PV customers will be able to use their own stored solar PV generation in the early evening during peak hours and/or sell excess then to their utility.

[SageBrush]

Solar PV is much cheaper now, and the grid has little to no need for solar PV on a cool sunny spring day.

.
Notice the lowest load in the middle of the day with all that PV: still 12 GW of non-sustainable resources.

[iPlug]

Solar PV is much cheaper now, and the grid has little to no need for solar PV on a cool sunny spring day.

.
Notice the lowest load in the middle of the day with all that PV: still 12 GW of non-sustainable resources.

You might be referring here in PG&E land to El Diablo nuclear power plant generation - that plant should be decommissioned in about 5 years. Even if this were not baseload generation and could instead be rapid cycled, there would be no economic benefit in doing so with this technology. The market value of solar PV on a bright spring day is near nil or negative with this in place and current solar deployment.

Natural gas, no problem. IIRC, most of ours are peakers can be shut off and turned back on with nearly a whim. They will be phased out in the next 30 years as the grid eventually goes 100% renewable. Right now they are helping to fill in the gaps quite nicely until we can deploy excess renewables and industrial batteries to load shift.

But we still have to deal with wind, hydro, and geothermal during the bright spring days. The wind and geothermal operators want good $$ for their generation and don’t want to shut down because solar PV generators want their dole. And as I understand it, water still has to spill downstream through hydro dams to a significant degree to comply with water supply, fish habitat and other environmental requirements.

Also, I believe there are often generation contracts that have to be executed that take precedence over home PV solar. So during these times, the grid truly does not need or want our stinkin’ home solar PV.