Official California PG&E Thread

[evnow]

If anyone wants me to post important links here, send me a PM.

[DeaneG]

Here are some fundamentals on mandatory PG & E rates (tariffs) if you are charging an electric vehicle. First. PG&E's introductory summary sheet on EV charging rates:

http://www.pge.com/about/environment/pg ... ndex.shtml

Currently you must switch from your present rate structure (E1 for standard residential, or E6 etc for solar PV) to one of two "experimental" time-of-use rates if you charge an electric vehicle at home. These TOU rates are called E9A and E9B. Here are some things to watch out for:

Tariff E9A charges your EV through your regular home service meter. This means that your EV charging will move your whole house electricity rate up a tier or so (about 300kWh) for every 1000 miles you drive per month. In addition, existing daytime electricity use is substantially penalized in the summer - if you use air conditioning regularly, you'll pay much more per month under tariff E9A even without any EV charging. In general, you'll pay much more for EV charging under E9A than is shown on the PG&E introductory summary sheet.

Tariff E9B charges your EV through a separate service meter, starting over at its own baseline tiering level. Your house can stay on tariff E1, retaining your present electricity rate structure. This can be much more cost-effective than E9A. However, you must have the second meter installed at your own expense, which can range from about $500 to more than $10,000 depending on your existing service entry panel and utility feed. San Francisco does not allow a second meter to be installed.

If you want to ask PG&E for more information, their Clean Air Vehicle Hotline will normally return your call within about 24 hours: (800) 684-4648

EDIT: added San Francisco second meter prohibition

[trentr]

in regards to installing a second meter, why can't pge use those smart meters to determine TOU?

[DeaneG]

in regards to installing a second meter, why can't pge use those smart meters to determine TOU?

That's exactly the conversation I had with the responsive and informed rep at PG&E's clean air vehicle hotline. Some more phone calls might help

It doesn't seem to make sense to invest a substantial sum to re-do a perfectly functional service entry to add a redundant meter, when a few lines of software at PG&E should do the job.

[LEAFer]

in regards to installing a second meter, why can't pge use those smart meters to determine TOU?

They could. But (my limited knowledge tells me) I don't think those meters can (yet) tell the difference between a car charging and you doing laundry or hot tub. So ... that would not allow EV charging to be incentivized.

[garygid]

The second meter in E9B would be a TOD meter, used primarily for your late-night EV charging.

Yes, they could easily have a E9C with one TOD meter, charging the E1 tiered rates for all except the late-night (the EV charging period) usage. Yes, you might occasionally dry laundry after midnight, ... !

But, they can charge you so MUCH MORE with the incredibly high E9A daytime rates, ... because they can "get away" with it, and they have a monopoly.

Perhaps with E9A (one TOD meter) one can charge the car (and maybe a spare battery pack, or two) at late-night rates, then, to keep the e-fuel "fresh", use those battery packs to run the house, and drive the meter backward during the high-rate times of the day?
Buy Low, sell High!

[planet4ever]

in regards to installing a second meter, why can't pge use those smart meters to determine TOU?

They could. But (my limited knowledge tells me) I don't think those meters can (yet) tell the difference between a car charging and you doing laundry or hot tub.

Huh? My limited knowledge has me really puzzled, now. How could a smart meter ever tell the difference between a car charging at 240v and a dryer running at 240v? Are you thinking of some new kind of "smart dryer" that communicates with the smart meter? Or maybe some kind of gadget between the dryer plug and the wall outlet? What about hardwired devices that last 25 years, like electric ranges? Are we all going to have to switch to "smart breaker boxes"?

[LEAFer]

Yes, exactly. I know some personnel at SMUD. This is the "future" they are talking about. In particular they are working on programs that -- if you opt-in and as an incentive they give you a "discount" of some sort -- allows the utility to turn off your A/C (not the rest of the house) during peak time ! Remotely. In the name of "greenergy" ... ok ... in the name of 1984 ... ???
With EV's on their own separate meter it would be a piece of cake ... they can "throttle" power supplied thru that one meter. So if you plan (or forgot to) charge and it happens during peak time ... guess what ...

P.S.: This could also go in a SMUD thread.

[DeaneG]

I forgot to say that to me, the second meter is a way for PG&E to restart the EV-charging energy billing from a baseline level, rather than from the tier that the rest of the house is at, without having to do anything at their end. Seems like they could do that with a software change by having two tiering structures, one from midnight to 6AM and the regular tiering from 6AM to midnight. But it's much easier for PG&E to just tell us to put in another meter. You have to amortize the cost of the second meter into your EV-charging electricity cost (say for a few years) to come up with a true total.

[wazzup360]

take a look at this great excel app
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/804727/ ... -357k?dn=y

It will help you simulate you energy bill using EV and/or PV with E1 , E6 and E9 rates.

In my case , with a 5.0kw system, It will cost less with E9 than E6.

Two things to pay attention to in the file.
- You need to update the rates as this file is from 2008
- The KW estimated are for best condition .I had to use 4.2 for the Solar array size to reflect the actual power output of my system