Official California PG&E Thread

[Ready2plugin]

PG&E came to my house today to review my layout and options. Because I have solar, and I told them I was still on E1, I wanted to know what was best going forward. The cost for a second meter would involve a lot a work and probably cost around $5-6k to complete, so E9b was out. I asked about E6 and he said that E7 was better. I also asked about E9a, and again he said E7 was better, and by far better than E1 for me. He's going to give a call tomorrow after reviewing my usage...he also stated that the Smartmeter that they installed maybe the wrong type for my solar....I guess we are all learning here.

[DeaneG]

I read PG&E's website to say that E7 is no longer available. Wonder what's going on.

I'll have to think about E9A vs. E1 for my house with EV and PV solar setup. My PV output should be enough to knock me down to tier two in the summer except for the hottest weeks. I went with E9A for now - great winter rates.

[greenleaf]

Here is more than you'd ever want to know about the kV2cs net meter - how to read it, plus a lot of technical information. The meter can be triggered to display more data using a magnet on the face at 3 o'clock:

http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/produc ... 2ci_oi.pdf

The meter guy showed up unannounced today (I am not home) to replace my SmartMeter with a GE i210 :

http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/produc ... 0_elec.htm

This is quite a bit different from yours. My wait is slightly over 5 weeks, a little shorter than your 7 weeks. Maybe it's because I have emailed them twice this week to request a status update.

BTW, I am sticking to E1, and that perhaps explains why my meter is different from yours.

[EVDRIVER]

I read PG&E's website to say that E7 is no longer available. Wonder what's going on.

I'll have to think about E9A vs. E1 for my house with EV and PV solar setup. My PV output should be enough to knock me down to tier two in the summer except for the hottest weeks. I went with E9A for now - great winter rates.

E7 has been gone for a long time, it was too good for consumers:)

[Ready2plugin]

I read PG&E's website to say that E7 is no longer available. Wonder what's going on.

I'll have to think about E9A vs. E1 for my house with EV and PV solar setup. My PV output should be enough to knock me down to tier two in the summer except for the hottest weeks. I went with E9A for now - great winter rates.

E7 has been gone for a long time, it was too good for consumers:)

There were 3 people from PG&E and he handed the printout for E7...I even asked...don't you mean E6, and he said no E7....hopefully it wasn't a tease. Still waiting on a callback....was suppose to be today, but since it's almost midnight, I guess it won't be until next week .

[Rat]

I just got my first bill for TOU metering (E9A). Much of it is Greek to me. It only includes the period 11/15/-11/19/2010 and only includes the electric. Our regular bill for gas and electric for November went to 11/19 but the electric on that stopped at 11/15. So I assume I have half a day on 11/15 plus another 4 days for 4.5 days total. The charge is $6.60. I do not have an EV yet and have no solar. This is just standard electric usage for the house. I was surprised to see I went into tier 3 slightly, since we don't usually, but then right after the meter was put in we had a nasty cold snap so the furnace ran a lot. It's a gas furnace but the electric fan motor is a large one. We have a 4-BR ranch-style house & just two of us unless the our kids visit.

The bill is 8 sheets, most of them two-sided. If someone's interested I'll post images of some, but here's a text summary, with their headings in caps:
p. 1 BILLING SUMMARY, TOTAL OF OAS (whatever that is) - shows taxes, special fees.
p. 2 Meter read info - 3 lines (peak=0) Part peak=48 Off-peak=18 (kwh) total 66
also shows usage summary by tier/rate T1Part=36.655 T2part=10.997 T3Part=.348, etc.
p. 3 RATE APPLICATION only 2 useful lines Baseline=50.4 Meter charge=$0.88 (22 cents a day)
pp 4-5 have massive tables full of acronyms I don't understand like DWR, OCF, 1DR, Tier 3 non-LIRA, etc. with 15 columns mostly filled with numbers. I think there are 27 lines for every day (would be only 18 if I didn't go into tier 3, I think).
p. 6 TRANSMISSION REVENUE BALANCING, etc., ENERGY COMMISSION TAX, UTILITY USER TAX CALCULATION
p. 7 one line showing the Utility user tax. Why separate lines for the calculation and then the tax on the next page I don't know, especially since there is plenty of blank space on most pages to combine a lot of this stuff.
p. 8 UNBUNDLED RATE COMPONENTS More gibberish in a small table. Mostly blank.
p. 9 USAGE HISTORY one line showing 48 kwh part peak 18 off peak total 66. (both of which are set forth several places earlier). 90% of page is blank.
p. 10 (back of 9) blank
p. ? (no number) page with nothing but my address and account number - the part that shows through the window envelope.

Maybe for those of you with solar you are used to this but I found it daunting, redundant, and incredibly wasteful. I'm killing more trees by buying an electric car than I'm saving by having no exhaust. These are all heavy 8.5x11" sheets, too, not the smaller pages in the regular PG&E bill. The funniest part: on p. 1 at the bottom it says "QUESTIONS REGARDING THIS BILL CAN BE DIRECTED TO: UNASSIGNED". We have automatic pay to PG&E for our bill, at least up to now, and our regular bill says our account has been accessed to pay the bill. This one does not, and it does not enclose a return envelope or tear off stub to return, so we don't know if we are supposed to pay this bill (and it does say it is a bill) or just wait for them to debit our account. I think PG&E's E9 is not ready for prime time.

[planet4ever]

I know the feeling. That's the sort of paper stack I started getting four years ago when I went to E6. Fortunately they started trimming it down, and now I get two (8 1/2 x 11) pages each month, except for the "true-up" month when I get three. Hopefully they will do the same thing for E9 before long (and no true-up needed for you).

In case you're interested, I, too, get one unnumbered sheet with nothing but name and address, and the statement (not really a bill) still comes in a large (about 9 x 12) envelope with a window. The numbered sheet has an annual true-up history on one side, shown in tabular and graph form. The other side has: (1) meter information, broken out by peak, part, and off; (2) baseline information; (3) a box showing total current month's billed amount, with a paragraph that breaks it down; and (4) a box showing current month's energy charge or credit and cumulative charge or credit within the billing year.

Curiously there is not even a table that breaks down the amounts by tier, and there certainly is nothing that addresses unbundling, except a bit in the box that shows the (rather small) billed amount.

In our case the current month's billed amount does show up as a charge on our regular PG&E bill. I expect yours will, too. (The annual true-up amount for us also shows up there.)

As for going up into tier 3, that should be independent of whether you are on E1 or E9. The rate schedule doesn't change your baseline amounts, and the tiers are determined strictly by percentage of baseline, calculated on total usage regardless of peak/part/off split. Now, the price you pay in each tier, that is quite another matter, but I'm sure you know all about that.

[frede]

Just found this thread via google, very informative. I'm actually purchasing a Chevy Volt, please don't kick me out of your forum though. I am trying to figure out if I should switch to E9A (from the standard rate plan, E1 I guess that's called?). I don't have solar. I have everything I need to create a spreadsheet and do the calculations, but I am unsure of the the following:

Does each time period (peak/partPeak/offPeak) have it's own baseline allowance, or is there a single baseline that is somehow split across the time periods? I found this spreadsheet at PGE website which shows the baseline allowances: http://www.pge.com/nots/rates/tariffs/R ... urrent.xls. I am in territory Q which has 12.6 KwH per day allowance in winter on the basic electric plan. Is there an equivalent spreadsheet for E9?

EDIT: I found this pdf at PGE website (http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-9.pdf), which shows just a single baseline for E9 (it is just the same 12.6 KwH as E1 for winter). Still unsure how to figure out how to predict costs based on known hourly usage, I'm hoping I don't need to accumulate total chronological usage across time periods to determine when each tier is crossed? That would get complicated.

Thanks for any info,
Fred

[Rat]

Does each time period (peak/partPeak/offPeak) have it's own baseline allowance, or is there a single baseline that is somehow split across the time periods? I found this spreadsheet at PGE website which shows the baseline allowances: http://www.pge.com/nots/rates/tariffs/R ... xls....I'm hoping I don't need to accumulate total chronological usage across time periods to determine when each tier is crossed? That would get complicated

Baseline should be based on total usage for the billing period, not per day, I thought (12.6 x # of days for region X), and I think that's what they are doing. The bill definitely shows 6 usage readings with separate amounts for tiers 1-3, 3 for Part peak and 3 for off peak. They appear to take total usage, figure out how much is over baseline, then allocate that pro rata to the two TOU groups. So once they read the meter and determine that 18/66 (~27%) of my usage was off peak and the rest part peak, they just apply that percentage to each tier. 27% of tier 1 usage is off peak, 27% of tier 2 usage is off peak, etc. So you don't have to measure baseline usage across time periods.

[garygid]

Fred,
You are welcome here, and we are happy that you have chosen to participate.

When will you get your Volt?
Merry Christmas