Cost per PIP Charge

Talk to SCE about their EV plans. Also, saving $$ is great if you can, but not sending it to OPEC is another benefit of driving on electrical power.

 

I finally got my Southern California Edison Bill after 1 month of use.

My month prior, (before the prius plug in) my electric bill was 37.13. I was in Tier 2. I used a total of 288 kWh

This past month (April 16th to May 15th), I used 353 kWh. I was pushed to Tier 3, and the total bill was 48.21. I charged my vehicle once a day on the weekdays, and maybe twice a day on the weekends.

I wonder if I would save any money by switching to the TOU-D-TEV plan. I charge mostly from 1 to 4am. But my fear is that I'd be paying more for my on-peak time usage with the 2 tier plan, rather than the 5 tier standard plan. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

Yes , my calculation was also similar, that's the reason I applied for EV-TOU-2 plan in San Diego which is based on time of use. Since there is no one at home during peak hours I could move my consumption to off peak hours. Contact your utility at SCE - Electric Cars - Rates & Charging Options and check out their special EV rates.
This way you can always charge your car at super off peak rate of $0.10 per kWh : http://www.sce.com/info/electric-car/residential/rate-plans.htm

 

We're getting solar installed this week. I expect combined with the Electric Vehicle TOU rate, we'll pretty much have a $0 electric bill from now on.

 

.28/kwh? Seems high. I pay .079/kwh off peak; .13/kwh any time. Anyway, even if all your calculations are correct (which I don't know for certain) any time I can snub big oil and/or OPEC, and help the environment even a little bit, it;'s worth it to me!

 

Congrats on getting the solar installed. We're supposed to get ours installed at the end of the month.

Are you on PG&E or Silicon Valley Power? For us, we're on PG&E and I opted for E6-TOU. I didn't see much of an advantage between E9(a/b) and E6. In fact, it seemed worse to be on one of the E9 rates. Our PG&E bill has not gone up significantly since we got the PiP. In fact, if I compare usage to last year for the same month, our usage has actually gone down. Same number of people living in the house.

 

Tier 4 charge from San Diego Gas & Electric is currently $0.28/kWh.

We are ALWAYS in Tier 4.

It's what happens when you have girls … and their friends. Laundry, hair dryers, computers, cooking, lights on 24/7/365, etc. etc.

It's all good.

 

I applied for E-9A with PG&E on April 23. When I call them, they say it is "in progress". When I ask how long it typically takes, they say "might take two billing cycles". How can it take so long to click a couple of buttons on an account screen? This is the whole-house TOU plan; no separate meter. I already have the smart meter for a couple of months.

When I change my Verizon Wireless account info, it is done before I hang up the call to Customer Service. Why is this so different?

 

Because your local electric co has no competition.

 

that's pretty darn good! I live in Orange County Coastal in So.Cal so I don't have/need a/c and on the few nights I need heat it's natural gas. My rates are tiered as well. I set the timer on my PiP to beging charging around Midnight and turn off around 4am (which is approx when I leave for work)...it's literally pennies per charge. I love it. )

 

I just got the notice from PG&E that I was now on E-9A, retroactive to the start of my current billing cycle. So it took them about a month to process the request, but the effective time is less due to the back-dating.

 

To accurately compute what it will cost a pip owner one needs one specific piece of information. And that would be what is the Prius Plug-in charge rate in kwh that my electric power company sees through their usage meter? I have read somewhere it is .9 kwh but I can't find any documented source for that info. I have looked through the owners manual til I am blue in the face. I have searched using Google for this site as well as the search function here in Priuschat. I come up with nothing. Anyone here have the documented number?

 

It shows the KW draw on the display while the car is charging, if you try to power it up..
On 240V it shows as 1.9KW, on a ChargePoint EVSE it shows as ~2.2KW, since it takes under 90 minutes, it's not tough math . The difference between the 2 numbers is what's lost in charger overhead.
The car is showing input power to the pack, while the ChargePoint EVSE is measuring input power to the onboard charger.

 

Hmmm. So, I am to "assume" that what the car sees as a charging rate is what my electric meter is seeing? Also, doesn't the charge rate vary depending on where in the charge cycle it is in? I recall charging a 12 volt battery which clearly showed high current at the beginning and near zero at the end of the charging. Or is the charge rate constant?

So, I am still not clear. The number that must be used is what is being charged for by the electric company. Namely, that rate in kilowatts per hour that one can then use to accurately determine how much it will cost to use this wonderful car (pip).

The formula I am using is (Price per KWH) X (Prius CHARGE rate in KWH) X (Time in hours) = Cost for charge.

Having a number for the Charge Rate provided by the car I don't believe is going to provide the answer I am looking for. Hopefully, this clears up my question and the reason for it.

Cheers

p.s. I am not using 240 volts. Just 120 volts.

 

Agreeing: The car display shows is what is going into the battery. The ChargePoint EVSE shows is what is coming "out of the wall", which is what you are paying the electric company for. If you charge at 240V, you are pulling 2.269KW for close to one hour fifteen minutes, and another 15 minutes or so topping-off at around 0.6KW. At least this is what I see when I charge at ChargePoint stations.

 

The charge rate will vary depending upon how full the battery is when it is charging. I've seen the car say .6 KW one moment and then say 1.2Kw a while later. If you take what the car says and add about 15 to 20%, that is probably a decent approximation of what your electric meter is seeing. The reason for this is because the AC to DC conversion results in some loss of power.

Realistically speaking, you can expect it to "cost" about 3 to 3.5 KWh worth of electricity to charge the car from empty to full.

The correct formula is (Price per KWH) X (Prius CHARGE rate in KW) X (Time in hours) = Cost for charge.

There is no "Prius CHARGE rate in KWH". "(Prius CHARGE rate in KW) X (Time in hours)" is what actually gives you the total KWh it took to charge the battery.

 

Good catch David. Thanks for the correction.

I am trying to create a document, which when done, I will share here. It is intended to show and educate people how economical charging on a per charge basis the pip actually is. So, when I go somewhere I can dispel any feelings that if one would ask to plug in that I am ripping them off. LOL A good friend of mine actually refused to let me charge the car even though I told him it would only cost about 20 cents. I even offered to pay him 20 cents. LOL Looks like he didn't believe me. That was my clue to create a document which would show in total clarity what the real costs are.

So...... for me to create a document that shows costs at 1 hour, 1.5 hours, 2 hours and 3 hours I actually need that charge rate. I still do not have that real number. It's not enough to just say "you can expect it to "cost" about 3 to 3.5 KWh worth of electricity to charge the car from empty to full."

Hopefully, this further clears it up why I need that all important number.

Cheers

 

It's impossible to give you a specific number of Kilowatts or time you'll need to charge the car because of so many factors that are in play here. It'll typically be between 2.5 to 3 hours for a full charge at 120V. You can figure about 3 to 3.5 KW from the wall to fully recharge the battery. Doesn't matter if it's 1.1 KWs at 120V for 3 hours, or 2.2 KWs at 240V for 1.5 hours. The electrical use and resulting cost comes out to the same.

 

I am not asking for a specific time nor the number of kilowatts used per unit of time. I am asking for the "RATE" of charge. That is a specific rate that does not change.

 

Actually, it does change.

We know this because it takes about 2.5 hours to charge up a battery from "empty" (say 5-6 bars on the HV-style battery). Many here, myself included, have measured (with a Kill-A-Watt that a "full" charge consumes about 3.1-3.3 kWh of electricity.

However, once the car starts charging, if you turn it on, the charge rate says something like 0.5 or 0.9 kW. Given what we know from above, we can conclude that the charge rate increases during that time (3.1 kWh divided by 2.5 hours would give you an average rate of 1.24 kW/h). Where it increases (or even decreases) during the charge cycle is unknown and as pointed out, can be affected by a variety of conditions.