If you own an Electric Vehicle Do you qualify for lower Electricity rate?

I think the answer is no. See http://www.pge.com/mybusiness/environment/whatyoucando/electricdrivevehicles/rateoptions/.

As someone who grew up in CA and will be returning there in ~1.5 months, electricity in CA is unfortunately a ripoff , compared to WA.

 

God. I hope not. Why do you think you should get a special deal? The state doesn't have the generation capacity to support more than a few electric cars.

Anyone can get the "time of day" rate from PG&E. But, they will need to remove the Smart Meter since they don't have a version that works with it.

 

Do you realize that electric cars don't draw much more electricity than a hair dryer and are usually less than an air conditioner?

 

.40/kwh?!? seriously? that's crazy! that's probably worse than gasoline!

 

If that's the case then EV owners shouldn't mind paying the regular rates.

 

Not true. Take a look at the demand at night at California ISO: System Status. Also, look at the current gap between demand and available resources.

Regarding the hair dryer, yes, but that's only if you're charging at 110/120 volts. If you're charging at 220/240 volts, the electric car pulls way more than hair dryer. Also, how long does a hair dryer run vs. the amount of time a car would pull power to charge?

 

That's power. The pertinent figure is energy (power * time).

A Leaf uses 34 kWh / 100 miles (from EPA). Say a 50 mile daily use, is 17 kWh of charging per day. So,
Tier 1 (Baseline) .11877 = $0.0403 per mile. ($2.02/ gallon gas in a Prius)
Tier 2 (100-130%) .13502 = $0.0459 per mile ($2.29/gallon gas in a Prius)
Tier 3 (131-200%) .27572 = $0.0937 per mile ($4.67/gallon gas in a Prius)
Tier 4 (201-300%) .40577 = $0.1380 per mile ($6.89/gallon gas in a Prius)
Tier 5 (>300%) .47393 = $0.1611 per mile ($8.06/gallon gas in a Prius)

 

Keep in mind the pricing the OP cited is for the amounts in each tier. Just because he's got charges up into the tier 4 range doesn't mean that his average cost of electricity is that high. He's still being billed at the lower tiers for the first bunch of electricity.

However, if he's up that high and he ads an EV, one could argue that the marginal cost per kwh is very high (tier 4 or tier 5 rates). But... once it's part of his household, is it correct to go by marginal rates vs. looking at his average electricity cost?

 

Good point, then it would be the same as using two hair dryers!

Regarding the length of time, it is actually better for the electric grid to be charging the car vs. using two hair dryers because the longer the load is on the grid the easier it is to balance with production as usage scales up.

Does California have special electrical rates for air conditioners? Those would probably have a greater "grid impact" than an electric vehicle...

 

Yes, call PG&E, the E-9 rate is much less for night charging. The schedule is complicated so make sure PG&E helps you decide for your situation.

Electric Vehicles

 

The only way to get electric cheaply in California is through lifeline for low income. You pay between 9 and 10 cents a kw regardless of what tier you're in. I was on lifeline but made the mistake of changing to E9A. My electric bill shot up 50% more for the same useage. Lifeline does not cover E9.
Smart meter does support time of day. At least mine does. When I switched to E9A, PG&E told me that I didn't have to change my meter.
electric car charger draws about the same as a hair dryer but how long do you use your hair dryer? 8 hours straight? 12 hours? That's how long it takes to charge. Central AC draws way more power than the electric car charger. But, 15,000BTU 10.8 SEER window AC draws about the same as an electric car charger.

 

Might I ask what kind of kwh or your average monthly bill is to progress into a higher tier?

Would it be wiser to focus on ways to lower your electrical use rather than find more ways to increase it?

Not being smug or a jerk, just curious how I would rate out here in GA if I lived in CA. IE, can you be "normal" and stay in tier 1?

 

It would be nice to know. I can tell you that from having grown up in CA, that the tiers suck and tier 1 is usually insufficient.

While digging around on PG&E's site, I found http://www.pge.com/myhome/myaccount/charges/. Try plugging in 95120 (where I lived before) and your electric rate. I don't recall if the amounts they list there accurately reflects/includes all the taxes and fees that get added on.

From http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/fig7_5.xls (linked to from http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/fig7p5.html), CA electricity is a ripoff compared to GA and an extreme ripoff compared to WA.

 

Yeah I used 718kwh last month and paid $88 bucks, according to yours it would be 130 and right on the edge of tier 4.

It doesn't take much does it?

 

In order to help cut electricity usage, besides cutting back on heating and cooling, a P3 - Kill A Watt is a GREAT investment.

When I used to use a front projector as my TV, I was blown away when powered "off" (well, standby) with fan at low speed after the 1 minute high speed fan cool down, the projector would draw 18 watts! It was 200 watts while on, 20 watts when "off" with high speed fan cool down and 18 watts "off" w/fan barely running. Once I discovered this, I would always turn off the hard power switch on the strip that it was attached to.

My 1st gen Xbox 360 would pull 130-140 watts just sitting idle in the dashboard. If playing a DVD (it's a hell of a power pig of a DVD player), it'd pull 110 watts. If I used the USB charging cable to have it charge the controller's batteries, IIRC, the console would pull 110+ watts. That makes for a hell of a piggy NiMH charger, so I don't charge that way anymore.

The 360's idle dashboard power usage was so atrocious, here are the figures for my previous main PC (at the time), for comparison:
Athlon 64 3200+ machine w/Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe mobo and Antec 450W Smartpower PSU, Cool n Quiet enabled, 2 hard drives and 2 video cards:
- 8 W w/power "off"
- 101 W at idle
- 130 W when running distributed.net client & World Community Grid Agent (CPU maxed out at 100%)

 

I use a netbook so pc power is pretty low. My tv supposedly draws <1w standby.

I probably should get a kill-a-watt to check it out.

 

Yeah, netbooks have very low power consumption but are way too slow for me and most have way too cramped a keyboard and screen. I run 2 LCDs (1920x1200 24" and 1600x1200 20") with my i7-860 desktop machine.

I don't have the figures handy, but my 20" LCD alone (Dell 2001FP) pulls 37 watts which is about the same draw as my idling Lenovo T61p laptop w/Core 2 Duo T7500. IRIC, my i7-860 machine (not including the 2 LCDs) while idling draws ~65-70 watts.

Maybe we should resurrect http://priuschat.com/forums/environmental-discussion/17498-kill-watt-rocks.html.

 

It's funny, when I type on a full size keyboard now I always screw it up.