I just bought my PiP, and am watching my PG&E tiered rate energy bill to get a baseline. In March 2014, the first tier (cheapest rate) capped at 355 kwh, then went up progressively from there. I bought the car in April. April's bill was DOUBLE March's bill, and I was shocked. After reading deeper into it, I realized that I've used less energy but the "summer tier allowances" are in effect. What that means is that during the summer months, the first tier caps at 85 kwh during the summer. Ouch! And, according to PG&E, summer starts in April. I'm calling next week about one of their time-of-day plans next week -- the rate's based on when you use the power, not how much power you use. I do most of my laundry late at night and charge the car after 11, so I'm hoping to see some cost savings.
You have not identified your location. Without some clue where you are are in the Universe, you will find few universal truths about electric billing.
I suggest you do some research on your PG&E online account. The new EV-A rates may cost more than E6 rates if you own a PiP. The reason is because the new EV rates do not have tiers, it can save a significant amount if you use a lot of energy or own at least a Chevy Volt. The reason is because EV-A has no tiers. It is only TOU. Cost per kWh is somewhere between the cost of tiers 2 and 3. The extra 100 kWh per month need for the PiP may not be enough energy to overcome the advantage of Lowe tier 1 & 2 cost on E6. iPhone ?
If you can manage solar panels it will make a Big difference. They cut my annual PG&E electricity cost by $1000 to go along with my gas savings of $1000. So far I've never gone above baseline although it did get close in a high A/C month (Sacramento). Unfortunately the baseline is different depending on your area.
PG&E charges about double the national average. They are "allowed" a return on capital by the CPUC. The rate plans have nothing to do with cost to provide service, they are just gaming to extract their profit from ratepayers. Solar is a great work-around, but the real solution is to abolish the CPUC and open up the CA electric market. There are many municipal utilities in CA that charge ~national average, but those aren't the three major Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs). "Who killed the electric car? PG&E with their buddie$ at CPUC". Would you rather pay 10c/kWH? Move to Silicon Valley Power. 11c/kWH (up to ~700 kWH/mo) move to SMUD - where the capitol is. ~12c/kWH - Alameda Power. SoCal has similar pockets of Public Benefit Utilities (PBUs).
Um, that's what happened in 1999. Resulted in spikes and private profiteers gaming the system with resulting high rates for the consumer. If you mean "open the market to utilities that provide the last mile to the service entry," good luck with that. It's the same reason there's no competition in the local cable or telephone markets.* *Yes, cable companies compete with the phone companies and phone companies compete using fiber with the cable companies. What doesn't happen is multiple providers of a given infrastructure's "last mile" to your home. This results in a pure monopoly situation for the pairs of copper carrying POTS or electricity, the fiber or RG-8 that enters your home.
Hmmm. I've been tempted to move to the East Bay (part of the reason I bought the PiP was to get into the carpool lanes). Yet another reason to look at Alameda...
