PG&E TOU Customers: E-6 Closing, E-7 Disappearing March 1

I know at least one user on E7 who says they are being moved to E6 automatically, and not ETOU-A, at the end of this month.

 

I think I'm on E-6, need to check. But I don't even see it on the spreadsheet, just in the tariff sheet. Everything is so opaque with PG&E!

 

When the E-9 rate was terminated not too long ago, PG&E sent me a letter saying that they had run a "what if" for the various available rates, and based on that, suggested that I go to E-6. They had my smart meter data with which to make this calculation.

 

I've asked them to do similar calculations for me and they haven't done so. I think I'll try again.

 

Pacific Gas and Electric?

 

My account opening page. Can you find my rate plan?

 

Looks like E6, according to the "My Rate Plan" box in the upper right hand area of the page.

 

Right, easy not opaque

 

How can you possibly know "they are pretty horrible" if PG&E hasn't released the rate plan?

Yes, based on historical precedent, it's a good guess that ETOU A and B leave something to be desired but I'm going to wait for the details.

The real outrage here is that PG&E hasn't published the details of these new rates and yet they will take effect in less than a month? That's crazy.

I agree with your advice that people on E7 should make sure to switch to E6 immediately. That way they can grandfather themselves onto a known rate schedule and then evaluate the new ETOU rates when the details finally become available and then switch to ETOU if it offers them a better price.

 

Thanks. I'll have to sit down and compare ETOU-B with the EV-A non-tier rates.

 

How does the baseline credit work in ETOU-A? It's not discussed from what I could see.

 

So I would get an 8 cent discount on the first 250 kWh worth of electricity I used from the grid. That's kind of what I figured. The question is, does my Solar production also get discounted the same amount?

We probably qualified as heavy users since we went into Tiers 4 and 5 on a regular basis before getting Solar 3.5 years ago. I rarely make it into Tier 3 these days, even during Winter months with low solar production. I don't think I ever had a production month where I was *earning* credits at Tier 2 levels. I don't know if that's even possible. We're on E6 and will remain on it until it goes away in 2022. Or at least until we have an actual concrete idea of how the new rate schedule actually works. Or we get an EV and our usage starts to go up (the Chevy Bolt is looking mighty tempting) and ETOU-A or EV-A makes more sense.

 

I'm down on the coast below SF, so no Marin Clean Energy option for me.

I am getting "paid" for excessive summer production in the sense that the ~34 cents a kWh I earn for excessive summer production goes to offset the 22 or 14 cents a kWh I would be charged for electricity I use at night/early-evening/early-morning when my array isn't producing anything. At the end of my true-up period last year, I had an excess of monetary credits, but not kWh production credits. I'm under no illusion that PG&E would be cutting me check for those monetary credits. So I had to walk away from about $55 in those unused monetary credits. Sure beats paying them ~$3K a year. Previous year we had to pay a whole $5 to PG&E for all the power we used. And the year before that was something like $95 to PG&E.