Future of TOU plans for CA IOU's

[SunEagle]

I was just catching up on the CPUC filings for Proceeding R1206013, and came across a nice snippet in the CPUC's "alternate proposal" discussing potential changes to TOU plans that had been designed to promote residential PV (starting on page 135).

It looks like TOU-D-T for SCE, TOU-DR for SDG&E, and E-6, E7, E-8, EL-7, and EL-8 for PG&E are the plans most at risk over the next couple years.

Vote Solar appears to be strongly advocating that residential PV customers are ignorant and need to be protected from any future rate or structural plan changes, except for increases based more or less on inflation. The IOU's reject that and maintain that at no time should rate structure ever be assumed fixed and unchanging, and they are losing money on some of these plans. Looks like CPUC is looking for middle ground with transition periods of a couple of years. However, for those who are on a TOU plan that is already closed to new customers, the timelines to transiting could be shorter.

For those of us with EV based TOU plans, it looks like there is a bit more support at CPUC for protecting the benefits of these plans (page 161):



Since I live in San Diego and am most interested in what SDG&E is doing, it is worth noting that they win the prize as the first CA IOU to propose residential demand pricing, similar to what the AZ utilities are about to dump onto their solar customers. CPUC is solidly rejecting it at this time, but leaves the door open for accepting it a some point in the future (maybe 5 years?).

The new TOU periods proposed by SDG&E (non-EV plans) are (page 168):



All of this is still very unsettled still, but there does seem to be some convergence when looking at the proposals offered by CPUC so far.

Sounds pretty complicated for most average consumers (like me) to understand. Makes it hard to decide which plan to go to.

[sensij]

I was just catching up on the CPUC filings for Proceeding R1206013, and came across a nice snippet in the CPUC's "alternate proposal" discussing potential changes to TOU plans that had been designed to promote residential PV (starting on page 135).

It looks like TOU-D-T for SCE, TOU-DR for SDG&E, and E-6, E7, E-8, EL-7, and EL-8 for PG&E are the plans most at risk over the next couple years.

Vote Solar appears to be strongly advocating that residential PV customers are ignorant and need to be protected from any future rate or structural plan changes, except for increases based more or less on inflation. The IOU's reject that and maintain that at no time should rate structure ever be assumed fixed and unchanging, and they are losing money on some of these plans. Looks like CPUC is looking for middle ground with transition periods of a couple of years. However, for those who are on a TOU plan that is already closed to new customers, the timelines to transiting could be shorter.

For those of us with EV based TOU plans, it looks like there is a bit more support at CPUC for protecting the benefits of these plans (page 161):

Based on the record in this proceeding, we direct the utilities to adhere to the following TOU opt-in rate design guidelines going forward:
...
(2) Include a baseline credit and/or an excess consumption surcharge in all opt-in TOU rates except those designed to encourage switching to electricity from other more carbon-intensive fuels (e.g., electric vehicle (EV) rates), and in a limited number of pilots.
...

Since I live in San Diego and am most interested in what SDG&E is doing, it is worth noting that they win the prize as the first CA IOU to propose residential demand pricing, similar to what the AZ utilities are about to dump onto their solar customers. CPUC is solidly rejecting it at this time, but leaves the door open for accepting it a some point in the future (maybe 5 years?).

The new TOU periods proposed by SDG&E (non-EV plans) are (page 168):

Summer on-peak:
2 p.m. – 9 p.m. non-holiday weekdays
Winter on-peak:
5 p.m. - 9 p.m. non-holiday weekdays
Super off-peak:
12 a.m. – 6 a.m. daily
Semi-peak:
All other times

All of this is still very unsettled still, but there does seem to be some convergence when looking at the proposals offered by CPUC so far.