SDGE - Time Of Use (TOU) Rates. Good or bad for Net Metering?

[SD_Rider]

Here in San Diego, SDGE is forcing their customers to TOU rates.
"SDG&E is expecting the first phase of Residential Default TOU rate rollout to begin in early 2018 with full implementation completed in 2019."
https://www.sdge.com/clean-energy/ti...ring-customers

I'm on Net Metering 1.0, which, to my understanding, SDGE pays me a flat rate for my energy production, no matter what time of day I push energy onto the grid.
Net Metering 2.0 is paid via a TOU rate table.

Proposed TOU Periods

On-Peak
3 p.m. - 9 p.m. daily
Off-Peak
All Other Times
Super Off-Peak
12 a.m. - 2 p.m. Weekends and Holidays / 12 a.m.

Is this just a plan to divert Net Metering 1.0? From what I've read, we have the "opportunity" to switch to TOU now and be locked in for 1 year.
It seems to me that if I choose TOU, that it will overwrite my NetMetering 1.0 contract, locked in for 20 (?) years.
If someone is well informed, it would be very helpful.

-Jeff in Santee

[sensij]

Net metering and TOU are separate. No matter what rate plan you are on (TOU or tiered), you are still under the terms of net metering 1.0.

The rate plan comparison that you are looking at shows what your bill would be like under the *current* terms of the existing TOU plans. It appears that DR-SES would save you some money. The peak hours of the *current* plan are 11 am-6 pm during the week, which aligns more favorably with solar production hours than the 3pm-9pm change which was just approved.

If you elect onto a TOU plan before July 28, you will keep the favorable peak hours for 5 years. If you wait until after then, you should re-run the price comparison tool and see how the TOU plan compares to the tiered plan under the new hours, or you can build a spreadsheet to figure that out now, if you'd like.

Many NEM 1.0 customers can benefit from the TOU plans... at my old house, I was producing only 70% of the energy I consumed, but fully zero-ing out my bill (except for the monthly minimum which cannot be avoided).

[cebury]

Sensij knows what hes talking about.
A lot of folks mixup NEM and their rate plan, they are separate. Your report shows you should be on DRSES which has very solar favorable time periods, as stated, but some people dont care much about 13-14 bucks month. Two to three drinks at Dutch brothers nowadays. Id switch now and review it each year as the pricing and periods start chsnging.

IMHO, one great thing the cpuc has done has pressured the utilities to provide these reports to accurately and easily inform us as customers which plan is the most economical, assuming we behave with the same lifestyle (electrical profile) we chose during the past 12 month period it analyzed. Prior to this, only the most technically proficient could calculate alternative plans without blind guessing.

[J.P.M.]

Sensij knows what hes talking about.
A lot of folks mixup NEM and their rate plan, they are separate. Your report shows you should be on DRSES which has very solar favorable time periods, as stated, but some people dont care much about 13-14 bucks month. Two to three drinks at Dutch brothers nowadays. Id switch now and review it each year as the pricing and periods start chsnging.

IMHO, one great thing the cpuc has done has pressured the utilities to provide these reports to accurately and easily inform us as customers which plan is the most economical, assuming we behave with the same lifestyle (electrical profile) we chose during the past 12 month period it analyzed. Prior to this, only the most technically proficient could calculate alternative plans without blind guessing.

Sensij pretty much seems to know what he's talking about.

But I've got some problems with the info SDG & E put out on that sheet. The one I got shows the current cost/yr. as equal to my billing year to date charge - for all plans. That's not cost /yr. and even if it was, that's useless for comparison purposes for me. I doubt it's accuracy and therefore its usefulness.

I'd be real careful about taking the blurb's information at face value and also be careful about the assumptions made when reading it.

Furthermore, the blurb says DR-SES will be the best plan choice for oversized systems. While that may be true, it's unfortunately more complicated than that.

If a system is oversized on tiered rates, for the same annual use, it'll be equally oversized from the standpoint of generation exceeding the use. But, such a system will either be over or under sized with respect to any balance due the POCO or overgeneration payment received from the POCO at trueup, depending on the time of that same usage.

Some examples:

Example 1: If, for example (and it's admittedly maybe a bad example because 500 kWh/billing period in summer w/A/C is not likely to occur around here, at least inland), you are billed for 500 kWh/billing period in summer. On a tiered schedule (DR), it'll cost ~ $97/billing period. The same use on DR -SES ( for users with a PV system) will cost somewhere between ~ $113.60 (all billed @$0.22721/kWh , that is, all at off peak time), to ~ $253.15 ($0.50629/kWh at all on peak time). Actual T.O.U. billing will be somewhere in between, but still higher than the tiered bill.

Example 2: A customer is billed for 1,500 kWh/billing period in summer and inland (and probably a bit more likely). On tiered schedule, that'll cost ~ $549 - $558/billing period depending on your # of billing days. On the same T.O.U. schedule as example one (DR-SES), it'll set you back somewhere between $341/month and $759/month, again, depending on times of use of that 1,500 billed kWh/biling period. Use it all between 10 P.M. and 6 A.,M and the lower figure will apply. Use it all between 11 A.M and 6 P.M. M-F and the higher figure will apply. So, at current peak times, if some discipline is possible to lower use by time shifting loads off the 35 hrs./week for ~ 26 weeks of peak summer rates (~ 910 hrs./yr.), T.O.U. may save money., particularly if it's sunny.

Example 3 : A customer is billed for 2,500 kWh/billing period in summer and inland. On tiered schedule, that'll cost ~ $980 - $990/month ( Gulp !). Same amount billed on T.O.U. will set you back between $568 and $1,256/billing period, depending on when the power is used, same as the other examples, and it'll take less discipline (but still some) to get the bill down to the same total as under a tiered tariff.

Now, as if all that isn't somewhat confusing looking (but not as conceptually difficult as it may look, and reasonably amenable to a spreadheet to make things a lot more manageable, honest), there are a some flies in ointment:

1.) The T.O.U. times are shifting. At this time, some of the PV summer generation occurs during peak billing (and so peak offset for PV), maybe ~~ 5 hrs. per weekday or 25 hrs./week out of maybe 7 or 8hrs./day or 49 to 56 hrs./week total PV generation time, so ~~ 50 % of the time. That's the current sweet spot for PV on T.O.U. However, once those peak hours shift to later in the day, say to after 4 P.M - and they will - most, maybe all of the PV generation will no longer be at peak times and a lot of the peak time benefit will be gone as far as far as billing, use and PV generation are concerned.
2.) Right now, shifting to T.O.U for solar customers will probably lock in the earlier in the day rates for 5 years. After that, for all anyone (including the POCO) knows, there may be no tiered rate to go back to. That may be the gotcha'.
3.) Other non PV system T.O.U. tariffs are available. At this time anyway, those other tariffs appear to be an amalgamation of T.O.U. times and tiered rates. I'm working on logic to figure them out for a spreadsheet, but haven't gotten around to it yet. If Sensij has already cracked that nut, I'd be happy.

Spreadsheets are a powerful tool, but not my strong point or favorite thing to do - more of a necessary evil. Having said that, I've found that while creating a spreadsheet with 24 X 4 X 365 = 35,040 rows sounds daunting, the task is made about and at least 1/26 times less daunting by the fact that only 2 schedules, one for summer weeks and one for winter weeks are needed and then copied, with 5 of the 7 (week)days for each of those weeks identical, as are Sat. and Sun. Holidays are same weekend schedule and will change 5 days max. to weekend schedule. The finished template can then have POCO and/or array generation data added along with various tariff prices and T.O.U. times made changeable, and Voila' - a useful tool. Mine works great and after adjustinmg for some some B.S. taxes on the bill, usually gets me to the penny or thereabouts. I'm on MEM 1.0 and so are the neighbor's systems I monitor, so I don't have a way to confirm how NBC's are accounted for, but I believe I've got them correct. However, and as a bit of an aside, Escondido Charlie's billing anomalies with respect to what are probably NBC billing are a source of confusion, and an example of why I think SDG & E could be more forthcoming and helpful as to explantions and examples of how they bill stuff.

IMO, and FWIW only - and no more than that - the idea of trying to make an informed decision about what to do with respect to a tariff to chose is made very much more difficult than it need be by the POCO's general lack of clear explanation and examples of what the implications and consequences of various choices as to options might entail. Equally at fault is the consumers' actions of not taking the time to learn about how they actually pay for what they seem to spend a lot of time bitching about.

Seems to me that the bitching time could be better spent as tariff education time, and the POCO's might improve their image a bit with better information that's easier to understand. One of the mandates of AB 327 was to make things easier to understand. seems to me that not only has that mandate not yet been met, but the waters are a bit muddier than before.

[sensij]

If you overproduce your consumption, the charge for all plans will show as ~$120 dollars.

When I get some time this weekend I'll post a real life example for a typical light A/C, non-EV, PV sized less than 100% scenario. It appeared DR-SES was better for that person, even though the billed usage was closer to example 1 above than example 2. Definitely wouldn't mind peer review of the results, though.

At one point, I did in fact model *every* one of the tou plans offered by SDG&E (along with most from SCE and PG&E). I don't have actual bills to validate against for the less commonly discussed plans though, so ymmv.

[J.P.M.]

If you overproduce your consumption, the charge for all plans will show as ~$120 dollars.

When I get some time this weekend I'll post a real life example for a typical light A/C, non-EV, PV sized less than 100% scenario. It appeared DR-SES was better for that person, even though the billed usage was closer to example 1 above than example 2. Definitely wouldn't mind peer review of the results, though.

At one point, I did in fact model *every* one of the tou plans offered by SDG&E (along with most from SCE and PG&E). I don't have actual bills to validate against for the less commonly discussed plans though, so ymmv.

Mostly Agreed. Appreciate the comment/any input. Annual overproduction will indeed still result in a $120/year bill, less any CA climate credit. I was less than clear about that.

My examples dealt with situations where the system offset was < 100%, and some examples of how summer billing may be look tiered vs. T.O.U. as f(amount of electricity billed) as a way of showing some of the ways that the SDG & E statement (that I consider self serving and disingenuous) about DR-SES being better for users may not always be true as they seem to want users to infer, or that oversizing and then getting on T.O.U. is the way to go. It ain't.

[cebury]

But I've got some problems with the info SDG & E put out on that sheet. The one I got shows the current cost/yr. as equal to my billing year to date charge - for all plans. That's not cost /yr. and even if it was, that's useless for comparison purposes for me. I doubt it's accuracy and therefore its usefulness.

Was the cause of the problem on your account due to overproduction (so therefore showing the same amount on all the rate plans)? Of the various points you made, my primary concern was if those numbers shown for alternative billing plans were incorrect.

Prior to solar, i had tested PGEs numbers for alternative plans and they were all within a couple percent for my profile. I have yet to run the latest plans against it.

[J.P.M.]

Was the cause of the problem on your account due to overproduction (so therefore showing the same amount on all the rate plans)? Of the various points you made, my primary concern was if those numbers shown for alternative billing plans were incorrect.

Prior to solar, i had tested PGEs numbers for alternative plans and they were all within a couple percent for my profile. I have yet to run the latest plans against it.

The beefs I have are with the simplistic way SDG & E throws out information. This blub is an example of the basic uselessness resulting from the way they put stuff out. It's misleading by its simplicity and lack of accuracy. In my case whether the cause of the uselessness was overproduction or not, it's still wrong and I believe what the OP got, which is identical in format may lead the OP to think T.O.U. will save him some money - Well it may, or it may not be, but for one thing, there' no reasoning or numbers behind the reasoning to back it up. That blurb is an example of the uselessness and misinformation that SDG & E often puts out. BTW, to say that putting "more" information out htere would be useless because no one would bother is first of all, not true (some would) and second and more importantly, an insult. But I guess mu anachronistic sensibilities are showing on that one.

Here's the deal: If I and others can come up with what are viable methods to compare billing schemes and rate plans to any desired degree of accuracy, and in so doing make more informed and perhaps more intelligent choices about rate plans, I'm quite sure SDG & E and the other POCOs could do the same. Basically, if I can do anyone can. That they don't, and putting myself in their shoes is certainly understandable from their perspective. Doing so will cause problems of lower revenue and pissed off customers who are too lazy and too ignorant to do anything but bitch about their self induced high electric bills. Giving them the tools to help themselves will not help the POCO.

That they instead put out what is IMO, mostly useless and often misleading or easily misunderstood and incomplete information is what my beef is about.

If they're going to put out information, get it right and get it complete, or at least make it reasonably possible to get more information, or don't bother with the cynical fluff at all. In its present format, its mostly, IMO, a counterproductive waste.

I appreciate the CPUC is on the POCO's asses about public information. But crap like this isn't information as much as misinformation that can lead sheeple into less than optimum outcomes.

[sensij]

When I get some time this weekend I'll post a real life example for a typical light A/C, non-EV, PV sized less than 100% scenario. It appeared DR-SES was better for that person, even though the billed usage was closer to example 1 above than example 2. Definitely wouldn't mind peer review of the results, though.

Ok, here is the analysis. This is for a 1288 sq ft home in the Clairemont neighborhood of San Diego, 3 person family, no central A/C but a window unit installed in the main room, home daycare business run out of the house during the day. The PV system is 3.1 kW, south facing (176 deg azimuth) at 18.5 deg tilt, installed in april 2015.

Here is what the rate comparison tool from SDG&E shows: plan comparison.JPG




The estimated cost per year is based on the prior 12 months usage. Here is the DR tariff results, from running actual usage through the spreadsheet (and using the bills actually received):

Bill ending	Usage	on-peak	semi-peak	off-peak	Actual DR Bill	DR Bill under current tariff	DR-SES Bill under current tariff
7/26/2016	-244	-222	-26	4	-49	-54	-125
8/24/16	4	-146	59	93	1	1	-41
9/25/16	-20	-139	65	54	-4	-4	-44
10/25/16	58	-117	74	101	10	11	-20
11/24/16	246	-2	-10	258	47	51	58
12/26/16	282	0	1	281	53	58	66
1/25/17	328	0	6	322	65	67	77
2/26/17	264	0	-70	334	53	54	61
3/27/17	20	0	-140	160	5	4	3
4/26/17	15	0	-160	182	1	1	1
5/25/17	-35	-130	36	58	-8	-8	-46
6/26/17	-49	-143	63	32	-11	-11	-52
Total	868	-900	-102	1879	163	170	-62

The monthly bill amounts exclude the CA Climate credit (except to the extent they affect taxes), and exclude Reduce Your Use awards. The minimum bill is not a factor for this usage because the actual owed amounts over the course of the year exceed the minimum bill amount.

July is something of an outlier because that is the month we moved out of the house, and the new family did not move in until later in the month, so usage was extremely low the first 2-3 weeks.

As you can see, the agreement between what SDG&E says the bill would be, and what I'm calculating, is very good, just $1 different.

I'll post the DR-SES analysis for this usage soon.

[J.P.M.]

Ok, here is the first half of the analysis. This is for a 1288 sq ft home in the Clairemont neighborhood of San Diego, 3 person family, no central A/C but a window unit installed in the main room, home daycare business run out of the house during the day. The PV system is 3.1 kW, south facing (176 deg azimuth) at 18.5 deg tilt, installed in april 2015.

Here is what the rate comparison tool from SDG&E shows: plan comparison.JPG









The estimated cost per year is based on the prior 12 months usage. Here is the DR tariff results, from running actual usage through the spreadsheet (and using the bills actually received):

Bill ending	Usage	Actual DR Bill	DR Bill under current tariff
7/26/2016	-244	-49	-54
8/24/16	4	1	1
9/25/16	-20	-4	-4
10/25/16	58	10	11
11/24/16	246	47	51
12/26/16	282	53	58
1/25/17	328	65	67
2/26/17	264	53	54
3/27/17	20	5	4
4/26/17	15	1	1
5/25/17	-35	-8	-8
6/26/17	-49	-11	-11
Total	868	163	170

The monthly bill amounts exclude the CA Climate credit (except to the extent they affect taxes), and exclude Reduce Your Use awards. The minimum bill is not a factor for this usage because the actual owed amounts over the course of the year exceed the minimum bill amount.

July is something of an outlier because that is the month we moved out of the house, and the new family did not move in until later in the month, so usage was extremely low the first 2-3 weeks.

As you can see, the agreement between what SDG&E says the bill would be, and what I'm calculating, is very good, just $1 different.

I'll post the DR-SES analysis for this usage soon.

Thank you.

Questions:
1.) Just confirming: "Actual DR Bill" column is data from the bill ?, with "DR Bill under current tariff" column containing data calculated from your spreadsheet ?
2.) Do you use actual # of billing days or a calendar month ? from looking at the adjacent months direction of variation, my guess is calendar month, but stress that's a guess and not a knock. What billing cycle does the data work to ?
3.) Do data shown use the tariff currently in effect (as of 03/01/2017) or the tariff that was in effect at the time of use ? I suppose I could back calc the answer to that , same as the ans. to 2 above, but it's easier to ask.
4.) Coastal or inland territory ?
5.) Gas + electric service to the property or all electric and no gas service ?
Thanx again. Look forward to how you do T.O.U.

[sensij]

Questions:
1.) Just confirming: "Actual DR Bill" column is data from the bill ?, with "DR Bill under current tariff" column containing data calculated from your spreadsheet ?

Actual DR bill is the amount I calculated from the tariff that was in effect at the time, verified to within 0.02 of the actual bill. (i'm more like 0.15 off in the july 2016 bill, not sure why but the bill was corrected a couple months later and not worth figuring out. Also, April 2017 bill might get corrected, downloaded usage shows 8 kWh more consumed than what the bill that month showed)

DR bill under current tariff is what that usage would have been if the 3/1/17 tariff had been in effect for the entire period.

2.) Do you use actual # of billing days or a calendar month ? from looking at the adjacent months direction of variation, my guess is calendar month, but stress that's a guess and not a knock. What billing cycle does the data work to ?

Actual billing days, cycle 18.

3.) Do data shown use the tariff currently in effect (as of 03/01/2017) or the tariff that was in effect at the time of use ? I suppose I could back calc the answer to that , same as the ans. to 2 above, but it's easier to ask.

See above. The "actual" column is the tariff in effect at that time, the "current tariff" column uses 3/1/17 tariff for all 12 bills.

4.) Coastal or inland territory ?

Coastal

5.) Gas + electric service to the property or all electric and no gas service ?

Gas+Electric



I'll share the spreadsheet when I get done cleaning it up, lots of other side projects going on in it at the moment.

[sensij]

Ok, I updated the table above with the DR-SES calculations, providing the breakdown in billed usage between the TOU periods. I just used the current tariff (3/1/17) for all months. This has not been verified against an actual DR-SES bill, but I used the same spreadsheet template that I had used for EV-TOU-2, which I did validate, and just redefined the TOU periods per the DR-SES definition.

Even setting aside the unusual July, the DR-SES bill would come out well under the minimum bill of ~$120, in agreement with what SDG&E's rate comparison tool shows. I really didn't expect that.... in fact, I had moved them to the DR tariff when we moved out, because with what I guessed their consumption pattern would be with the home daycare, I didn't think the TOU tariff would be good.

Next update I'll take another look at this, except with the new DR-SES hours, with the peak shifted later.

[J.P.M.]

Ok, I updated the table above with the DR-SES calculations, providing the breakdown in billed usage between the TOU periods. I just used the current tariff (3/1/17) for all months. This has not been verified against an actual DR-SES bill, but I used the same spreadsheet template that I had used for EV-TOU-2, which I did validate, and just redefined the TOU periods per the DR-SES definition.

Even setting aside the unusual July, the DR-SES bill would come out well under the minimum bill of ~$120, in agreement with what SDG&E's rate comparison tool shows. I really didn't expect that.... in fact, I had moved them to the DR tariff when we moved out, because with what I guessed their consumption pattern would be with the home daycare, I didn't think the TOU tariff would be good.

Next update I'll take another look at this, except with the new DR-SES hours, with the peak shifted later.

Understood.

[J.P.M.]

Actual DR bill is the amount I calculated from the tariff that was in effect at the time, verified to within 0.02 of the actual bill. (i'm more like 0.15 off in the july 2016 bill, not sure why but the bill was corrected a couple months later and not worth figuring out. Also, April 2017 bill might get corrected, downloaded usage shows 8 kWh more consumed than what the bill that month showed)

DR bill under current tariff is what that usage would have been if the 3/1/17 tariff had been in effect for the entire period.



Actual billing days, cycle 18.



See above. The "actual" column is the tariff in effect at that time, the "current tariff" column uses 3/1/17 tariff for all 12 bills.



Coastal



Gas+Electric



I'll share the spreadsheet when I get done cleaning it up, lots of other side projects going on in it at the moment.

Understood. Thank you. Not a big rush. Back burner stuff for me too. Sometimes I wish I was less of a Luddite. Not a beef and my shortcoming, but it'd be easier to post a picture of the summary portion of my DR- tiered spreadsheet than verbal explanations. Still working (figuring out best way) on DR-SES sheet.

Other current project: Trying to figure out efficacy of various ways to estimate and account for Davis solar sensor deterioration w/respect to panel deterioration estimates over the last 3+ years. Got my hands sort of full just now.

[sensij]

Understood. Thank you. Not a big rush. Back burner stuff for me too. Sometimes I wish I was less of a Luddite. Not a beef and my shortcoming, but it'd be easier to post a picture of the summary portion of my DR- tiered spreadsheet than verbal explanations. Still working (figuring out best way) on DR-SES sheet.

Other current project: Trying to figure out efficacy of various ways to estimate and account for Davis solar sensor deterioration w/respect to panel deterioration estimates over the last 3+ years. Got my hands sort of full just now.

I've found that to get the best agreement with the actual bill, the EV-TOU-2 plan needs to be calculated in two columns for each component of the bill. The components I calculate are:

Delivery
Generation
DWR-BC
City Franchise Fee
Franchise fee on others
State surcharge tax
State regulatory fee

For each TOU period in each bill, each of those components is calculated as a "NEM charge" if the usage in that period is positive, or a "NEM credit" if the usage is negative. That allows the NEM charges and NEM credits on the final page of the bill to make sense. (Separating out NBC's for NEM-ST is a separate project, and I'll need another bill or two to feel confident in my approach there).

I took a stab at applying the new rates. For anyone who missed it, the final GRC Phase 2 decision is here:

http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDoc.../191913288.PDF

The new TOU periods across all plans will be: new tou.JPG





I can't directly apply this to the existing DR-SES since winter only has two TOU periods right now, and the new version will have three. The extra special condition for March and April is probably there just to make the spreadsheets even more complicated.

Anyway, if DR-SES kept the same rates but just adopted the new periods in summer, the results are dire. The -62 annual NEM charge I posted above becomes a +238 bill. Ignoring July, the bill jumps $250, from 63 to 318. New NEM-ST customers are about to get screwed.

Here is a link to the spreadsheet, for anyone who wants to take a look:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kr963t35z8...king.xlsx?dl=0