mwalsh said:
I got a letter from SCE today, asking me to choose between getting a check at the end of the year and having my credit roll-over into the next period. What is everyone else leaning towards?
I also got the letter last week. I review below the factors I am considering in this "momentous" decision.
As I expected, September was a big month for me, with lots of A/C, but also my first full month with my new 6 south-oriented solar panels in addition to my 15 SW-facing panels. Both factors pushed me far into Level-2 for the first time, just like I expected, giving me more of the very high Level-2 solar payback price. TOU gives you a higher solar payback price the more solar you have.
I consumed over 200 more Kwhrs than I produced, but with TOU I still came out with a $18 credit for the month. I applied discipline to keep almost all of my A/C usage off-peak, by cooling the house before 10AM and after 6 PM, except for weekends.
Since I had a net production credit for the month, once again I got no benefit from my participation in the A/C interruption program, as I previously reported.
I have 3 more billing cycles left in my first Net Metering year. I have a -$141 TOU cumulative energy credit, but my cumulative Kwhr credit has dropped to -327 Kwhr. I expect to run a deficit in kwhr for November through February. At a wholesale price of perhaps$.05/kwhr, a credit of maybe -150 Kwhr would be worth $7.50. My much larger TOU credit will be lost. Next year, however, I will be charging the Leaf for a full 12 months rather than 6, so I expect to come out much closer to even.
I was hoping that they might offer an option of allowing you to carryover your TOU credit into the next NM year. I probably could have used up much of the credit in January and February.
There seems to be a separate "real money" accounting for the meter itself and local tax, which is running $1.04/month. I have a cumulative credit in this account of -$14.98, which originated from erroneous estimates they made 10 months ago when they failed to read my new meter. It sounds like the pittance offered in the letter is "real money," so it could offset this charge for 7 more months. I am therefore leaning towards selecting the option of rolling-over the end-of-year credit (if there is one) to the new NM year, unless you folks say I have missed something.
BTW the current TOU-D-TEV tariff posted on SCE.com, dated June 1, 2011, has a section I have not seen before titled "Peak Time Rebate" or PTR. It sounds like it might be intended to give frugal Net Metering customers an incentive to help out during electrical shortage events, since the A/C credit program is worthless for us. I see a credit price of $.75/kwh + $.50/kwh if the customer has "enabling technology." I have not fully parsed all the legalize here, so perhaps NM customers still are left out.
http://www.sce.com/NR/sc3/tm2/pdf/CE324.pdf