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pksd1

Well-known member
Joined
May 3, 2010
Messages
247
Location
San Diego (Rancho Penasquitos)
I am currently on one the EVproject’s experimental rates from SDG&E. I think I pay something like $0.07/kWh at night. Now I am looking into adding solar panels to my house.

Will adding solar effect my experimental rates in some way ?
 
pksd1 said:
I am currently on one the EVproject’s experimental rates from SDG&E. I think I pay something like $0.07/kWh at night. Now I am looking into adding solar panels to my house.

Will adding solar effect my experimental rates in some way ?
No, you can keep the experimental rates if you like...but since the EVSE is on a second meter, the solar generation won't be able to offset your LEAF charging. I do know you can opt out of the experimental rates after a year. Whether you would want to do so depends on the size of your solar system vs. your electric usage.
 
davewill said:
pksd1 said:
I am currently on one the EVproject’s experimental rates from SDG&E. I think I pay something like $0.07/kWh at night. Now I am looking into adding solar panels to my house.

Will adding solar effect my experimental rates in some way ?
No, you can keep the experimental rates if you like...but since the EVSE is on a second meter, the solar generation won't be able to offset your LEAF charging. I do know you can opt out of the experimental rates after a year. Whether you would want to do so depends on the size of your solar system vs. your electric usage.

Thanks Dave. I guess I got incorrect information from the solar "sales" guy. He said both meters are connected to the same supply so at night I will get the experimental rates (which I like) and during the day it would draw power from the solar (even better). But I don't think second part is correct.
 
pksd1 said:
Thanks Dave. I guess I got incorrect information from the solar "sales" guy. He said both meters are connected to the same supply so at night I will get the experimental rates (which I like) and during the day it would draw power from the solar (even better). But I don't think second part is correct.
You could pull that off by plugging your EVSE into a regular house plug during the day...but that's cheating in my book. Self pride requires me to simply decide whether I'm in or out of the study, and act accordingly.
 
Since 99% of my charging is done at night, I am just glad that my experimental rate is not effected by this install.

How long can we stay on this experimental rate? Will we eventually have to move to EV-TOU schedule ?
 
pksd1 said:
davewill said:
pksd1 said:
I am currently on one the EVproject’s experimental rates from SDG&E. I think I pay something like $0.07/kWh at night. Now I am looking into adding solar panels to my house.

Will adding solar effect my experimental rates in some way ?
No, you can keep the experimental rates if you like...but since the EVSE is on a second meter, the solar generation won't be able to offset your LEAF charging. I do know you can opt out of the experimental rates after a year. Whether you would want to do so depends on the size of your solar system vs. your electric usage.

Thanks Dave. I guess I got incorrect information from the solar "sales" guy. He said both meters are connected to the same supply so at night I will get the experimental rates (which I like) and during the day it would draw power from the solar (even better). But I don't think second part is correct.

Lot's of miss information here because of partially correct statements. The main thing to know is that REGARDLESS of whether the electricity comes from your solar panels or the grid, you pay SDG&E for 100% of the EV TOU rate that flows through your EV meter. So that means that by charging during the day, even though you are not using SDG&E's power, you are paying them the highest Time Of Use rates.

It is correct that both meters are connected to the same supply, but SDG&E charges you for every electron that passes through the EV meter and at the TOU rate.

Shame on your solar sales guy for getting that wrong. Understandable that he might have thought that, but in the absence of knowledge he should have looked it up.
 
I opted out of the second meter because since I have solar, and if I occasionally needed to charge during peak, SDG&E would have charged me the peak rate for my own power! That was the deal breaker for me. Take the case of a solar system that puts out 3.7KW at the peak sun. If you charge at that time, all of your solar would go to the Leaf. The main meter would not see any flow due to the Leaf. If you have the high ratio, i.e. $0.07 super off peak and approx $0.36 during peak. SDG&E would charge me $0.36 per kwh even though they were not supplying any power. When they implement the "network use charge" for solar producers, that would complicate it even more. In the case I outlined, a network use demand charge would be added on top, to my understanding.
 
If you have already been on the EPEV experimental rate for at least a year, I understand that you can opt out of that rate schedule and have the second meter removed. At that point, you would be on a single rate schedule (EV-TOU2) for home and EV charging.

But, if one decides to stay on the EPEV experimental rate after a year, could a switch be installed to allow the EVSE to switch between a direct connection to the electrical panel breakers (i.e. bypassing the second meter), and switch back to the second meter when desirable? Basically this would allow one EVSE to share two rate schedules (EPEV and EV-TOU2). It is permissable to have an EVSE associated with EPEV or EV-TOU2 now, but is it permissable to switch between the two rate schedules when desirable? For example, during the middle of the day it would be more cost effective to connect the EVSE to EV-TOU2 than EPEV.
 
pksd1 said:
I am currently on one the EVproject’s experimental rates from SDG&E. I think I pay something like $0.07/kWh at night. Now I am looking into adding solar panels to my house.

Will adding solar effect my experimental rates in some way ?

Are you looking to zero out your total usage (including the car) with your solar system, or just use the solar system to keep your home usage out of the higher tiers?

We are in the EV project and have a solar system which we sized in hopes of zeroing out our actual consumption, so we remained on a single meter on schedule DR (flat residential) for everything, because, as has been described, if we had the 2 meter setup we'd be paying anywhere from .07 to .14 super off peak for the car (more for any non-super-off-peak charging), and if our solar produced in excess of our non-car (ie the rest of the house) usage, we would only be paid back (via SB920) at about .04 per kWh. We'd be paying out of pocket even if we used no net electricity.

In the future, for example if we had a second EV and our total actual usage did exceed our production, we might be better off going to a TOU-based net metering schedule where we would get solar credits during peak hours and then charge our cars at off peak - we could in theory still have a close to zero bill (except for the mandatory connection charge of .17/day) while being a net consumer of some amount of electricity, but right now since we are just about at zero net actual consumption, no need, as they don't pay for excess TOU credits, only actual raw overproduction.

Anyway - your best solution again depends on how big of a solar system you are going to get. If it's not going to actually produce MORE than you use for just your house, then the two meter solution may be your best configuration - keep the house on DR and use the solar to stay out of tier 2+, or maybe put the house on TOU, particularly if you don't use air conditioning during the day, and build up peak credits then use them at night (for the house), and leave the car on its own.

If you are going to get more solar than you can use for the house, that's when it gets trickier.
 
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