By Roger Sowell
In moves to change electricity rates in California to better reflect the impacts of solar power on the grid, CPUC has allowed San Diego Gas and Electric utility time-of-use rates. This starts no earlier than December, 2017. As shown below, electricity will cost more during the peak period of 4-9 pm, but will cost much less during the spring off-peak demand period. The revised rates do not result in more money to the utility in a given year. The rates simply change how much money is collected from the various rate groups. The intent is to reduce usage during daily peak periods, to avoid running expensive peaker power plants that increase everyone’s utility bills.
California Public Utilities Commission 505 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PRESS RELEASE Media Contact: Terrie Prosper, 415.703.1366, news@cpuc.ca.gov Docket #: A.15-04-012
Link at: http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M194/K665/194665543.PDF
CPUC SETS NEW TIME-OF-USE PERIODS FOR SDG&E TO REFLECT CHANGING ENERGY MARKET
SAN FRANCISCO, August 24, 2017 – The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) today established new time-of-use periods for San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) to reflect the changing energy market, including a later on-peak period and a spring super-off-peak period. In adopting an uncontested settlement agreement that allocates SDG&E’s revenue among its different customer classes (residential, small business, commercial, industrial), the CPUC also adopted an onpeak time-of-use period of 4-9 p.m. Time-of-use pricing utilizes a rate structure that varies depending on the time of day during which energy is consumed, with higher rates charged when electricity demand or costs are higher. “Solar energy has become an important part of our clean energy grid. We saw how it changes the way we use energy last week during the eclipse. And we also saw the benefit to the grid and avoided use of gas generators when customers took action to avoid using electricity during the sun’s short break and while solar output dropped,” said CPUC President Michael Picker, the Commissioner assigned to the proceeding. “During hot summer months, our peak period during late afternoons has also changed significantly. The best evidence shows that the optimum time to avoid using electricity is now from 4 to 9 p.m. That’s why we move to shift SDG&E’s time of use rate structure to meet that same span of time.”
The proposal voted on is available at http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M194/K473/194473384.PDF.
“Summary (of the linked Proposal)
This decision addresses the application of San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) to establish marginal costs, allocate revenues, and design rates for service provided to its customers. The uncontested Revenue Allocation Settlement Agreement is approved; the contested Schools Settlement Agreement is not adopted. This decision establishes new time-of-use periods to reflect the changing energy market, including a later on-peak period and a spring super-off-peak period, while affirming the grandfathering provisions for eligible solar customers previously established by the California Public Utilities Commission and extending the Eligibility Grace Period for schools.
The decision establishes cost recovery of distribution costs between coincident and noncoincident demand charges based on the original testimony position of the Solar Energy Industries Association and retains the current split for generation capacity costs between coincident demand and volumetric charges. The decision establishes a three-year temporary waiver of the small commercial rate load limit for current small commercial accounts where electric vehicle charging load makes up at least 50 percent of their electric load. Unless otherwise provided in this decision, the revised rates will become effective no earlier than December 1, 2017 and will allow SDG&E to collect the revenue requirement determined in Phase 1 of its 2015 General Rate Case. This proceeding is closed.”
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I don’t know if y’all recall the trouble that Uber got into in Australia. What happened was there was a terrorist incident in Sydney, and a lot of people wanted to get out of town.
Seeing an opportunity, Uber raised all their prices … and of course, people howled. They knew that for a monopolistic-type business to take advantage of people based on how badly they needed the service was wrong.
Then Uber did the same during the London Bridge attacks, and there was the same response
However, according to Roger Sowell, it’s just fine when PG&E does the same … and he claims I’m libeling him by saying he doesn’t care about the poor??? He’s on record as being OK with jacking the electricity prices in order to force the poor to pay for his oh-so-green wet dreams, so he’s condemned by his own position and his own words.
w.
Willis are you refering to the Lindt cafe shooting? There’s a WHOLE lot more to do with that story than meets the eye. The Uner thing was just a distraction IMO.
This is why providing power is a regulated public service.
When I moved back to California in 1986, I discovered PG&E did not understand the principles of customer service. They not very good at keeping the light on or running a nukes. Bad management runs through all levels of an organization.
When I left California, I again found good power companies.
Paying more for the electricity you use will be offset by the cheaper electricity you don’t use.
This is worse than the SCE surcharge compensating for the profits they don’t make on the nuclear plant they didn’t build.
Rob
Spot on. My bill in Waterloo has doubled over a few years (a bit more actually) and that is after I have super-insulated the whole house. My energy-saving home doesn’t really save any electricity.
Now we have three tariffs based on TOE. Obviously there is nothing we can affect except when to watch TV or wash clothes. The claim that the change in California will be revenue neutral has to be untrue as renewable power costs the economy more, net. They are going to charge more when you need it and less when you don’t.
We are paying them to balance the load. They are charging us to do their job.
Nice work, if you can get it.
“The intent is to reduce usage during daily peak periods, to avoid running expensive peaker power plants that increase everyone’s utility bills.”
In other words, California does not want us to use air conditioning.
kakatoa August 26, 2017 at 7:12 pm
Thanks, kakatoa. They are willing to pay me to go there so they can ignore me? That’s just another waste of ratepayers money.
Because of the colossal stupidity of Governor Moonbeam Brown, aided by the endless efforts of useful stooges and rent-seekers, folks like Roger Sowell, the CPUC are required to purchase ever-increasing amounts of unreliable, expensive energy. Required. Thanks, Roger, for your support.
Nothing I can tell the CPUC will change that ugly reality …
Regards,
w.
The only recourse is to do exactly and I mean exactly what they claim is the goal. We consumers will coordinate. Turn everything off in the peak period and the moment lower rates kick in, turn everything on. Everyone. Everything. At the same time.
Not with smart meters installed you won’t.
I would rather use a candle light.
All this is not to do with saving the planet and creating alternative generation suppliers that are “clean” in terms of CO2 emissions. This is all to do creating energy markets to extract as much profit as possible regardless what damage it does to people, the environment or the planet.
Californians don’t seem to have a problem with it, so where’s the problem?
Say what? I’m a Californian and I have a huge problem with this. Roger’s insane pursuit of intermittent, expensive energy, supported by all kinds of useful idiots and watermelon environ-mental cases has driven my electricity bill through the roof, which is a big problem on my planet.
w.
You are right or you may be right, but do you really expect California to change it’s course?
Thanks, Vald. You rightly ask, “do you really expect California to change it’s course?”
One of the things I’ve paid a lot to learn in my life is that in general, the universe pays little heed to what I might expect …
Best regards,
w.
Roger
Going to ask you the same question you didn’t answer in another thread. How much of you’re personal investments are tied up in renewables? I am guess like most advocates you are much more willing to use my taxes dollars on your pet beliefs than money out of your wallet.
Bob, great question, and thanks for asking it again. Of course Roger won’t answer, but it does highlight the insanity.
w.
Part and parcel to this will be a de facto ban on the private ownership of cars, starting in the major cities. Like the UK, they will ban combustible engine cars. You can own a vehicle, but it must be an EV. Then to avoid building thousands of recharging stations, more power plants, and beefing up the distribution network, they will raise electrical prices to the point of making EVs just too expensive for the middle class.
The top echelon will not care, and have the roads to themselves. The state will see savings from having fewer road repair projects, no new road building, no enforcement needs, less costs from accidents, etc. The loss of revenue from gasoline taxes will simply be recovered by new taxes on electricity.
Enjoy your buses, trains, and subways. They are your transportation future.
another 100% example of how “renewables” cost consumers more money.
Yeh; a few threads back Roger was making the case that renewables are price competitive.
I have an outstanding record of achievement in the energy industry, as outlined in my website https://energy-experts-international.com/
Here are some of my conclusions, based on many decades of success on six continents:
Cheap, reliable abundant energy is the lifeblood of society it IS that simple (see point 10 below).
Any system like wind power or solar that requires almost 100% conventional backup is grossly uneconomic.
When politicians fools with energy systems, real people suffer and die. That is the tragic legacy of false global warming alarmism.
We have known these facts for decades.
Allan M.R. MacRae, P.Eng.
Reference:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/
Observations and Conclusions:
1. Temperature, among other factors, drives atmospheric CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. The rate of change dCO2/dt is closely correlated with temperature and thus atmospheric CO2 LAGS temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record. [published on icecap.us in January 2008]
2. CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
3. Atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.
4. CO2 is the feedstock for carbon-based life on Earth, and Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are clearly CO2-deficient. CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
5. Based on the evidence, Earth’s climate is insensitive to increased atmospheric CO2 – there is no global warming crisis.
6. Recent global warming was natural and irregularly cyclical – the next climate phase following the ~20 year pause will probably be global cooling, starting by ~2020 or sooner.
7. Adaptation is clearly the best approach to deal with the moderate global warming and cooling experienced in recent centuries.
8. Cool and cold weather kills many more people than warm or hot weather, even in warm climates. There are about 100,000 Excess Winter Deaths every year in the USA and about 10,000 in Canada.
9. Green energy schemes have needlessly driven up energy costs, reduced electrical grid reliability and contributed to increased winter mortality, which especially targets the elderly and the poor.
10. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern society. When politicians fool with energy systems, real people suffer and die. That is the tragic legacy of false global warming alarmism.
Allan MacRae, P.Eng. Calgary, June 12, 2015
The Green Socialist state uses the electrical utility to force ‘green’ behavior modifications on their population, which impact the poorest citizens the most. And the California socialist elites applaud their crony socialism…… because “It’s for your own good! WE must save the Planet!”
This will be the most inconvenient for working couples. Retired people or unemployed people won’t be bothered too much.
Joel,
Those on CARE rates will also be affected as the default rates are going to be TOU based. If you dry your laundry in the early evening with an electric dryer it will cost more to do so. I’d look into a natural gas dryer vs an electric one if you need to do a lot of laundry down south.
Our next dryer will be a propane based one as it’s kind of scary to think what it might cost us to use an electric dryer in a few years; as modeled in the attached report-
http://docketpublic.energy.ca.gov/PublicDocuments/17-IEPR-03/TN220501_20170802T083707_Preliminary_Electricity_Rates_and_Update_on_Time_of_Use_Load_Im.pdf
It is sunny in California, right?
Dry your laundry outside for free. Anyone in UK with even a patch of garden does that
Griff
Other than the rainy season (last of September through … early May in California), or the rainy and wet season (same dates), or the rainy, foggy, snowing and wet season (Oct-Nov-Dec-Jan-Feb-March in northern and central and eastern California), or the windy and dusty season in southern and eastern high country in California, or the “I need dry clothes for the school day tomorrow and don’t have 3 hours to stay up late taking the clothes in in the fog tonight” season, or “the I can’t hang my clothes up outside or they will be wet, dirty, muddy, and stolen after hanging outside for 4 hours” season.
Your comments betray your lack of reason, and your desire for control of other people’s lives and other people’s energy use in YOUR pursuit of YOUR false religion of enviro-extremism.
Yet another moronic comment.
Do you enjoy being despised as an ignoramus, a liar, a misogynist, a hater of wildlife, an ageist and a general waste of bandwidth, [snip -policy violation – mod]?
Giff,
Your recommendation on how to get clothes dry is the same one our service provider, PG&E, suggested when I spoke to their customer service group early last year after our TOU rate schedule was modified to include a part peak time in the early evening. They also suggested that we line dry our clothes- especially if we were finding it painful to pay our utility bill(s). I reminded the customer service rep that I would of placed a few solar panels facing west vs south if I had known they were going to renege on the contract we signed with them back in 2006.
My wife is, and was, aware that it is going to cost us a lot more to use electrical energy during peak, part peak and off peak times in the future. I had suggested she might consider alternatives to how she accomplished the cleaning (and drying) of our laundry a few years back. As you might imagine my wife had a few choice words for me when I suggested that she might be wasting energy and money on how she accomplished getting our laundry cleaned and dried.
She suggested that maybe I should consider pumping the water out of our well by hand as it would help improve my tone and I could save a kWh of electrical energy for her to use to do the laundry. I assume your wife, if you are married, has had a few choice words for you as well when you infer that she doesn’t consider multiple factors when, and how, she decides to accomplish task(s) like the doing laundry.