Please help my Dad understand his PG&E true-up increase

[Killroy1999]

Hey Mike-

Armchair quarterback here in this area.. Love nerding out on this sort of stuff. It could be a myriad of things but settles out into one of the few:

1. Solar not producing enough
2. Using more power than you expect
3. Cost of power going up.

We can download your PGE usage over the past few years and likely link it to your solar data to see where things aren't lining up. 2024->2025 seems what I'd expect. Power rates went up 5x last year. 2023->2024.... that's steep.

I thought what PG&E has been doing with solar is changing the rates that you sell back the energy

For example:

You buy the electricity at 30 cents / kWhr
You sell back electricity at 15 cents/ kWhr, because that is more like a wholesale rate

 

[Saxon]

I do not trust PGE based upon their past behavior.

It was good that they came thru our neighborhood to replace gas pipes, but the accelerated schedule was necessary after their negligence killed 8, including a 13 year old and severely burned a young man. I don't know how much the killed suffered, was it immediate or slow burn, coughing, etc.

There is a minimum charge per month for being on their grid, solar or not. It was near $30 last time I checked.

The true up cost timing is odd. You would think that it would happen each month, but they wait until the year end, and it is usually zero or I owe them some. They never owe me.

They so aggressively pushed for residential solar then backed off. I would never have gotten it, but I have my spouse to consider. Fortunately, the original roofer installed them so it's a quality installation. Else, why would you put holes into a perfectly leak free roof.

When solar was all the rage, it reminded me of everyone wanting a printer in the cubicle. How inefficient was that when a high volume shared printer was the way to go.

BTW, according to my installer, the energy you produce does not go directly into your home for usage (unless you have batteries for the evening). It automatically goes to PGE and you buy from them as if you never had solar panels. You offset the monthly cost by your agreed selling cost.

 

[ctwo]

Tell your dad.... he probably wears socks that come up over the ankles, well, ankles is the key focus here. Reach down and grab each ankle in each hand, and grunt. Like this

 

[Grissom]

Tell your dad.... he probably wears socks that come up over the ankles, well, ankles is the key focus here. Reach down and grab each ankle in each hand, and grunt. Like this

View attachment 574217

We will always be screwed by PG&E - no lube or reach around
Fuck their CEO full page newspaper love letters to the public to which they provide service and also to the PUC

 

[ctwo]

I heard PG&E commercial on the radio say rates are lower today than a year ago. Here, we'll just ignore everything else.

 

[flips21]

Grok says a electric heat pump water heater could save $500 a year

https://x.com/i/grok/share/EOZRufWXu529DubHh9I9XDbyn

Lots of pro heat pump best case assumptions into that calculation. These are the ones that I see:

1. You switch to the E-ELECT rate plan to get $0.35 per kWH and only use hot water during the winter. (The rate for this plan in the winter is $0.35 -$0.38, close to the $0.35 used by Grok, but in the summer the rate varies from a low of $0.40 to $0.61 depending on the time of day, so summer cost is higher that Groks calc.)

2. You assume that the water heater is installed in a conditioned space to have free access to occupied space temperatures. (If you put the heat pump unit in a closet the efficiency will drop as it tries to pull heat in through the closet walls.)

3. You use a national average water consumption rate rather than drought adjusted water consumption rate. Californians do not have access to the same shower heads and faucets as the rest of the nation. We use less water because we have mandated limits on the amount of water our fixtures can use vs. the national average.

4. You ignore the added complexity of the heat pump water heater with its likely greater maintenance costs over a gas unit.

When the BAAQMD plan to outlaw gas water heater installation was in public review, I did my own calculation for the savings of using a heat pump water heater. They claimed $500 per year savings in the support data, which seemed off to me since my average summer gas bill (water heater and range, no furnace) was $23 per month or $276 per year. How could our two person household save $500 per year when we only use $276 of gas for cooking and water heating a year?

I modeled the lowest efficiency gas water heater from State company (63% Eff) and compared it to the highest efficiency heat pump water heater they make and calculated a $6 63 per month or $80 per year savings over natural gas. That is a 29% savings over natural gas. I was using the TOU-C tariff instead of the Electric Home tariff because I have solar. Let's give the heat pump unit another $3 per month savings and make is $120 per year.

I won't even start with the installation cost comparison since pulling a new circuit from the electrical panel to the water heater location isn't included in that pricing.

So, if you live in a house without solar in order to change to the E-ELECT tariff after your install of the heat pump water heater and use only winter electrical rates for heating AND you have a household of 6+ water wasting people who all take super long showers and you locate the water heater in a conditioned space and not in your garage or a closet , then you could possibly save $500 per year.

Flip

 

[flips21]

...There is a minimum charge per month for being on their grid, solar or not. It was near $30 last time I checked.

The true up cost timing is odd. You would think that it would happen each month, but they wait until the year end, and it is usually zero or I owe them some. They never owe me....

My minimum charge is $11.75 plus $0.59 city tax. Maybe it depends on which NEM you are on. I am on NEM2.

The true up time being one year is due to the nature of solar energy production. You can't do a true up for the month of January without making 99% of the customers pay while having to pay them back in August. By making it a full year, the production impacts of a full orbit around the sun have been normalized.

If you have a power aggregator like Sonoma Clean Energy, the may pay you a credit for over production. SCE pays something like $0.035 per kWH.

BTW, according to my installer, the energy you produce does not go directly into your home for usage (unless you have batteries for the evening). It automatically goes to PGE and you buy from them as if you never had solar panels. You offset the monthly cost by your agreed selling cost.

It may be easier to understand the billing by looking at it this way, but it isn't correct. If the panel is connected to the house side of the grid, panel energy goes to the house real time usage first and any extra goes out on the grid. PG&E doesn't have a meter installed on your grid, it is installed on the house, which includes the grid. They can't determine how much power your grid produces because their meter reads the total of solar production minus the house usage.

Flip

 

[Killroy1999]

Lots of pro heat pump best case assumptions into that calculation. These are the ones that I see:

1. You switch to the E-ELECT rate plan to get $0.35 per kWH and only use hot water during the winter. (The rate for this plan in the winter is $0.35 -$0.38, close to the $0.35 used by Grok, but in the summer the rate varies from a low of $0.40 to $0.61 depending on the time of day, so summer cost is higher that Groks calc.)

2. You assume that the water heater is installed in a conditioned space to have free access to occupied space temperatures. (If you put the heat pump unit in a closet the efficiency will drop as it tries to pull heat in through the closet walls.)

3. You use a national average water consumption rate rather than drought adjusted water consumption rate. Californians do not have access to the same shower heads and faucets as the rest of the nation. We use less water because we have mandated limits on the amount of water our fixtures can use vs. the national average.

4. You ignore the added complexity of the heat pump water heater with its likely greater maintenance costs over a gas unit.

When the BAAQMD plan to outlaw gas water heater installation was in public review, I did my own calculation for the savings of using a heat pump water heater. They claimed $500 per year savings in the support data, which seemed off to me since my average summer gas bill (water heater and range, no furnace) was $23 per month or $276 per year. How could our two person household save $500 per year when we only use $276 of gas for cooking and water heating a year?

I modeled the lowest efficiency gas water heater from State company (63% Eff) and compared it to the highest efficiency heat pump water heater they make and calculated a $6 63 per month or $80 per year savings over natural gas. That is a 29% savings over natural gas. I was using the TOU-C tariff instead of the Electric Home tariff because I have solar. Let's give the heat pump unit another $3 per month savings and make is $120 per year.

I won't even start with the installation cost comparison since pulling a new circuit from the electrical panel to the water heater location isn't included in that pricing.

So, if you live in a house without solar in order to change to the E-ELECT tariff after your install of the heat pump water heater and use only winter electrical rates for heating AND you have a household of 6+ water wasting people who all take super long showers and you locate the water heater in a conditioned space and not in your garage or a closet , then you could possibly save $500 per year.

Flip

What we might see in home in the future is interconnected heat pumps:

For example, The Refrigerator and Airconditioning can reject heat and pump it into the water heater and dryer.

Get ready for refrigerant lines running through your house!

Tesla car systems work this way. Search Octovalve.

 

[ctwo]

Damn, I came back to apologize for some rude humor at the OP's expense, but then I realized this is the same guy in the divorced pron threads, and didn't feel so bad.

I have way more messed up threads to make.

Thank you for the KS.

 

[needles]

I thought what PG&E has been doing with solar is changing the rates that you sell back the energy

For example:

You buy the electricity at 30 cents / kWhr
You sell back electricity at 15 cents/ kWhr, because that is more like a wholesale rate

Yes... this is NEM3. Wholesale rate is even lower like 0.03-0.05c per kWh.

 

[Brokenlink]

Damn, I came back to apologize for some rude humor at the OP's expense, but then I realized this is the same guy in the divorced pron threads, and didn't feel so bad.

I have way more messed up threads to make.

Thank you for the KS.

Or you could not be a dick....

 

[mercurial]

What we might see in home in the future is interconnected heat pumps:

For example, The Refrigerator and Airconditioning can reject heat and pump it into the water heater and dryer.

Get ready for refrigerant lines running through your house!

Tesla car systems work this way. Search Octovalve.

Sounds extremely expensive and complicated, I can only imagine the repair costs when things go bad. Would probably be better to just blanket your property with solar panels and accept some wastage.

 

[ctwo]

Or you could not be a dick....

Now where have I ever been a dick?

 

[Killroy1999]

Sounds extremely expensive and complicated, I can only imagine the repair costs when things go bad. Would probably be better to just blanket your property with solar panels and accept some wastage.

It could be to complicated. It's just a concept for a home.

This discussion says that water heaters and "air conditioning" inter connects might be a good idea.

I think Tesla even explored this concept since they are in the home energy buisness.

https://www.reddit.com/r/heatpumps/comments/1acqvlt/centralized_interconnection

 

[daventura]

FUCK PG&E.

I tried...she just layed there.