SDG&E Changes their Rates — Opt in Now for Tiered Rates Before You Can No Longer Do So
The Fight for Time of Use Hours and How This Changes Solar Powered Installations
Attention Solar Panel Homeowners or Potential Solar Panel Homeowners!
SDG&E is fighting against the rising Solar Installations by restructuring the way that they bill their Time of Use hours. If you take a look at this article from The San Diego Reader, dated August 15th 2017, you can get a good idea of what is happening and why people are upset.
After this article was written, a roll out of the new plan was put into effect. Current SDG&E Subscribers who have installed Solar Panels and have begun their service can opt into a grandfathered tiered program which will be expiring for everyone else on March 30th of 2018.
This means that if you have already installed solar panels and have SDG&E you would want to opt-in to this tiered plan ASAP. And, if you have thought about installing Solar Panels, but were on the fence, this is a pretty good reason to JUST DO IT! Do it before March 30th, and you will have a plan that will save you more money over the course of your loan, or over the course of having your solar energy system.
What you can then do is go off the grid at a later date, when Batteries, or the PowerWall is more cost effective. Right now installing a Powerwall will set you back a cool $5,500
The list price for a new Tesla Powerwall 2.0 battery, which offers twice the storage capacity of the original Powerwall, is $5,500. Supporting hardware adds another $700 to the equipment costs, bringing the total to $6,200. Installation can add anywhere from $2,000 to $8,000 to the final bill.
From SDG&E’s Website
Residential Customers
Customers receiving service under Schedule NEM-ST may choose to be billed under an applicable TOU rate at any time.
Customers who receive Permission to Operate on or before 3/30/2018 (120 days after the 12/1/17 effective date of SDG&E’s 2016 GRC P2 TOU rates) will have the ability to:
1. take service under a TOU rate that uses the new TOU Periods
or2. take service under tiered rates in effect at the time Permission to Operate was issued
Customers who receive Permission to Operate before the implementation of SDG&E’s 2016 GRC P2 TOU Rates will have the ability to:
1. take service under a TOU rate that uses the new TOU Periods
or2. take service under a TOU rate that uses existing TOU Periods in effect at the time Permission to Operate was issued
or3. take service under existing tiered rates in effect at the time Permission to Operate was issued
On and after December 1, 2017, rates that use legacy TOU Periods will no longer be a rate option available for new customers that are not eligible for TOU Period Grandfathering.
Eligible customers will receive TOU Period Grandfathering for up to five years from the date Permission to Operate was issued.
If a customer receiving service under Schedule NEM-ST is billing under a TOU rate prior to December 1, 2017, the customer will automatically receive TOU Period Grandfathering for a period of up to five years from the date Permission to Operate was issued.
Customers who receive Permission to Operate after 3/30/2018 and customers switching to this schedule from a different NEM schedule are required to be billed under an applicable TOU rate and do not have the ability to opt-out to a non-TOU rate.
If a customer does not make an election, the applicable default rate is Schedule DR-SES.
So let’s recap.
- SDG&E is changing their rates, so that you will not get peak hours when the sun is giving you the most of it’s rays — namely during the middle of the day. They are moving their structured rates to a night time peak hour point — which is when most people utilize their power — they are home from work and the sun is low.
- March 30th is your deadline — whether or not you already have solar panels, or if you want to have solar panels in the future, and would rather be grandfathered into the old tiered model, March 30th is your deadline to do so.
- Powerwalls or Batteries to take your Solar Energy System off the grid entirely are not price conscious at this time, but they will be in the future.
- Pingo Solar can get you into a beautiful Solar Energy System — at a price which is cheaper than most of our clients are paying for utilities. Thus, you would be harvesting your own Solar Power, and at a cost for less than you are currently buying electricity and gas from SDG&E or Edison or whomever you are purchasing your utilities from.
Here’s A Much More Viable Solution
Pingo Solar is a Solar Energy Company dedicated to finding you a price conscious way to get solar energy system purchased or financed. Our financing options are getting most of our customers into a situation where they are paying less than they currently pay for utilities to get their Solar Energy System up and running and feeding power back into the grid.
