Californians EV users will have most pain at the plug

[Chuck]

California utility bills are already 35% above the national average. It's estimated a Volt driver would use 60% of their electricity charging the car

Tiffany Hsu - LATIMES - Jan 14, 2011

Could smart meters somehow give charging EV's a discount rate? --Ed.

Californians may end up paying the highest electricity rates in the country to charge their electric vehicles, a new study says.

The state's tiered rate system, in which customers are charged higher rates as they use more electricity, could make plug-in hybrid and battery-powered vehicles more costly to own, according to a Purdue University study.

The study was unveiled as the first of the electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles are reaching consumers. Two vehicles, the all-electric Nissan Leaf and the plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt, started being delivered to their first customers last month.... [Read More]

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Short of scrapping tiered pricing, Tyner said, utilities in California should consider installing flat-rate meters for electric cars that are billed separately from the rest of the household.

What a good suggestion...

But local power companies said they are already experimenting with different rate formulas to help boost electric car use. Southern California Edison offers three programs for electric vehicle owners, said Ed Kjaer, director of electric transportation at the utility.

One of them involves having a separate, lower rate for the electric car.

Which is why it was already being implemented! Maybe this guy should stick to studying boilers.

Tiered rates do, I think, cause issues, but the effect was there long before EVs: it made heating (including drying clothes) with electricity prohibitively expensive.

However, flat-rate electricity is A Bad Thing and to suggest it is ridiculous. It fails to reflect the two realities of current and future costs and encourages waste.

With EVs of course, the additional consumption isn't wasteful, it's for the desirable goals of reducing fossil fuel use and lowering urban pollution.

Fortunately, with EVs, electricity companies will want to do everything they can to encourage EVs to get their hands on the extra income. Given that EVs will use a lot of electricity but can be charged off-peak they are a great opportunity for generators to make more money without additional capacity.

[98CRV]

Meddling in the market led to a penalty for electricity use. Now people want a subsidy in favor of electric car use? People who can't afford a Volt will end up subsidizing the electricity use of Volt users. That's not right

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Originally Posted by 98CRV

Meddling in the market led to a penalty for electricity use. Now people want a subsidy in favor of electric car use? People who can't afford a Volt will end up subsidizing the electricity use of Volt users. That's not right

Less a subsidy, more a separate rate. It's very simple: EV use is to be encouraged; most electrical use is discouraged.

[herm]

California could build a few coal burning plants if they wanted to pay less for electricity.

[paratwa]

Originally Posted by 98CRV

Meddling in the market led to a penalty for electricity use. Now people want a subsidy in favor of electric car use? People who can't afford a Volt will end up subsidizing the electricity use of Volt users. That's not right

Before we start barbecuing the EV owners over subsidies, lets cut oil company subsides.

[EVuser]

http://www.pge.com/includes/docs/pdf...ns/res/e-9.pdf
If you like to look at numbers above is the rate structure for PG&E. The other CA utilities under the state regulations likely have pretty similiar structures.

You see that there is no simple structure. Even the "cheap" EV off peak rate is tiered so as to get pretty expensive if you use a lot of KWHs.

If you happen to be a typicial user during the peak time of the day you PAY a serious cost for the benefit of a reduced rate off peak. No free lunch so to speak. The best of both worlds is to meter the EV charger by itself. This is a option but not always a cheap one.

http://www.pge.com/about/environment...es/index.shtml
"The E-9 rate is mandatory for those customers that are currently on a residential electric rate and who plan on refueling an EV on their premises."

The tiering structure is all tied to the E-1 rate structure but if you are using more than 762 KWH per month welcome to tier 4.

If you want to see what you would pay with a standard PG&E residential rate go here
http://www.pge.com/myhome/myaccount/charges/
If you put in various cities in the PG&E territory the structure changes slightly. Basicially the milder climates have lower tiers than the hotter/colder ones. All electric houses get a bit of a break also (not much). Oakland or Davis are two cities you might use to check you own KWH cost.

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Originally Posted by EVuser

http://www.pge.com/includes/docs/pdf...ns/res/e-9.pdf
If you like to look at numbers above is the rate structure for PG&E. The other CA utilities under the state regulations likely have pretty similiar structures.

You see that there is no simple structure. Even the "cheap" EV off peak rate is tiered so as to get pretty expensive if you use a lot of KWHs.

If you happen to be a typicial user during the peak time of the day you PAY a serious cost for the benefit of a reduced rate off peak. No free lunch so to speak. The best of both worlds is to meter the EV charger by itself. This is a option but not always a cheap one.

http://www.pge.com/about/environment...es/index.shtml
"The E-9 rate is mandatory for those customers that are currently on a residential electric rate and who plan on refueling an EV on their premises."

The tiering structure is all tied to the E-1 rate structure but if you are using more than 762 KWH per month welcome to tier 4.

If you want to see what you would pay with a standard PG&E residential rate go here
http://www.pge.com/myhome/myaccount/charges/
If you put in various cities in the PG&E territory the structure changes slightly. Basicially the milder climates have lower tiers than the hotter/colder ones. All electric houses get a bit of a break also (not much). Oakland or Davis are two cities you might use to check you own KWH cost.

There's a reason solar panels are really popular in California.

For our 659.81kWh/month it would be $132 in Oakland. Our electricity use includes drying clothes, cooking and running the pump on the furnace.

It's $101.47 here on a flat rate.

[dr61]

FYI, not all Californians have tiered rates. Municipal-owned utilities are not required to have tiered rates. My city owns its own utility and has fixed rates (which I am against).