SDG&E’s New Time-Of-Use Plan Explained

Speaker 1: 00:00 San Diego gas and electric has already transitioned hundreds of thousands of its customers to a time of use energy plant. Hey, PBS science and technology reporter Shalina Chet Lani says, the shift is a response to a changing electric grid in California Speaker 2: 00:17 on a university of San Diego, rooftop Scott Anders walks down an aisle within a sea of solar arrays. He's the director of the energy policy initiatives center here. Andrew says California has major climate action goals. So over the last decade, the amount of renewables, particularly solar on the states electric grid has increased three fold increase in solar is really a combination of large scale solar and then also building or site specific installations like this one here. But this increase in renewables has created some issues for grid operators. They're variable resources. They don't produce energy all the time. Solar panels only produce when the sun is shining and wind turbines only produced when the wind is blowing. State law mandates that 60% of California's energy must come from renewables like solar by 2030 but right now they only provide around 30% so half that amount. So the same challenges we see now will increase and there are some strategies that California is looking at to mitigate those challenges. One is the time of use rates. Time of use rates are all about supply and demand. When the sun is shining in the morning, Speaker 1: 01:26 there's lots of clean solar energy on the grid. The price therefore is cheaper, but towards the evening when the supply of solar is going down, electricity demand is going up. Utilities have to turn on their natural gas plants which are not as clean, so energy becomes more expensive. Andrew says this price shift is a way to change consumers habits, so more people end up using the cheaper and cleaner energy. Speaker 2: 01:52 If we can align the price, we charge customers to the, to the price in the market. That helps get people consuming in the middle of the day rather than in the evening. It's not just us Speaker 1: 02:01 CG and e making this change. The California Public Utilities Commission has mandated that all investor owned utilities switch their customers over to a default opt out time of use energy plan SDG and e just happens to be the first one in this transition. Still many of the utilities customers are worrying they're about to spend more money on their electricity bills within this new 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM peak window in a model smart home within the energy innovation center, SDG e communication manager, West Jones points to a number of Speaker 3: 02:35 Marc appliances, smart appliances or things that you can use when you're not actually there on scene at the time using it and you can, you know, program your phone to a lot of these appliances are, they're automated. Joan says for those who don't have smart appliances, time of use may require a shift in schedule. What are some things in here that the average person might have? Maybe that's not a smart appliance that they can adjust their life? Well, I mean even like, so obviously if you're going to run your dishwasher, if you can wait until after 9:00 PM to start running it on your own, that's going to help you save on your bill. Speaker 1: 03:08 June's also suggest running the laundry after 9:00 PM or adjusting the thermostat to cool the house early in the day. But Jones admits some families may find that challenging Speaker 3: 03:17 that they feel like they can't shift any of their usage and they have to use all their appliances or at a time they may find the plans not right for them and they have the choice to opt out. Speaker 1: 03:25 In the meantime, he says STG knee will have a one year pricing guarantee. So if you end up spending more on this plan, the utility, we'll credit you back. The difference joining me is KPBS science and technology reporter Shalina Chot Lonnie Shelina, welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. Is there any general estimate on how much consumers could save if they were able to switch most of their energy use out of that four to 9:00 PM window? Yeah. So generally, if you aren't using energy during that four to 9:00 PM window, you should see some savings on your energy bill. But it, it all depends, right on how much energy you're using. A, because time of use rate plans are not just based on when you're using energy, but how much energy you're actually consuming. So a SDG and e has a tool online that allows you to compare pricing plans and so you can, uh, see whether you'll actually end up spending more or less based off of how much energy you're using. Speaker 1: 04:21 So California's climate action plan is forcing SDG and e and other utilities to use more renewable energy sources. Tell us why that's creating more emphasis on switching the peak usage times. Sure. So yeah, California is going through a lot of changes right now. Uh, the, there's a state mandate for 60% of our energy to come from renewables by 2030, and that's 100% by 2045. Uh, so most of that is solar and solar is a very variable resource. That means most of the energy that's coming, um, is happening at a specific part of the day, mostly in the morning. And we don't have a lot of uh, really powerful battery storage right now. It's very expensive. The technology is still getting built. So that means that when we are adding more solar on the grid, uh, the utilities want to send a signal to customers that they should be using energy when there is most solar energy available. Speaker 1: 05:16 And so that's shifted the peak times. Traditionally it would be around 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM to a more variable solar energy kind of timelines. So CPEC wants that peak window to be four to nine because that's when the sun is going down. But demand is going up. What about energy consumers who are also energy producers, people who have invested in solar panels, what effect could the new time of use plan have on them? This is one complaint that I've heard a lot from the time of use switches. You know, when you are installing solar panels on your roof, the idea is that you're going to be saving money in the longterm because you are not only producing your own energy, but you're putting energy back onto the grid, um, and getting a credit back on your bill that'll just help you save more. But now because the time of use plan is based largely on solar, um, it could impact the rate of the credit that, uh, solar customers are getting back so they might actually be getting less money back. So I actually talked to a West Jones at SDG knee. He says he has some explanation for that. Speaker 4: 06:20 It's going to depend on each, the size of a customer's system. It's independent on how they manage their bills and when they use energy, um, and as well as sort of how much energy they're putting back on the grid. A lot of that can factor into, um, how big your system is and your overall usage. So it's not easy to say, uh, particularly how will one Cutler be impacted because it depends on each household and how their system operates. Speaker 1: 06:48 And one thing to also note, um, is that the time at which you installed your solar system also plays a big role in how you're going to be impacted by the time of use changed. So if you installed your solar panels before around mid 2016, you have an option to be on your s your, the plan that you originally opted in for when you installed your solar panels. After that time, you are pretty much automatically put on a time of use plan. So if you installed your solar panels after around 2017, the time of you switch really is kind of negligible for you. So it's nice and complicated. Yeah. STG and he says, getting time of view savings actually is pretty easy if you have smart appliances. But since smart appliances are more expensive, doesn't that mean the biggest savings might go to people who need it? Speaker 1: 07:37 The least? There is a potential for that. Um, and that was actually a, an argument that was brought up by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. Uh, there was a utility there that wanted to shift some of its customers over a time to time of use, but the commission denied it because the concern with that with smart appliances, right, is that that they allow more energy efficiency. They help customers put delays and timers and help them figure out how they can shift their energy use around. But again, for low income customers, there's the question of finances there again, coupled with all of these other issues that they might be dealing with already. Now, quite a significant number of people who have been paying attention according to your feature, have chosen to opt out of this new time of use plan. Now you send your little card back to SDG and e and you say you don't want to be on a time of use plan. Speaker 1: 08:32 Do you get any confirmation? I mean, how do you know that you're just not automatically on this new plant? Yeah, so there are a couple of ways to know for sure. A, you can go online to your my account and it'll say there, um, what type of plan that you're on. Um, if you get your bill in the mail, it should say on your bill as well. And this is a pilot program and it's an experiment by SDG e how will they determine if it's a success we should find out in August when SDG and e has a quarterly report, how many customers are opting out of this time of use plan? And that'll help us see what type of success the utilities happening having in this transition. And I have been speaking with KPBS science and technology reporter Shalina Chet Lani Shalina. Thank you. Thanks. Speaker 5: 09:22 Uh.