PG&E E1 Rates w/MedBase Line - History & Future

[cebury]

I used spreadsheets to see what future PG&E bills would look like w/out Solar PV to help determine true costs of do-nothing vs. install PV. Since I had the data at hand, I went ahead and ran back numbers back to 2011 comparing Medical Baseline rates vs. none (since we may forego medbase if family member moves out, etc). I was surprised at the numbers.

I also learned what MY true Rate Escalation is.

Method: Last 12 months of bills, plugged into XLS individually then sum'd, at current rates (verified accurate). Then plugged in past and future rates from tariffs.
Scenario: If I had my current usage snapshot during these years, here's what the bill would be:
The % is a running increase from the original 2011 rates.


E1 Rates
2011 $2,505 0.00%
2012 $2,480 -1.00%
2013 $2,535 1.20%
2014 $2,650 5.79%
1/1/2015 $2,662 6.27%
9/1/2015 $2,634 5.15%
2016 $2,639 5.35%
2017 $2,638 5.31%
2018 $2,630 4.99%
2019 $2,614 4.35%
2020 $2,612 4.27%


With Medical Baseline Allocation (32.0 instead of 15 base kwh)
2011 $1,632 0.00%
2012 $1,695 3.86%
2013 $1,744 6.86%
2014 $1,763 8.03%
1/1/2015 $2,058 26.10%
9/1/2015 $2,112 29.41%
2016 $2,205 35.11%
2017 $2,290 40.32%
2018 $2,298 40.81%
2019 $2,312 41.67%
2020 $2,310 41.54%



From 2011 to 2020 my bill would ONLY have increased 4.27%. Not a lot.This is because we fall into the higher usage Tiers which received discounts in the past few years, despite the lower tiers being raised. Sounds good, but...

It works opposite for the Medical Baseline benefit, which has reduced by 29% today since 2011 and will be reduced 41.5% by 2020. I personally felt the discount was too high anyway.

Also so much for the installers assuming a 6% annual increase for everyone on E1 also.

Does all this sound right?

[solar_newbie]

Why do you listen to them? I always assume the rate is unchanged and calculate the return from there.

[J.P.M.]

I've done some of the same forensic looking at prior rates as you, although more detailed and more general, mostly for myself to check on what peddler slugs were saying (and mostly B.S), but also for my HOA as a bit of pro bono time waste. I detailed residential tariff, schedule "DR" for SDG & E, going back to 2003 pretty hard and as far back as 1998 for a lot of it for tiered rates for residential rate structures. I have no trouble believing your numbers, but I'd respectfully caution that 4 years is not a terribly long time to spot a trend. Also, some years rates actually have gone down. Honest.

The exercise was and continues to be a real PITA but an eye opener as well. An example: annual % age rates of change (increase/decrease) are/were quite dependent on annual usage. Some years, large users got large %age increases over the prior year, while low usage users got little or no increase for the same year. Some years, like 2009, increases were high, particularly for large users. 12,000 kWh/yr. users had a 29.3 % increase ($1,933 to $2,498). 18,000 kWh/yr. users had a 39.8% increase ($3,199 to $4,471). In some contrast, again in 2009, 6,000 kWh users had a 3.9% increase ($810 to $842). Rates are all electric, inland, 2009 billing schedule, billing cycle 3.

FWIW: On the impact of rate reform so far - and with caution that it's very early in the process - For tiered rates, still schedule DR, coastal and inland, SDG & E's last published DR tariff of 4 tiers of 05/01/2015, and the new (09/01/2015) DR tariff using 3 tiers show a DECREASE in rates for all 4 regions for schedule DR (residential tiered) of from about -2 % for 6,000 kWh/yr. usage to about -3 % or so for 12,000 kWh/yr., to about -5 % or so for 18,000 kW/yr. The mountain and desert regions seem to show smaller decreases.

As for peddlers telling you about rate increases, some are truthful, some are full of B.S., more than a few are morons. My experience is most of them are pretty clueless about the actual state of historic rate increase. Worse, they all seem to cherry pick numbers/years/situations/tariffs, and at least seem to IMPLY that what they say (although mostly haven't got a clue about) regarding PRIOR rate increases automatically and unfailingly applies to the future in both consistent direction (up) and magnitude (large). First off, as we all know, the past is no guarantee of the future, and 2d, even if it were, the past has been both inconsistent and quite variable, at least for SDG & E, and as I seem to somewhat casually observe, the other CA POCOs as well.