SCE TOU Plan or keep non TOU

yes2

New member
SCE sent me a notification that they will switch me over to TOU plan if I do not opt out. Just wondering if folks who made a move to TOU did see cost savings and any feedback on how it impacted your activities.

Thanks
 
I'm still using a grandfathered TOU-D-B plan, which has super offpeak rate at 14 cents from 10pm to 8am. So I start charging my Prius Prime from 10:30pm. This saved me quite a bit of money compared to tier rate plan. Unfortunately, this plan is set to expire end of the year, so I would need to switch to one of the current TOU plans. Since I own a Prius Prime, I could switch to TOU-D-Prime, which is much better than either TOU-D-4-9PM or TOU-D-5-8PM since its offpeak rate is much lower than either.

I'm not really sure if either of these TOU-D plan is better than tier plan since offpeak rate seems to be pretty high still.
 
I really depends on your usage and if you have solar or not. For me Prime made a lot of sense because we have 2 electric cars with high mileage so our off-peak usage and charging is high.
 
Anyone else struggling with figuring this out? I was on the legacy TOU-D-B rate which is being discontinued. Got a notice from SCE that says they will default me to the new TOU-D-4-9PM rate unless I opt into some other plan. They provide a table listing the expected costs for each of these plans and how they differ from my current plan. My struggle is whether or not I trust what they are saying?

For me, we have solar and an EV that we charge overnight (super off peak hours). My current annual cost (per SCE) is $506/year. The new TOU Rate they are defaulting me to has an expected annual cost of $751/year. But the table also shows a "Domestic" plan that would only be $581/year. This appears to be the better option, but that's based on what SCE is telling me. I'm also surprised that the TOU-D-PRIME rate for me is so high at $895/year.

My inclination is to go with the Domestic plan since it is showing up as the cheapest. Just want to make sure I'm not missing something here.
 
ChiKid24 said:
Anyone else struggling with figuring this out? I was on the legacy TOU-D-B rate which is being discontinued. Got a notice from SCE that says they will default me to the new TOU-D-4-9PM rate unless I opt into some other plan. They provide a table listing the expected costs for each of these plans and how they differ from my current plan. My struggle is whether or not I trust what they are saying?

For me, we have solar and an EV that we charge overnight (super off peak hours). My current annual cost (per SCE) is $506/year. The new TOU Rate they are defaulting me to has an expected annual cost of $751/year. But the table also shows a "Domestic" plan that would only be $581/year. This appears to be the better option, but that's based on what SCE is telling me. I'm also surprised that the TOU-D-PRIME rate for me is so high at $895/year.

My inclination is to go with the Domestic plan since it is showing up as the cheapest. Just want to make sure I'm not missing something here.

It doesn't make sense that TOU-D-PRIME is more expensive than TOU-D-4-9PM since the offpeak rate for PRIME is 18c and 4-9PM is 30c. Maybe it's because PRIME also has a 40c daily basic charge and 4-9PM has a baseline credit?
 
CalBears96 said:
It doesn't make sense that TOU-D-PRIME is more expensive than TOU-D-4-9PM since the offpeak rate for PRIME is 18c and 4-9PM is 30c. Maybe it's because PRIME also has a 40c daily basic charge and 4-9PM has a baseline credit?

Yup, just got off the phone with them. TOU-D-PRIME has 40c daily charge vs 3c for TOU-D-4-9 and no baseline credit. The daily charge adds an additional $135 a year, before even including the credit. Looks like Domestic plan is best for me.
 
I had to break down my solar generation by season by hour for 2 years. Took my 2 year usage data as well. Overlayed that by the different plan types and saw that Prime was the clear winner for me even with higher daily fee.
 
ChiKid24 said:
Yup, just got off the phone with them. TOU-D-PRIME has 40c daily charge vs 3c for TOU-D-4-9 and no baseline credit. The daily charge adds an additional $135 a year, before even including the credit. Looks like Domestic plan is best for me.

I haven't got a notice from SCE, but most likely I'll switch to Prime. By Domestic plan, do you mean the regular tiered rate plan?
 
CalBears96 said:
ChiKid24 said:
Anyone else struggling with figuring this out? I was on the legacy TOU-D-B rate which is being discontinued. Got a notice from SCE that says they will default me to the new TOU-D-4-9PM rate unless I opt into some other plan. They provide a table listing the expected costs for each of these plans and how they differ from my current plan. My struggle is whether or not I trust what they are saying?

For me, we have solar and an EV that we charge overnight (super off peak hours). My current annual cost (per SCE) is $506/year. The new TOU Rate they are defaulting me to has an expected annual cost of $751/year. But the table also shows a "Domestic" plan that would only be $581/year. This appears to be the better option, but that's based on what SCE is telling me. I'm also surprised that the TOU-D-PRIME rate for me is so high at $895/year.

My inclination is to go with the Domestic plan since it is showing up as the cheapest. Just want to make sure I'm not missing something here.

It doesn't make sense that TOU-D-PRIME is more expensive than TOU-D-4-9PM since the offpeak rate for PRIME is 18c and 4-9PM is 30c. Maybe it's because PRIME also has a 40c daily basic charge and 4-9PM has a baseline credit?

This is a common misunderstanding that SCE CSRs constantly push.  PRIME is not always the best plan.  It ended up costing me $250 more last year by going on PRIME after the recommendation from the CSR.  Since you can only change your plan once a year, I had my TOU 4-9 retroactively changed to PRIME at the end of the year.  Once it changed, I was given a $250 additional bill.  I was pretty pissed...

Anyway, make sure to do your own calculation.  If you drive a ton and charge at night, PRIME might be your best bet.  But the point is that it's not that obvious of a decision.
 
Prime typically only makes sense if you're a high energy user that can shift usage outside of 4-9PM hours. Your usage needs to be high enough to offset the higher daily usage cost so of course charging EVs. I think there will be fringe cases of Prime making sense for non-EV drivers but probably very few.
 
woodburyowner said:
This is a common misunderstanding that SCE CSRs constantly push.  PRIME is not always the best plan.  It ended up costing me $250 more last year by going on PRIME after the recommendation from the CSR.  Since you can only change your plan once a year, I had my TOU 4-9 retroactively changed to PRIME at the end of the year.  Once it changed, I was given a $250 additional bill.  I was pretty pissed...

Anyway, make sure to do your own calculation.  If you drive a ton and charge at night, PRIME might be your best bet.  But the point is that it's not that obvious of a decision.

I see. Well, I drive a Prius Prime, but I do charge every night. Looking at my latest bills, I used 862kWh, of which 601kWh is during super off peak (10pm-8am). Currently, my baseline credit is 586kWh, but I don't know if that's going to change. Based on those numbers, I would be paying $13 more using 4-9PM over PRIME.
 
Cares said:
Prime typically only makes sense if you're a high energy user that can shift usage outside of 4-9PM hours. Your usage needs to be high enough to offset the higher daily usage cost so of course charging EVs. I think there will be fringe cases of Prime making sense for non-EV drivers but probably very few.

Supposedly, you need to prove that you have an EV to be able to use PRIME, but they don't actually ask for proof.
 
The math gets super convoluted.  I charge my EV from 6-9PM.

Egads you say, why would you do that?

Easy, I like making money.  Classic good intentions doing bad.  I have net metering, with net metering, my panels push out, then I charge and use more from the EV than the excess of my panels. 

Charge overnight you say.  No, I say.  I use a few hundred in net energy charging my car.  The secret is I can skip charging my car one night, two if needed.  That?s important because we have energy reduction  (deferral) programs.  6-9PM is peak times for flex alerts.  They pay well to ?reduce? your energy during the flex alerts.  So you don?t charge your car during the alert and simply charge another time. 

Net result, enough payments they have to issue me a 1099. Here?s the kicker, all the big earners in the program on the message boards are doing the same thing.  They load as much of their usage into a small peak window that they can easily defer. 

Cynical I know. So I have to figure out if the new program, changes to the reduction programs and energy use movement pays best.
 
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