TOU metering report [RE-wrenches]

jberdner at sma-america.com jberdner at sma-america.com
Wed Jun 26 16:46:47 PDT 2002


Bill / Allan:

Generally I tell people the NET TOU is a good bet >> IF << no one is
home during the day and so they can keep summer daytime (peak) loads
low.
If the customer works at home or has school age children then it
probably won't work out.  Be really careful to make sure they understand
the impact of peak loads.  A few days of leaving the AC all day on can
undo a lot of PV credits.

Bill brings up a good point that you need to consider the meter charge
of $277 and the monthly charge of $5 per month. IMHO, this is almost a
trivial amount so I must disagree with him that most customers are
better off on a straight tiered metering.  The snapshot from Alan's
customer clearly shows a big positive economic effect for TOU.  If the
TOU does work for their lifestyle then they can totally eliminate their
utility bill with a smaller PV system.  When you look at total installed
system cost the meter cost is less than one module and so this is almost
a no brainer.

If you a commercial customer in San Diego and you are already paying TOU
plus demand charges ($/peak kW), the economics of PV start looking
really, really good.  For some good economic models check out Tom Hoff's
clean power estimator on the CEC website.  Better yet go to Tom's own
site at http://www.clean-power.com/research and check out some of his
other work. Tom is an engineering economist with lots of PV experience.
He was responsible for most of the economic analysis that PG&E did in
the good old days.

If you have any questions, or if I can be of any further assistance,
please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best Regards,

John Berdner

SMA America, Inc.
20830 Red Dog Road
Grass Valley, CA  95945
530.273.4595 (voice)
530.274.7271 (fax) 


-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Brooks [mailto:billb at endecon.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2002 2:38 PM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: RE: TOU metering report [RE-wrenches]

Allan,

That type of evaluation is fine for a spot check, but it leaves out
several
very important factors that can cause the numbers to go the other way.
Safest bet in California is to stick with the tiered rate unless the
customer already has experience that their saving money with the TOU
rate
without PV (as is obvious from your example).

The current tiered rate structure in California is extremely beneficial
to
PV and makes it very difficult to justify the additional $277 for the
meter
and additional $5 per month for the meter charge. Just a caution so that
installers don't take this analysis and run with it and end up with
angry
customers.

Bill.


-----Original Message-----
From: Allan Sindelar [mailto:allan at positiveenergysolar.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2002 12:20 PM
To: New wrenches posting
Subject: Fw: TOU metering report [RE-wrenches]


Wrenches,
    This report was posted to the SW-GTI forum that was mentioned here
about
1-2 months ago. While it doesn't affect us in New Mexico (no TOU), I am
forwarding it to this group for those of us who can benefit.
Allan at Positive Energy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Brock" <cbrock at cisco.com>
To: <TraceSWGTI at eCompute.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2002 2:05 AM
Subject: TOU metering report


> This is not related to the GTI, however, I thought this might be of
> interest to report on how Time of Use billing is working out for me. I
> distilled a lot data; to make it easier to comprehend, I've tried to
> explain it in plain English:
>
>
> The PG&E summer rate schedule began May1:
>
> peak (M-F noon to 6PM only):     31.5 cents /kwhr
> off-peak:                                     8.5 cents /kwhr
>
> from May 1 to Jun 25:
>
> I consumed  88 peak + 633 off-peak, totaling 721 kwhrs
>
> I generated 427 peak + 492 off-peak, totaling 919 kwhrs
>
> Looking just at off-peak, I used 633 kwhrs, but generated only 492
kwhrs,
> so I had to buy 141 kwhrs from PGE, which cost me $12.41
>
> Looking at just peak, I used only 88 kwhrs, and generated 427 kwrhs,
> which, because of its superior value, the surplus of 339 kwhrs earned
me
> $94.86 in credits
>
> Standard non-TOU metering is 12.5 cents per kwhr for the first tier.
If I
> had been on standard metering, I would have earned a credit of $24.75
for
> the surplus of 198 kwhrs I put into PG&E's grid.
>
> Because of TOU metering, the time of day is taken into consideration
for
> the value of the electricity I put into the grid:
>
> $94.86 -$12.41 = $82.45
>
> Bottom line: For me, TOU more than tripled (3.33 times) the value of
the
> electricity I exchanged with the public grid.
>
> Chris
>
>

- - - -
To send a message: RE-wrenches at topica.com

Archive of previous messages: http://www.topica.com/lists/RE-wrenches/

List rules & etiquette: http://www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/etiquete.htm

Check out participant bios: www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/index.html

Hosted by Home Power magazine

Moderator: michael.welch at homepower.com

- - - -
To send a message: RE-wrenches at topica.com

Archive of previous messages: http://www.topica.com/lists/RE-wrenches/

List rules & etiquette: http://www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/etiquete.htm

Check out participant bios: www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/index.html

Hosted by Home Power magazine

Moderator: michael.welch at homepower.com

- - - -
To send a message: RE-wrenches at topica.com

Archive of previous messages: http://www.topica.com/lists/RE-wrenches/

List rules & etiquette: http://www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/etiquete.htm

Check out participant bios: www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/index.html

Hosted by Home Power magazine

Moderator: michael.welch at homepower.com

==^================================================================
This email was sent to: michael.welch at homepower.com

EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Qcs.bz9JC9
Or send an email to: RE-wrenches-unsubscribe at topica.com

T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
==^================================================================










More information about the RE-wrenches mailing list