PG&E’s electricity costs have been going up steadily for the past 30 years and are expected to increase at a rate of ~10% per year over the next 10 years. PG&E currently has over $30 Billion in pending rate increase requests at the CPUC. Increases have been the most significant for residents who live in multi-tenant units and have medium usage. Rates increases planned and approved by the Utility and CPUC favor the single-family homeowner and commercial customers who have the wherewithal and legal authority to install solar for their own use to actually lower single family home rates and/or shift the cost to renters. Your property owner and Powertree are teamed to combat this cost shift and save tenants money through onsite renewable clean energy.
Time of Use Rates are now required and are changing: Current CPUC regulations require that ALL new accounts (new setup or changes of rate schedule or billing person/entity) be on Time of Use and that all customers will be shifted to Time of Use over time. During the day, there is a tremendous amount of renewable energy delivered to the California grid. Renewables are providing enough electricity to the grid that traditional energy generation during the peak sun hours of the day is shut down. The highest energy demand during a day is now in the evening hours.
Prior to this heavy renewable production, usage and the cost of electricity was the highest from noon until 6:00 pm, the former “Peak Period”. Moving forward, “Peak Period” is going to be from 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm when solar power is not producing at a significant rate. People use most of their power from 4:00 pm to 9:00 pm and this forces fossil fueled “Peaker Plants” to fire up to meet that evening demand. Energy produced by these “Peaker Plants” is very expensive and highly polluting. Thus, the Time of Use changes will have a big impact on the energy bills for residents and be 2X to 3X the minimum daily rates.