Matt- I 100% agree with you as to time of day metering. All of PG&E’s commercial customers are,or are soon to be, on this type of metering. Unfortunately, a few advocacy groups don’t like the concept (nor do they like smart meters- which is the enabling technology that allows this to happen) for the residential market. As you point out TOU metering gives you, the user of the energy, a signal that it really does costs more at certain times for your provider to provide you the energy at a given time of day. You might want to consider if you really need to use energy at that time of day as it is going to cost you more to do so. If you don’t know this fact (it costs more to get the power to you at a certain time) it’s kind of hard to put it into your personal decision making criteria.
As you are likely aware; in order for the utility scale PV developers (ex First Solar) to get the costs and benefits to work out to build the PV plants the CPUC and the service providers developed long term, must take, PPA contracts with TOD (Time of Delivery) factors that set the price PG&E would be paying ($/kwh) for the output (kwh) at certain times. In the summer at super peak times PG&E will be paying about $.24 for a kwh for the energy (generation) from the PV facilities (2009 contracts – the cpuc time of delivery (TOD) periods and factors are noted here- http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/FINAL_RESOLUTION/111386.htm) ) for 20 to 25 years. If your interested the TOD factors for all three private (PG&E, SCE, and San Diego) utility service providers are noted in the resolution. The newer contracts have a lower start price as the costs of building the RE facilities have gone down (as has the price of Nat Gas).
As you know a lot of processes (transmission, distribution, billing, overhead for the legal and administrative staff, maint, etc) are in place to move the generation of the electrical power from point A to your house. I went through a bit of a PG&E bill shock back in 2005 so I have been keeping track of how they allocate costs (and what effects those costs) since then. I am a curious fellow so I came up with a thought experiment: If I a bought a Nissan Leaf and I wanted to charge it at home with power from say the new PV facility in Boulder City, NV (I drove by this facility last year which is why I am using it as an example, President Obama was there earlier this year) during the summer at Super Peak times what would PG&E need to charge me based on a few details about what it actually costs them to do their part of getting power from NV to me. I had some data on their cost allocations (see their web site) per delivered kwh so I put the info below into a spreadsheet.
PG&E % of bill
Billing Category per kwh
Generation 46
Distribution 35.1
Public Purpose 6.7
Transmission 4.71
EC tax 0.02
Energy cost recovery 1.88
DWR bond 2.82
ongoingctc 2.58
nuc decomm 0.16
PG&E’s avg rate to cover all their costs to deliver a kwh to the residential market is $.186 currently. Using the table above we can estimate what their generation costs (which includes all RE generation in their portfolio up till the time they calculated the data for the table) are before we add in the new PV facility= $.086 kwh. We also know the price they are going to pay for the power from the new PV facility in Boulder City (the PAA price at super times) is $.24 so we can calculate the cost to deliver a kwh to me to charge my potential Leaf as $.34 kwh.
The only problem I can think of with this thought experiment is that I am not taking into account some costs associated with the processes that PG&E or CASIO will have to put in place to ensure a reliable supply of electricity at all times on the grid. I don’t have any data on this factor- which I call energy storage/reliability. The folks down at SCE are at the forefront of working out how to quantify this new need in our accounting system (and in the physical world) for reliable eclectic service. The service providers were almost required to have a percent of their generating capacity mandated for energy storage (see AB2415). The CPUC recently said we aren’t ready to require anything specific and they aren’t sure the need for energy storage should be mandated.
You have lots of other good questions and comments. Unfortunately I am out of time for internet stuff- other then a quick post about what LADWP residential prices were last year and what they are expected to go up to now that they have to meet a mandate for RE. It is hard to believe that LADWP could/can deliver all the energy you want for $.072 kwh during the Oct to May months in the residential market. I can see why a business development associate of mine said that LADWP have a huge competitive advantage compared to the Bay Area when it comes down to utility costs.
Have a good rest of the weekend. I traveled down to SD about 4 times a year, for about 10 years, to work with a company in your neck of the woods. Great location by the way.