genability.com | Tariff News

Notice on SMUD Tariff R-TOD-SSR, March - July 2022

Sacramento Municipal Utility District (“SMUD”) introduced a new Solar and Storage tariff for solar customers (Rate Schedule “R-TOD-SSR”), which took effect on March 1, 2022. SMUD published documentation regarding the revised tariff structure on their website: https://www.smud.org/-/media/Documents/Rate-Information/Rates/01_SSR.ashx
genability.com | Tariff News

California Net Energy Metering 3.0 (NEM3)

California is updating its Net Energy Metering policies in 2022, commonly referred to as NEM3.0. Genability customers can rely on Genability providing full support for them. Ahead of the publication of the final NEM 3 tariffs and rates, Genability has publishing a set of Tariffs with the latest proposed rate structures for customers to use. Once details are available, the finalized tariffs and rates will be published for all to use. In this blog post we track updates as the policies and rate changes firm up. We recommend checking back hear from time to time to get the lastest.
genability.com | Company

Whats new with Genability

Like many companies, the start of a new year is a time when Genability’s goals and objectives are updated and plans are set in motion. Here’s a summary of what we are up to in 2021.
genability.com | Tariff News

California Residential Electricity Rate Changes - January 2020

Southern California Edison (SCE), Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) all released new tariff rates on January 1, 2020 improving the economics of residential solar for all three utilities.
genability.com | Products

Solar Incentives Data

Genability Switch customers no longer need to maintain their own database of residential solar incentives. As of October 15, 2019 Genability’s Solar Incentives API has graduated from Beta to V1 and is now available under general release for Switch customers that wish to license it. We’ve also built a new user interface within Switch’s Dash web application to view this data along with your savings analyses.
genability.com | Tariff News

Review of Southern California Edison's New Post Solar Electricity Rates and its Impact on Savings

On March 1, 2019 Southern California Edison (SCE) will close its current default post-solar tariff (TOU-D-A-NEM2) and replace it with a new default post-solar tariff (TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2). This tariff change will dramatically impact solar savings in SCE as the Time of Use (TOU) On-Peak hours move from 2-8 PM under TOU-D-A-NEM2 to 4-9 PM under TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2. More importantly TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2 introduces a Super Off-Peak period in the Winter from 8 AM to 4 PM, when the majority of solar production occurs.
genability.com | Products

Savings Analysis API Support for Non-bypassable Charges

Genability has just upgraded both our Savings Analysis API and our Calculate API to better support Non-Bypassable Charges (NBCs). What are NBCs you ask? Well that’s how the California utilities refer to the customer’s annual NBCs that cannot be offset by Net Energy Metering (NEM) Credits under NEM 2.0. These NBCs behave as a second minimum charge calculation that’s performed during the customer’s annual true-up.
genability.com | Tariff News

Review of California's Proposed Commercial Time of Use Electricity Tariffs

In 2019, both Pacific Gas & Electric (PGE) and Southern California Edison (SCE) will introduce new Time-of-Use (TOU) periods for commercial tariffs. Both utilities are moving highly-priced peak hours later in the day, from mid-afternoon to 4-9 PM. If you are selling solar, storage and/or energy efficiency in California, you want to be sure to calculate savings using these new tariffs. Thanks to Genability’s new Proposed Tariffs product for enterprise customers, now you can!
genability.com | Products

Proposed Tariffs included in Genability database

Our Proposed Tariffs feature allows you to use our complete set of tools to calculate the costs and savings of tariffs that are not yet published and live.
genability.com | Products

Genability Adds Support for PVWatts Version 6

We’ve added support for Version 6 of NREL’s PVWatts API, used to estimate the hourly production of a customer’s solar PV system.
genability.com | Products

Explorer Web App for Energy Professionals

Today we are pleased to announce the launch of our latest product, Genability Explorer, a web-application for Energy Professionals.
genability.com | Tariff News

Solar Incentives in Illinois, Net Metering Ends for Duke Energy South Carolina

The roller coaster for solar in the U.S. (call it a Solar Coaster?) keeps rolling this summer.  The state of Illinois has finalized the credit values for its Adjustable Block Program, which provides solar owners with an upfront payment for 15 years of estimated solar production.  Meanwhile, in South Carolina the state legislature failed to increase the net metering cap and Duke Energy has met its 2% limit. Starting on August 1, 2018 full net metering closes for Duke Energy SC customers and will be replaced by the Purchased Power Rider. First the good news for solar developers:
genability.com | Tariff News

Solar Incentives in Massachusetts

Later this year, Massachusetts will close out it’s SREC program replacing it with the new Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) incentives. While there are still a few details left to be finalized, Genability is able to model the proposed SMART incentives for our customers and has made the new incentives available via the Incentives API.
genability.com | Tariff News

Duke Energy North Carolina Solar Incentives

At 9 AM this morning (July 9, 2018), Duke Energy North Carolina started accepting incentive applications for their Solar Rebate program and Genability has made the new incentive available via our Incentives API.
genability.com | Company

Genability Open for Business for Commercial Energy Customers

We have an exciting announcement. Genability is now open for business to any and all new energy companies servicing commercial and industrial customers. Today we have lifted all restrictions that might have prevented you from working with us in the past.
genability.com | Tariff News

Hawaiian Smart Export and Customer Grid Supply Solar Programs

Starting on 2/20/2018, the three Hawaiian investor-owned utilities will offer two new programs for customers with solar: Customer Grid Supply Plus and Smart Export. Both programs offer export credits for power provided to the grid, an option that has not been available in Hawaii since the Customer Grid Supply programs closed in 2017. Genability has just made these two programs available for Hawaiian Electric Co (HECO), Hawaiian Electric Light Co (HELCO) and Maui Electric Co (MECO) for use in your solar proposals.
genability.com | Products

Estimating Energy Usage from Customer’s Bill Amount

Do you have a potential solar customer’s 12 months of bills or their annual bill amount for electricity? If so, we can now estimate energy usage from that information!
genability.com | Tariff News

New York Public Service Commission Guidelines on Presenting Solar Savings

Effective December 1, 2017, solar developers in New York are required by the New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC) to meet precise guidelines (PDF Download) when presenting savings estimates.  Genability has reviewed these requirements and we have made some data upgrades for New York so that our solar customers can comply with these new requirements without any change to their API integration.  First, let’s review the new savings requirement:
genability.com | Products

Run Down of Genability Developer Website Updates

A quick rundown of the latest and greatest updates on GDN, our developer website.
genability.com | Tariff News

The Methodology Behind our Monthly Residential Rates Newsletter

Every month Genability updates thousands of tariffs. These changes can be as small as a simple rate increase or as large as a whole new rate structure. For just over a year now, around the 10th of each month, we have sent out a summary of those changes in our Monthly Residential Rate newsletter to help our customers better understand and anticipate these changes.
Tariff News

About Electricity Tariffs

By

| Reading time 3 minutes

Electricity tariffs are the contract between a utility and its customers.  In the past selecting your electricity tariff was like choosing the color of your Model T, there was no choice.  That’s changing as Utility Commissions push the utilities to provide consumers with choices.  In deregulated markets, non-utility electric suppliers are offering an enormous variety of plans with more complexity.  Increasingly an electricity tariff can have all the complexity you would find in a cell phone plan.

Like cell phone plans, there are a number of different components. The simplest electricity tariffs consist of simply a base charge and consumption charges, like this one from the Knoxville Utility Board.

  • Basic Service                    $10.00

  • Energy Charges               8.529¢/kWh

From this starting point, the utilities start to add complexity.  The first change to rate structures is usually adjusting the price by season.  Increased demand for electricity in the summer due to air conditioning is converted into higher prices in the summer.  Similarly, utilities will often charge different per kWh rates above and below certain consumption threshholds. The default tariff for Georgia Power has both features:

  • Basic Service Charge        $9

  • Winter Energy Charges (Oct - May)

  1. 0 - 650 kWh                        5.0633¢/kWh

  2. 651 - 1000 kWh                 4.3443¢/kWh

  3. Over 1000 kWh                 4.2670¢/kWh

  • Summer Energy Charges (Jun - Sep)
  1. 0 - 650 kWh                        5.0633¢/kWh

  2. 651 - 1000 kWh                 8.4166¢/kWh

  3. Over 1000 kWh                 8.6701¢/kWh

Yet more complex are the time-of-use rates that are being added by utilities all over the U.S. as they roll out smart meters.  With these rates, the price of electricity changes according the to the hour of the day and the day of the week.  These are usually used in concert with seasons to create rates that vary dramatically throughout the year, like in this time-of-use tariff from Nevada Power:

  • Basic Service Charge         $9

  • Base Energy Rate               5.215¢/kWh

  • Summer Rates (Jun - Sep)

  1. On-Peak (1 PM - 7PM)    24.873¢/kWh

  2. Off-Peak                                2.818¢/kWh

  • Winter Rate                          1.616¢/kWh

Lastly, there’s one more charge type that’s rarely used for residential electricity tariffs but is a cornerstone of electricity tariffs for businesses; the demand charge.  The demand charge measures peak usage and is discussed in more detail here.  To end this post, I’ll leave you with a tariff that includes demand charges, time-of-use and seasons from Arizona Public Service:

  • Basic Service Charge          $0.21/Day

  • Metering                                $0.17/Day

  • Meter Reading                     $0.06/Day

  • Billing                                    $0.06/Day

Delivery Charges

  • Summer  (May - Oct) w/ On-Peak (9 AM- 9PM)
  1. Demand                                 $3.38/kW

  2. On-Peak Consumption      1.125¢/kWh

  • Winter On-Peak (Nov - Apr) w/ On-Peak (9AM-9PM)
  1. Demand                                 $1.85/kW

  2. On-Peak Consumption      1.38¢/kWh

Generation Charges

  • Summer  (May - Oct) w/ On-Peak (9 AM- 9PM)
  1. Demand                                 $8.49/kW

  2. On-Peak Consumption      6.003¢/kWh

  3. Off-Peak Consumption      2.034¢/kWh

  • Winter On-Peak (Nov - Apr) w/ On-Peak (9AM-9PM)
  1. Demand                                 $6.30/kW

  2. On-Peak Consumption      3.065¢/kWh

  3. Off-Peak Consumption      1.699¢/kWh

As you can see there are a lot of factors that need to be considered in order to select the best electricity tariff for an individual circumstances.  That’s why we provide all of this data through an easy to use RESTful API. Beats the heck out of having to read documents like this 477 page PDF from Commonwealth Edison.  Leave that to us.

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