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

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

By

| Reading time 5 minutes

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.

What Will Change in Genability APIs?

On March 1, 2019 Genability will:

  1. Mark TOU-D-A-NEM2 as closed in our system. This should eliminate it as a choice in your post-solar tariff drop-down list.
  2. Flag TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2 as the default post-solar tariff. This will default the post-solar tariff to TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2 automatically and put it at the top of your post-solar tariff drop-down list.

How are Solar Savings Affected?

Nearly all customers will save less with TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2 than with TOU-D-A-NEM2. We looked at the Avoided Cost of Power (ACP) for a customer that uses 10,000 kWh annually in each SCE baseline region under the old and new default solar tariffs and found ACP decreases across the board.

Zone TOU-D-A TOU-D-4-9PM Change
5 20.4¢ 14.5¢ -29%
6 21.5¢ 15.6¢ -27%
8 21.5¢ 15.6¢ -27%
9 21.0¢ 15.2¢ -28%
10 20.9¢ 14.6¢ -30%
13 20.7¢ 14.7¢ -29%
14 20.9¢ 14.6¢ -30%
15 20.0¢ 13.5¢ -33%
16 21.2¢ 15.1¢ -29%

Why such a big change in ACP? It all comes down to the new Time of Use periods and the difference in the price from the previous periods.

How Do the TOU Periods and Prices Differ?

In the graphs below we show a typical summer and winter weekday under the old tariff (TOU-D-A-NEM2) and the new tariff (TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2). All rates below reflect the first tier price with the Baseline Credit included.

Summer

Winter

While the new tariff name highlights the change in the On-Peak period from 2-8 PM to 4-9 PM, the biggest impact comes from the introduction of the Super Off-Peak period in the Winter. The new Super Off-Peak period is from 8AM to 4PM every day from October 1 through May 31 and provides the lowest net metering credit when the customer is most likely to be exporting kWh to the grid.

What Happens to Non-Bypassable and Minimum Charges?

Non-Bypassable charges are identical between the old and new default post-solar tariffs, so you will see little change there. We recently published another blog post on Non-Bypassable Charges and the alternate minimum they set for California tariffs.

Minimum charge calculations are also unchanged between the old and new default post-solar tariffs. That said you are much more likely to see the impact of SCE’s Delivery Minimums under the new TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2.

SCE calculates minimum charges against the Delivery Charges only and adds the Generation Charges on top of the minimum charges. This means that you can trigger the $10/month Delivery Minimum for SCE and still be responsible for considerable Generation Charges under the new TOU structure.

Here’s an example monthly post-solar calculation under both TOU-D-A-NEM2 and TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2. The customer has significant negative usage which results in just the delivery minimum under the old default tariff. But under the new default tariff the customer’s bill is nearly quadrupled due to the positive Generation Charges.

Which Systems Generate the Best Avoided Cost of Power (ACP)?

We were curious where the best savings are to be found in SCE under the new tariff, so we ran a few scenarios in every SCE Baseline Region. We varied both the Solar Offset (80%, 90%, 100%) and the size of the customer’s load (Lo = 10,000 kWh per year, Hi = 20,000 kWh per year). Here’s what we found:

Zone 80% Lo 90% Lo 100% Lo 80% Hi 90% Hi 100% Hi
5 14.9¢ 14.5¢ 14.2¢ 16.5¢ 16.1¢ 15.7¢
6 16.1¢ 15.6¢ 15.2¢ 23.3¢ 22.3¢ 21.5¢
8 16.1¢ 15.6¢ 15.2¢ 23.3¢ 22.3¢ 21.5¢
9 15.6¢ 15.2¢ 14.8¢ 19.9¢ 19.2¢ 18.6¢
10 15.0¢ 14.6¢ 14.2¢ 18.1¢ 17.6¢ 17.1¢
13 15.0¢ 14.7¢ 14.2¢ 17.6¢ 17.1¢ 16.7¢
14 15.1¢ 14.6¢ 14.3¢ 18.4¢ 17.9¢ 17.4¢
15 13.8¢ 13.5¢ 13.3¢ 19.5¢ 18.8¢ 18.2¢
16 15.5¢ 15.1¢ 14.8¢ 20.3¢ 19.7¢ 19.1¢

The results highlight three factors that increase savings:

  1. Smaller offsets increase ACP - Lower offset mean less exports. Since exports are valued less than import due to NBCs, smaller offset yield higher ACPs.
  2. Larger loads increase ACP - SCE offers a Baseline Credit for all usage up to a certain level (the exact level varies by the season, region and number of days in the billing period). With large loads, a smaller percentage of the customer’s load receives the baseline credit of 6.7¢.
  3. Regions with low Baseline Allocations see higher savings - Savings are highest in Zones 6 and 8 because the baseline allocations are lowest there. That means more high-priced power offset by solar.

Alternative Post-Solar Tariffs for SCE

TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2 is not the only choice available to new customer’s with solar. They can also opt for TOU-D-5-8-NEM2 or the new TOU-D-PRIME-NEM2 (called the TOU-D-C in previous rate filings).

TOU-D-5-8-NEM2 offers a short On-Peak period but a higher differential between On-Peak and Off-Peak prices. This rate is likely best used in concert with a storage system that can bank excess generation during the day for release during the shorter On-Peak period. With solar only, we see that the TOU-D-5-8-NEM2 offers decreased savings of roughly 0.3¢/kWh across all offsets and load sizes, as compared to TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2.

TOU-D-PRIME-NEM2 has the same Time of Use structure as the 4-9 PM tariff, but does not have the Baseline Credit. This rate structure is ideal for large power users who will happily pay more for the power that would otherwise receive the baseline credit in exchange for a lower rate applied to high usage amounts. In our analysis we saw that TOU-D-C-NEM2 started to reach ACP parity with TOU-D-4-9PM-NEM2 when the load reached 15,000 kWh per year and we saw up to 0.5¢/kWh increase in ACP when the load reached 20,000 kWh annually.

Final Thoughts

While it’s disappointing to see the economics of rooftop solar become more challenging, the new rates reflect the impact that rooftop solar has had on California’s generation mix. California’s electric grid is flooded with solar-generation in the Spring and the new low generation rates from October through May reflect the plentiful solar power available during that period

Genability is here to help you navigate these new rates. Our number one recommendation is for you to start running calculations against the new rates immediately and use Dash and Explorer to help you understand how the new rates behave. There will be a path forward for solar in SCE, even as the duck (curve) comes home to roost.

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