But solar would not be producing anything when my EV load is present at midnight. I would guess very few of us charge during the daytime.
Yes, but as you might have noticed the really ridiculous rates are in the daytime because that's when all the industry and air conditioners are running full bore. As PEAK demand goes up PEAK capacity must also, or you get overloads, brownouts and rolling blackouts. Residential customers paying for that additional capacity and feeding the grid at peak times and then trading that expensive peak generation for an inexpensive offpeak return actually benefits the power companies. Put another way: they borrow the kwh from residential solar and sell it at a rate of $.39 or whatever it is, and then they return that loan to those residential solar customers at a rate of $.19 or less - while not having to invest in any more production capacity.
with grid-tied solar it is irrelevant when you charge.... it is actually in your favor to 'sell' your daytime surplus production to the grid at daytime rate, and then still schedule your EV charge at night, if there is an off-peak rate.
I have Voluntary Time of Use from National Grid in Northern NY. My “off peak” is from 11PM-7AM. So obviously that’s when I’m charging my cars. Total supply and delivery charges of 4.2¢/kwh with all on incremental charges added up.
I make our WAY better dumping my solar generation back into the grid to offset my daily household stuff and charging the cars from the grid with a Voluntary Time of Use rate at night. There is so much electricity not being used in the grid at night that they almost give it to me. Only 4.2¢/kwh for supply and delivery. In the meantime my daytime production helps lighten the load for everyone.
Interesting how they break out "delivery" separate from "generation". That makes sense, and I like how it shows customers that being connected to the grid and using it for backup and storage comes with much bigger cost than just the electricity alone.Not the best TOU rates here in the high desert - Southern California Edison.
This is true, solar does nothing to offset EV charging loads unless you charge during the day or have a backup battery (which is not at all cost effective right now).
I suspect there's a lot more than just a few of us that bought the MME for reasons that aren't "green".
I don't know exactly how Cali does it, but here in NJ every month the net difference between what you sent to the grid and what you got from it is computed. If the production out is higher then that quantity gets "banked" until the next month. If the amount drawn from the network is more than sent, the "banked" kwh get drawn out. If there wasn't enough in the bank to cover what was used, the customer pays the prevailing residential rate for the excess. Once a year (the anniversary date) any excess production still in the bank gets paid out at the wholesale rate to the customer and the bank is reset.
I'm just going to have to say that sounds odd, given that the daytime peak rates posted here from around california are 3 times the off-peak nighttime rates. If the utilities have so much that they can't give away, how are they able to justify such hefty premiums? Are they simply gouging the few customers without solar? As for nighttime when the poor utilities have to generate their own electricity to subsidize those awful solar and BEV customers , why are those rates so much more reasonable?
