At last night’s meeting of the Silicon Valley Clean Energy Authority, we approved a resolution establishing the electricity rates that will be charged to customers starting April 1 of this year. We now have some hard numbers that can be quoted to you, so you can know what impact you can expect SVCEA to have on your PG&E bill.
Let me start by framing this properly. SVCEA takes effect on April 1, but it will not take effect for all customers in all 12 jurisdictions immediately. It will be rolled out in three phases over 7 months. I don’t know when Sunnyvale residents will be phased in, but I think it won’t be phase 1. Also, keep in mind that the electricity generation is only one part of your PG&E bill. You also have a natural gas component, which will not change under SVCEA (since SVCEA only provides electricity, not natural gas). And there are other components, such as the delivery charges. You have to pay to maintain the actual power lines and power grid that transmits electricity, and SVCEA doesn’t change that. It only changes the actual power purchasing contracts that create the electricity. That’s a big part of your bill, but not all of it.
And there is still the issue of solar customers. Solar customers won’t necessarily be joining SVCEA on specific phase dates. Solar customers have a “true-up” date when their PG&E bills are properly resolved based on the solar power they produce. SVCEA will be migrating solar customers according to their “true-up” dates, so that they aren’t disadvantaged by the switch to SVCEA.
Having said all of that, here’s what we’re looking at (click for better resolution).
The “GreenStart” product is the product that all SVCEA customers will be enrolled in, by default. It is the default, 50% renewable and 100% carbon-free product. The “GreenPrime” product is an optional product that gives customers the choice to pay a little more in order to get 100% renewable energy. The City of Sunnyvale will be enrolling in GreenPrime, and I hope that a lot of individual residents will commit to the higher renewable option (but that’s your choice).
For the electricity generation, these are “fully loaded” numbers. PG&E charges CCEs a “Power Charge Indifference Adjustment” fee. This is a fee to compensate PG&E for multi-year energy contracts that PG&E has already purchased, which are impacted when customers leave PG&E for SVCEA. Yes, you’re paying PG&E for energy that you didn’t use. Any additional charges that SVCEA customers incur, including PCIA, are already included in the numbers above.
Still TBD is the fiscal impact on solar customers. The standard practice for other CCEs has been to pay solar customers $0.01/kwh more than what PG&E compensates solar customers. I expect SVCEA to do the same.
We’re committed to making SVCEA win-win for all customers. If you still have concerns, please let me know.
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