As a solar provider, Palomar Solar feels that it is our duty to keep our customers well informed and up to date with any Utility changes.
With new TOU (Time of Use) Grandfathering deadlines coming up we have determined that most of our customers, especially the customers that have systems that were properly sized for their usage, will benefit from switching to TOU DR-SES (SDG&E territory) or TOU-D-T (SCE territory).
We knew from the beginning that there was slight chance that the Utilities, in our case primarily SDG&E (San Diego Gas and Electric) and SCE (Southern California Edison) would not make it easy for our customers to switch to the billing rate plan that was most beneficial to them.
Unfortunately, they proved us right
Instead, the Utilities are trying to switch our customers to the “NEW” rates they just won approval for, with a TOU shift where the high rate is from 3pm – 9pm not the current 12pm – 6pm. You read that right, they just spent the last ten years “teaching” you to run your appliances from 6pm – 9pm, and now they will bill you for High TOU (Time of Use) rates during that time frame. We want our customers to benefit from being paid High TOU rates while their system is overproducing, which tends to occur when the sun is up!
Recently, SDG&E has removed the option of the DR-SES rate off their self-service site, and further, their billing operators have been trained to deny even the existence of this rate schedule. Our customers that have asked to be placed on this plan, have been told outright that it is not available. This is patently false, it is very much real and available, and when you request the switch you literally must spell it out “I want to be put on the DR-SES plan”. Dozens of our customers have spent hours, half of their workdays trying to figure out how to make this switch. That’s where we have had to get involved and call on customer’s behalf or tell customers to call back SDG&E and demand it! And sure enough, when they demand it, they get it, because it is indeed a very real rate structure that almost all solar customers should be able to switch to. One of our customers even went down to SDG&E herself to request the switch with a live person, she ended up informing the SDG&E employees about the TOU Grandfathering, their own employees that have solar weren’t even aware! They were grateful our customer went down there otherwise, they would have been left in the dark too.
In conclusion, it’s unfortunate that in this bureaucratic world we live in the bureaucrats believe that it’s okay to bully and mislead us, rather than guide us to do the right thing. At Palomar Solar we believe in following through on what we know is right for our customers, so please share will all your friends and family, whether or not they have solar as we are all affected when the Utility starts making up their own rules.