Yeah, I kind of conflated NEM and TOU together at first... but you should view the two independently.
NEM sets the rules around the tariffs, fees, and policies governing how your own generation ties in with PG&E's grid. The NEM rules allow PG&E to charge a monthly fee (non-bypassable-charge or NBC) as well as one-time activation interconnection fees. The NEM rules also get to set the boundary by which the effective net energy metering will abide (for example, providing a mechanism for a solar-installation to have a positive ROI). But NEM itself does not set the time of use (TOU) daily schedule or rates.
So, while the NEM people bicker over the NBCs and tariffs, PG&E gets to sneakily move the TOU rates as well. The TOU manipulation bypasses most people's purview since they're spending so much time focusing on the NEM problem. Even though I hate PG&E, I do admit they are some really clever, smart people over there.
Anyway, the rules for TOU manipulation are almost non-existent. All PG&E has to make a case for is that a homeowner "should not" be impacted by higher rates through TOU changes if the homeowner changes their behavior. Changing behavior is "free" therefore a homeowner who doesn't change is intentionally being an energy waster.
Once PG&E won the battle to get rid of 1:1 net metering in NEM 2.0, they've had a almost blank check to just pound people to death with TOU manipulation and very few people seem to care. I don't know if it's because people notice but don't care... or if each small change just isn't drawing enough outrage.
Here's an article from 2019 talking about how PG&E effectively increased rates for EV customers by 25%. Did the public really care? Nah.
A large group of EV owners now pay 25% more for their electricity. Here's why nobody got upset at a change that would drive gasoline consumers nuts
www.forbes.com
I posted about PG&E further increasing "revenue" by 12.4% effective March 2021. Keep in mind the CARE/FERA people only saw their costs go up like 3%. That means other residential should see their costs go up by like 15%. Did you really see this in the news with people drawing attention to the absurdity? Nope.
Here's a daily dose of schadenfreude for people who do not live outside of Northern California. But for me it's just more evidence that "PG&E sucks". PG&E to raise customers’ rates 8% to help pay for wildfire mitigation efforts TLDR: The California CPUC approved PG&E to "get more money" to...
teslamotorsclub.com
PG&E is clever because then they'll say that "PG&E doesn't make more money with these higher rates"
The grift is that the people leading PG&E are making personal gains off of the mechanism by which PG&E "invests" its massive allocation of dollars. It's what allows a senior leader to avoid upgrading transmission lines while jacking up special interest payments, investing in a bunch of peaker plants that got shut down early, and executive compensation since those actions keep PG&E's bottom line "flat". Yes, PG&E "makes the same" no matter what as a monopoly. But PG&E wastes the most of any public utility in the USA which necessitates the absurdly high energy costs non CARE/FERA people pay so PG&E "makes the same" as other utilities.
Anyway, the TOU manipulation may not make PG&E more money, but it makes PG&E's interests a ton more money. So they'll do it in the sneakiest way possible and you know it'll get worse in 2022 and beyond. PG&E pushing everyone to TOU is their next step to grift, then starting 2022 you can expect them to further skew the TOU rates to slowly
boil the frog through many seemingly small moves.