Optimizing NEM2.0 for PG&E EV2-A rate

[swedge]

I am reading.

Since solar is so law this time of the year, and I use so much with my heat pumps, I set my storage at 70%, and still have a hard time getting the PW's back to 100%. I do get them to used for the 4 to 9 high cost period.

I have now just plugged the EV in during the day, and charge before 4. Whether I do this, or charge after 10pm, all seems the same since the cost is equal.

What is SO nice about having way too much solar is I do not need to spend anytime trying to save a few pennies. I just want it easy for my wife to just drive the tesla, and I want the house warm for her and my Dad. With my excess solar, its a piece of cake to meet these objectives.

"Too much solar" does sound oxymoronic. But to get there I'd need a bigger roof, a bigger capital budget, and a chain saw to remove my neighbor's trees. I do wish that I'd opted for 2 PowerWalls back when SGIP was paying for them...

I am wondering agin about your "net generator" situation. Check me on this: As long as your NEM balance is negative at true-up, it does not affect your cost. So, the amount of credit/cost of further exports/imports does not matter. Does this mean that you are somewhat immune to time-of-use pricing? I suppose it would be possible to erode away your negative balance by importing too much during peak when much of the export it at off peak. But if you have plenty of excess credit, you could charge your car at 4:30 pm because in the end it won't cost any more than charging at midnight. Very strange if true.

Likewise, your net exports appear to be NSC credited at the same rate regardless of time of day. So excess at 1 or 2 pm is just as valuable as 4 to 9 pm.

Like you said, all that solar does keep it simple. Once you've digested the complexity of the pricing system...

I find it odd that the NEM2 and TOU rate rules do create incentives for us smaller producers to use our systems so as to export during peak and import during off peak, thus helping to level out the overall demand vs time curve on the grid. But for net generators, those incentives appear to be somewhat nulled out. Strange.

It really does seem like the point of all the edges and complexity in the rates are more to obfuscate than to optimize. Perhaps it is just that the CPUC is the real audience, and PG&E is merely providing excuses for charging more at certain times, their only real goal being charging more.

Anyway, I think that some time back I gave you some faulty advice, sorry about that. Still, NBCs are charged on all your imports, even though the retail price is rendered irrelevant because of your negative net balance. So, perhaps PowerWall's Export Everything, Grid Charging, and Charge on Solar features may not be beneficial for you if at true-up your NEM (aka "cumulated energy charges and credits") balance is going to be below zero.

 

[BGbreeder]

"Too much solar" does sound oxymoronic.
...

I find it odd that the NEM2 and TOU rate rules do create incentives for us smaller producers to use our systems so as to export during peak and import during off peak, thus helping to level out the overall demand vs time curve on the grid. But for net generators, those incentives appear to be somewhat nulled out. Strange.

It really does seem like the point of all the edges and complexity in the rates are more to obfuscate than to optimize. Perhaps it is just that the CPUC is the real audience, and PG&E is merely providing excuses for charging more at certain times, their only real goal being charging more.

...

It would seem that the optimal case would be dynamic pricing, but with some sort of more sophisticated home load / export manager that could shift solar to car(s), batteries, grid, base loads (e.g. HVAC, water heating) in response to market prices.

I'm impressed that today, in California, batteries are so cost effective for businesses to avoid/reduce their peak charges. With time, and more storage, and EVs, I certainly hope that the demand and supply curves for power will flatten out.

Doesn't it seem odd that PG&E is still surviving as a going concern? Normally being convicted of felonies, responsible for large numbers of deaths and morbidity, with the destruction of almost entire towns, would not get a business rewarded with additional profits...

All the best,

BG

 

[swedge]

It would seem that the optimal case would be dynamic pricing, but with some sort of more sophisticated home load / export manager that could shift solar to car(s), batteries, grid, base loads (e.g. HVAC, water heating) in response to market prices.

I'm impressed that today, in California, batteries are so cost effective for businesses to avoid/reduce their peak charges. With time, and more storage, and EVs, I certainly hope that the demand and supply curves for power will flatten out.

Doesn't it seem odd that PG&E is still surviving as a going concern? Normally being convicted of felonies, responsible for large numbers of deaths and morbidity, with the destruction of almost entire towns, would not get a business rewarded with additional profits...

All the best,

BG

When I was typing earlier, I got spell corrected to "..how much PG&E chars..." . I was trying to type "charges". But I guess the more they char, the more they charge. ;-)

My wife used to own a house in Paradise, sold it a couple years before the fire. Still, a bit of dark utility humor comes naturally.

 

[BGbreeder]

That is a pretty funny and appropriate autocorrect. Humor certainly helps me in tragedy, and Paradise certainly was a tragedy.

I was a reading an article on the rebuilding of Paradise recently and was more than a little surprised to see non-fire resistant OSB and normal plywood being used in some of the homes. It seems like a missed opportunity at the minimum and perhaps worse. As George Santayana once wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”...

All the best,

BG

 

[garrity]

Per a recent true-up and the EV2 tariff effective 6/30/23, NSC is running $0.08158 and NBCs are costing $0.03273 per kWh. So for each kWh of car charging at night, your PG&E bill will be lower by $0.04885 nearly 5¢. Of course PG&E will likely change these numbers going forward, but maybe not by much.

I used to think that too. But as Redhill pointed out, you have to "expend" a kWh of solar to cancel out each kWh imported before you can start taking credit for NSC. Basically you need to generate and send back to the grid roughly 1.4 kWh solar for each 1kWh imported just to break even.

For example,

Lets say you have 30kWh extra solar that you can send to the grid .

If you use 10kWh of the solar to charge or run your home you have 20kWh to send to grid for NSC worth 20x .08 = 1.6

If you charge at night 10kWh you have to subtract 10kWh from your solar export to zero out the import which leaves you with same 20 going towards NSC $1.6 but now you also have to pay 10 x .03 in NBC so your net total for charging at night is 1.6 - .3 or $1.3 vs the $1.6 when charging by solar

 

[h2ofun]

"Too much solar" does sound oxymoronic. But to get there I'd need a bigger roof, a bigger capital budget, and a chain saw to remove my neighbor's trees. I do wish that I'd opted for 2 PowerWalls back when SGIP was paying for them...

I am wondering agin about your "net generator" situation. Check me on this: As long as your NEM balance is negative at true-up, it does not affect your cost. So, the amount of credit/cost of further exports/imports does not matter. Does this mean that you are somewhat immune to time-of-use pricing? I suppose it would be possible to erode away your negative balance by importing too much during peak when much of the export it at off peak. But if you have plenty of excess credit, you could charge your car at 4:30 pm because in the end it won't cost any more than charging at midnight. Very strange if true.

Likewise, your net exports appear to be NSC credited at the same rate regardless of time of day. So excess at 1 or 2 pm is just as valuable as 4 to 9 pm.

Like you said, all that solar does keep it simple. Once you've digested the complexity of the pricing system...

I find it odd that the NEM2 and TOU rate rules do create incentives for us smaller producers to use our systems so as to export during peak and import during off peak, thus helping to level out the overall demand vs time curve on the grid. But for net generators, those incentives appear to be somewhat nulled out. Strange.

It really does seem like the point of all the edges and complexity in the rates are more to obfuscate than to optimize. Perhaps it is just that the CPUC is the real audience, and PG&E is merely providing excuses for charging more at certain times, their only real goal being charging more.

Anyway, I think that some time back I gave you some faulty advice, sorry about that. Still, NBCs are charged on all your imports, even though the retail price is rendered irrelevant because of your negative net balance. So, perhaps PowerWall's Export Everything, Grid Charging, and Charge on Solar features may not be beneficial for you if at true-up your NEM (aka "cumulated energy charges and credits") balance is going to be below zero.

There is a reason PGE does not allow folks to do what I have. And it makes sense. The last thing they want is a bunch of folks saying but I had a 5000 credit and you one gave me 700! And I spent ALL this money to help save the world.

My case is SO SO unique, and I was so stupid to think my second set of panels would not be approved. BUT, since I could never ever do what I have done again, I still love I do not have to think about all the games everyone else has to consider. And I would be.

So I just keep it simple. I try to export as much as possible on peak, and use as little as possible on peak. Other than that, I just use.

 

[Redhill_qik]

After much head scratching (I am bald now) and dog walking, I am pretty sure you were correct.

For a net generator on PG&E's EV2A and NEM2, with solar, PowerWall and an EV, it is more beneficial to charge the car at night rather than on excess solar during the day.

Car charging on excess solar during the day has no direct impact on the bill, but it does prevent exporting that energy, decreasing the NSC compensation.

Nighttime charging does increase the NBC total. When charging during the day, the NEM balance is debited at the retail price, but wince the balance is below zero at true-up, it is ignored.

Per a recent true-up and the EV2 tariff effective 6/30/23, NSC is running $0.08158 and NBCs are costing $0.03273 per kWh. So for each kWh of car charging at night, your PG&E bill will be lower by $0.04885 nearly 5¢. Of course PG&E will likely change these numbers going forward, but maybe not by much. We hope.

You need to scratch your head a bit more, as you are still incorrect.

Your solar array will generate X kWh per year, your house consumes Y kWh per year and recharging your EV consumes Z kWh per year. Your NSC check will be (X - Y - Z) * rate. Please notice that there are no TOU considerations for X, Y or Z. Charging on solar has no impact on your total Net Surplus Compensation. Deciding to charge your EV at home versus charging your EV at work/supercharger does impact Z and thus your total NSC payment.

At worse not charging on solar will increase your total NBCs, but that may not increase your annual payments to PG&E. I just had my annual true-up and the monthly MDCs were $133.72, my total NBCs were $122.34. So, I could have imported another $11.38 for no additional cost which would have been another 347 kWh @ $0.03273.

 

[swedge]

You need to scratch your head a bit more

OK, I will. I'll need to trim my fingernails first...

In the mean time, you described that you true up was based on your MDCs, congratulations! Only NSCs can take it lower than that. Two questions arise for me, not related to the current CoS discussion:

I gather your NEM balance (aka "Cumulative Energy Charges and Credits") was less than the NBCs. Would it still have been so if you had imported that additional 347 kWh? (The NEM balance would increase, even if to a less negative number, by the retail price at the time of import, I think.)

And second, in your true-up were you billed for Minimum Energy Charges (MECs), or was your "true-up adjustment" a zero?

I ask because under NEM1, when the NEM balance was less than MDCs, they would then also charge for the MECs (which were the "generation" portion of the bundled rate, if memory serves) so those would become the true-up adjustment we'd have to pay, the MDCs having been already paid monthly. This surprised me in one of my old NEM1 true-ups when NEMs were less than MDCs.

It is not clear if that MEC rule was eliminated under NEM2. Your case may answer that.

Thanks!

Back to head scratching....

 

[Redhill_qik]

OK, I will. I'll need to trim my fingernails first...

In the mean time, you described that you true up was based on your MDCs, congratulations! Only NSCs can take it lower than that. Two questions arise for me, not related to the current CoS discussion:

I gather your NEM balance (aka "Cumulative Energy Charges and Credits") was less than the NBCs. Would it still have been so if you had imported that additional 347 kWh? (The NEM balance would increase, even if to a less negative number, by the retail price at the time of import, I think.)

And second, in your true-up were you billed for Minimum Energy Charges (MECs), or was your "true-up adjustment" a zero?

I ask because under NEM1, when the NEM balance was less than MDCs, they would then also charge for the MECs (which were the "generation" portion of the bundled rate, if memory serves) so those would become the true-up adjustment we'd have to pay, the MDCs having been already paid monthly. This surprised me in one of my old NEM1 true-ups when NEMs were less than MDCs.

It is not clear if that MEC rule was eliminated under NEM2. Your case may answer that.

Thanks!

Back to head scratching....

Under NEM2.0 the MDC/MEC are paid each month, so at my October true-up the only thing that I paid was the last month of MDCs which brought the total for the 12 months to $133.72.

My PG&E net energy charges for the year was -$608.16, but that doesn't matter for this discussion. If I had increased my house+EV usage by 374 kWh that would have changed my accumulated total, but if I had only shifted my usage (less self powered/less charge on solar) resulting in more imports the energy charges would be the same (maybe small changes based on TOU price differentials).

I'm with a CCA for generation with an April true-up. My last true-up I had net exports of 2,153 kWh which were paid out at twice PG&Es NSC rate of $0.08748 and I got a check for $376.69. This plus Tesla VPP $332.97 compensation means that the system was net positive $575.94 for the last year. I lost production for 50 days in Sep-Nov when my SolarEdge inverter died, so it could have been better

Going back to NBCs vs MDCs, I adjusted my Powerwalls usage to export less during Peak as I have a lot of margin before I will get to $0 net energy charges. Using the Powerwalls less, means that less solar is needed to recharge them (90% efficiency) and the savings increase my exports and thus my NSC payments. In my first year my NBCs were $60 less than MDCs, the second year it was $33 less and this last year $11. I could get closer to $0, but I think I'm close enough.

 

[swedge]

Under NEM2.0 the MDC/MEC are paid each month, so at my October true-up the only thing that I paid was the last month of MDCs which brought the total for the 12 months to $133.72.

My PG&E net energy charges for the year was -$608.16, but that doesn't matter for this discussion. If I had increased my house+EV usage by 374 kWh that would have changed my accumulated total, but if I had only shifted my usage (less self powered/less charge on solar) resulting in more imports the energy charges would be the same (maybe small changes based on TOU price differentials).

I'm with a CCA for generation with an April true-up. My last true-up I had net exports of 2,153 kWh which were paid out at twice PG&Es NSC rate of $0.08748 and I got a check for $376.69. This plus Tesla VPP $332.97 compensation means that the system was net positive $575.94 for the last year. I lost production for 50 days in Sep-Nov when my SolarEdge inverter died, so it could have been better

Going back to NBCs vs MDCs, I adjusted my Powerwalls usage to export less during Peak as I have a lot of margin before I will get to $0 net energy charges. Using the Powerwalls less, means that less solar is needed to recharge them (90% efficiency) and the savings increase my exports and thus my NSC payments. In my first year my NBCs were $60 less than MDCs, the second year it was $33 less and this last year $11. I could get closer to $0, but I think I'm close enough.

Ah! You net generator guys do have a very different set of trade-offs than us insufficient solar types. As h2ofun says it make it simple.

Since you were a net generator, your Minimum Energy Charges were negative, of course, and so there was nothing to charge. But for us net consumers, that might still kick in. From the NEM2 tariff:

Where the residential delivery minimum bill amount applies at the true up for a Bundled or Transitional Bundled Service customer, and the accumulated net generation charges over the relevant period are greater than zero, the customer-generator will also owe an amount equal to the accumulated net generation charges.​

​

I have yet to see an NEM2 true-up where this applied. That ~$133 MDC creates a pretty small window of NBC and NEM balances where that might occur. What shocked me was if my NBC were just above $133 I would owe next to nothing, having already paid the MDC. But when the NBC's were slightly lower than the MDCs, the MEC's kicked in, and made that small decrease in imports cause an increase in the costs. These non-linearities in the pricing make optimization difficult, perhaps impossible when the rules are not explained.

I do like your XYZ model. It only applies to net generators, a realm beyond my own, so my tools of understanding keep breaking down when I tread there.

 

[miimura]

I do like your XYZ model. It only applies to net generators, a realm beyond my own, so my tools of understanding keep breaking down when I tread there.

Yes, net surplus is a totally different mindset. I have recently added 6.0kW of new solar to a degraded 4.3kW array that's 11 years old. My goal was to generate slightly more kWh than I consume with charging two EVs. I want the headroom so that I can convert my water heating and upstairs central heating from gas to heat pumps. My original solar was only ever sufficient to offset my household usage, not my EV usage. So, I am interested to see where my true-up lands in October 2024.

When I first got solar and EV, Baseline Off-Peak PG&E rates on the "Experimental" E-9A rate was <5c/kWh. The EV2-A rates as of 9/1/23 are now nearly 28c/kWh Off-Peak. Part-Peak and Peak are 44c/kWh to 59c/kWh. From a Powerwall standpoint, there's almost no difference between Part-Peak and Peak with only 2c/kWh difference for 8 months of the year (Winter rate season)

 

[swedge]

That is a pretty funny and appropriate autocorrect. Humor certainly helps me in tragedy, and Paradise certainly was a tragedy.

I was a reading an article on the rebuilding of Paradise recently and was more than a little surprised to see non-fire resistant OSB and normal plywood being used in some of the homes. It seems like a missed opportunity at the minimum and perhaps worse. As George Santayana once wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”...

All the best,

BG

My wife's house in Paradise had asbestos siding, about as fire proof as one can get. When we visited after the fire, it was just a hole in the ground.

More strange was that many of the trees on the property were fine, unburned. A water pail in the back yard still had is colorful painted flowers on it. I gather the fire had reached the town as a miles-wide front, blown up the steep approach slope by very strong winds. That upward wind blew burning debris high up so that it rained down all over the town, like a napalm attack. Much of the fuel was the houses which burned from the roofs down, plus the gas tanks on cars and the propane tanks - It was not entirely a forest fire, but rather a suburban conflagration, similar to the Coffee neighborhood in Santa Rosa. The single road out was why people died. Yeah, PG&E started the "Camp" fire, but that was several miles away. It could have just as well been a dry-lightning strike.

 

[swedge]

You need to scratch your head a bit more, as you are still incorrect.

Your solar array will generate X kWh per year, your house consumes Y kWh per year and recharging your EV consumes Z kWh per year. Your NSC check will be (X - Y - Z) * rate. Please notice that there are no TOU considerations for X, Y or Z. Charging on solar has no impact on your total Net Surplus Compensation. Deciding to charge your EV at home versus charging your EV at work/supercharger does impact Z and thus your total NSC payment.

At worse not charging on solar will increase your total NBCs, but that may not increase your annual payments to PG&E. I just had my annual true-up and the monthly MDCs were $133.72, my total NBCs were $122.34. So, I could have imported another $11.38 for no additional cost which would have been another 347 kWh @ $0.03273.

I think I’ve got it now. (The N’th time is the charm, I hope. Hopefully it takes more that N incorrect posts to get banned from TMC...)

As I now understand it, hopefully correctly, finally, for a net exporter, the effect of car charging from the grid rather than from excess solar will be increasing only the cumulative NBCs (by ~3.3¢/kWh). Furthermore, even these NBCs will not be billed at true-up unless the total NBCs are more than what has already been paid monthly in MDCs.

This is because, first, the NEM charges (aka Cumulative Energy Charges and Credits) are ignored if they are a net credit, which they usually will be for a net exporter. So the retail credits for exporting are moot. And second, while NBCs do accrue for all imports, these also are ignored if they total less than the MDCs. (More on this below.)

Redhill_qik pointed out that for a net exporter “Your NSC check will be (X - Y - Z) * rate.” i.e. the net exports will be equal to the solar produced minus the house and car over the entire year. Because this is based on the net kWh, not on the TOU rates, it does not matter when you charge the car. Two very good points. What I missed in my last incorrect explanation is that while nighttime charging does increase the imports, this has the exact same impact on the net exports as does not exporting when charging on solar. More imports and fewer exports have the same effect on the net exports. Or, as a kid would explain, it’s the same difference.

So, for a net exporter, the only difference between charging on excess solar and charging during off peak will be the NBCs, and maybe even that won’t change the total cost.

This additional wrinkle, when even NBC’s do not matter is interesting. The monthly NEM/EV2A “Minimum Delivery Charges”, currently around $11 per month, or $~130 per year, will have already been paid when true-up rolls around. At true-up, if the cumulative NBCs are more than these MDCs, the difference is billed as the true up adjustment. Otherwise, the already paid, larger MDCs are considered to have covered the NBCs. So, at around 3.3¢ per kWh, the first ~ 4,030 kWh of imports will increase the cumulative NBC total, but won’t increase the true-up charges which will be zero. That amounts to roughly 15,000 miles of EV charging per year from the grid. Since net importers also typically import some for home use as well, it is likely that doing some charging on solar would save them a few $.

For net importers like most of us, it is very different ball game. For us, using PowerWall’s time shifting of both consumption and exporting solar, and facilitating charging on solar help us leverage the solar we do have to reduce our costs, as the original post in this thread discussed. The various settings (Time Based, Export Everything, Grid Charging, Charge on Solar, Backup Reserve, Rate Plan) all can affect our annual true-up bill. Like h2ofun says, having lots of solar is simple, though I suspect the ROI is better with smaller solar and battery systems thanks to time-of-use pricing.

 

[h2ofun]

I think I’ve got it now. (The N’th time is the charm, I hope. Hopefully it takes more that N incorrect posts to get banned from TMC...)

As I now understand it, hopefully correctly, finally, for a net exporter, the effect of car charging from the grid rather than from excess solar will be increasing only the cumulative NBCs (by ~3.3¢/kWh). Furthermore, even these NBCs will not be billed at true-up unless the total NBCs are more than what has already been paid monthly in MDCs.

This is because, first, the NEM charges (aka Cumulative Energy Charges and Credits) are ignored if they are a net credit, which they usually will be for a net exporter. So the retail credits for exporting are moot. And second, while NBCs do accrue for all imports, these also are ignored if they total less than the MDCs. (More on this below.)

Redhill_qik pointed out that for a net exporter “Your NSC check will be (X - Y - Z) * rate.” i.e. the net exports will be equal to the solar produced minus the house and car over the entire year. Because this is based on the net kWh, not on the TOU rates, it does not matter when you charge the car. Two very good points. What I missed in my last incorrect explanation is that while nighttime charging does increase the imports, this has the exact same impact on the net exports as does not exporting when charging on solar. More imports and fewer exports have the same effect on the net exports. Or, as a kid would explain, it’s the same difference.

So, for a net exporter, the only difference between charging on excess solar and charging during off peak will be the NBCs, and maybe even that won’t change the total cost.

This additional wrinkle, when even NBC’s do not matter is interesting. The monthly NEM/EV2A “Minimum Delivery Charges”, currently around $11 per month, or $~130 per year, will have already been paid when true-up rolls around. At true-up, if the cumulative NBCs are more than these MDCs, the difference is billed as the true up adjustment. Otherwise, the already paid, larger MDCs are considered to have covered the NBCs. So, at around 3.3¢ per kWh, the first ~ 4,030 kWh of imports will increase the cumulative NBC total, but won’t increase the true-up charges which will be zero. That amounts to roughly 15,000 miles of EV charging per year from the grid. Since net importers also typically import some for home use as well, it is likely that doing some charging on solar would save them a few $.

For net importers like most of us, it is very different ball game. For us, using PowerWall’s time shifting of both consumption and exporting solar, and facilitating charging on solar help us leverage the solar we do have to reduce our costs, as the original post in this thread discussed. The various settings (Time Based, Export Everything, Grid Charging, Charge on Solar, Backup Reserve, Rate Plan) all can affect our annual true-up bill. Like h2ofun says, having lots of solar is simple, though I suspect the ROI is better with smaller solar and battery systems thanks to time-of-use pricing.

I feel so much better. So being a net exporter, like me, just makes life easier, right?

 

[Genug]

Just curious how the California Climate Credit plays in
I had my first true up with SDGE a couple of months ago. Even though I have an EV I don’t put a lot of miles on it and am on TOU DR1

i did end up being a net exporter for the year, the California Climate Credit covered all my NBC’s so I made no payments during the year and ended with a credit

So I guess I can be a little more extravagant with energy use this year

 

[Redhill_qik]

Just curious how the California Climate Credit plays in
I had my first true up with SDGE a couple of months ago. Even though I have an EV I don’t put a lot of miles on it and am on TOU DR1

i did end up being a net exporter for the year, the California Climate Credit covered all my NBC’s so I made no payments during the year and ended with a credit

So I guess I can be a little more extravagant with energy use this year

The California Climate Credit applies against any charges that you have. The October PG&E credit was $38.39 which covered my September and October MDCs and gas charges and I still have a $4.34 credit that will apply to my November bill.

I would caution against wording this as reducing your annual MDCs and/or NBCs as that will likely create some confusion for people trying to understand NEM2.0 rules and reconciling their annual true-up.

 

[Genug]

Ok thanks, it is confusing, the credit for SDGE is $60.70 twice a year for electricity and a separate $43.70 for gas. I was just surprised by this offset and the fact that it applies to any charge

 

[miimura]

Ok thanks, it is confusing, the credit for SDGE is $60.70 twice a year for electricity and a separate $43.70 for gas. I was just surprised by this offset and the fact that it applies to any charge

Yes, I am surprised that the utilities have not rolled this into the base rates so that solar customers are still left to pay all their MDCs and NBCs. For normal customers without solar, these credits are a drop in the bucket.

 

[Redhill_qik]

Yes, I am surprised that the utilities have not rolled this into the base rates so that solar customers are still left to pay all their MDCs and NBCs. For normal customers without solar, these credits are a drop in the bucket.

There is an image angle to these credits with the CPUC positioning this as relief coming from them to make up for higher prices. Having a single amount given to every account helps out lower income households to a larger extent than higher income households. If this was rolled into rates then it would be reverse. Since the funding source is from the California green house gasses cap-and-trade program with varying amounts each year from the sale of the credits it is simpler to just divide it among all accounts once the total is known.

 

[RKCRLR]

My wife's house in Paradise had asbestos siding, about as fire proof as one can get. When we visited after the fire, it was just a hole in the ground.

More strange was that many of the trees on the property were fine, unburned. A water pail in the back yard still had is colorful painted flowers on it. I gather the fire had reached the town as a miles-wide front, blown up the steep approach slope by very strong winds. That upward wind blew burning debris high up so that it rained down all over the town, like a napalm attack. Much of the fuel was the houses which burned from the roofs down, plus the gas tanks on cars and the propane tanks - It was not entirely a forest fire, but rather a suburban conflagration, similar to the Coffee neighborhood in Santa Rosa. The single road out was why people died. Yeah, PG&E started the "Camp" fire, but that was several miles away. It could have just as well been a dry-lightning strike.

Embers likely got in through the vents or the windows shattered and the house burned from the inside out.

A year after I built my house the county started requiring tempered glass on ground floor windows so they wouldn't shatter as easy during a fire. But my local fire department said it doesn't help much. Most people install windows with vinyl frames for energy efficiency and they just melt and let the glass fall out.