Pennsylvania PECO residents: PECO considering TOU?

[Cirrus MS100D]

We signed a contract to get a small 4kW solar + Powerwall setup last week and are looking forward to hearing back about an install date. We live in southeast PA where our utility is PECO. While PECO does offer net-metering, they do not offer any sort of TOU plans ("EV" or otherwise).

~20+ years ago, they did have an "off-peak meter" setup that was very analog in kind and implementation: you could only put certain high-draw appliances on a separate panel (dryer, air conditioner, pool filter) and, in turn, they would literally kill power to this "off peak meter" during the window. As a kid, I never understood how my friends would have the dryer running during the day - I thought dryers ONLY worked at night! They dropped this arrangement ages ago and other than an article in 2008 about a pilot program, they seemed to have no interest in TOU.

Well, fast-forward to today, I'm checking my email and like a good old fashioned social media app that spies on you using your microphone (/s), I get a "random" survey from PECO about TOU. The questions were very basic as it started off, as if TOU was some totally foreign concept. (Reading about their pilot in 2008, I imagine it is a foreign concept to most people.) Once the survey got past the mysticism part, it then asked about how/when/why we'd use it (solar + batteries + EV FTW!), concluding with some actual scenario rates/times, asking about our perceived cost/benefits of different rates.

I suppose it's possible TOU will never happen or take many years with PECO, but it's nice to see they're at least considering it. I realize this may not be relevant for many people right now, but though I'd post it just in case anybody in southeast PA is in the same boat.

 

[meeb]

I'm in the middle of a 16kW install (without powerwall) and received the same survey. I have been interested in TOU pricing -- having two Teslas, the vast majority of my power usage could be easily scheduled for the overnight, and knowing the wholesale price PECO pays at 6PM vs 3AM, its unfortunate there's no direct incentive for their customers at this point. I remember reading that article and seeing some of PECO's reports to the PUC and got the impression that they more or less phoned in that mandated TOU trial. Anyway, I think with electric cars, things change a bit making TOU rates more likely to be beneficial for all parties, but maybe not enough.

It appeared that a number of the proposed rate discount overnight were so mild it would be hard to make it worthwhile, but I can't say I did the math with my specific situation. The ones I saw had increases between hours of 4-8 with uniform decreases in the other hours. With 2 electric cars I would prefer they add a deeper discount in the overnight hours (e.g., 1-4 am when PJM LPM pricing is typically at its lowest), even if the discount throughout the day is less.

Without TOU and being in an area with very reliable electric supply, I chose to go solar only without powerwall, but do believe that TOU should be implemented to provide some incentive to enable demand shaving at the end user level through batteries and scheduling.