SDG&E installed second meter today
As we were out of town all last week, we didn’t have time to get all of our paperwork together to submit to the California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE) for our EV rebate. So we got it all together over the weekend and drove it to the office first thing Monday morning to save the mailing time. We found out some interesting information.
Currently, there is only one individual processing applications. That may change in the future, but keep in mind, the CCSE is a non-profit managing the rebates for the state. Keeping costs low is a good thing. As deliveries ramp up though, it is likely that additional help will be needed.
We had a chance to speak with Kyle Goedert, the young man administrating the rebate applications. Invoices are submitted to the state on a weekly basis every Wednesday. We suggest that if you are in the San Diego area, you may wish to drop off your application documentation just to be sure that everything is in order. When we asked about future funding for the program, Kyle was of the opinion that future funding would be secured, but that after the current funding is exhausted, it is likely that the next round will reduce the rebate amount (perhaps to $2500) to place the available funds in the hands of more electric vehicle (EV) adopters.
Also today, SDG&E came out to install our second meter, which will allow us to use our 240-volt Blink EVSE. More importantly, the main house meter was also replaced to accommodate the time of use programming offered to EV owners in the San Diego market. This will allow us to charge at super-off peak rates of around $0.075 per kilowatt hour. Now we just need to make sure that we have everything set up properly to take advantage of that rate structure. We’ll keep you posted with our progress.
Oh… and just so you know… Kyle said that we should see our rebate check next week. Not bad for government work.
Can you provide more details regarding the necessity of changing the main house meter? I would have thought that the time of use rate structure would only apply to charging the car, which should only involve the new meter, i.e. it should be the only meter that has to support time of use metering.
John – when the SDG&E guy showed up, he said that he’d be powering down the house for a couple minutes. When I asked him why (the second meter has its own sub-panel) he said that he had to change out the house meter due to a difference in programming to accommodate the time-of-use metering. I did not pursue any more detail than that. That might be a better question for an SDG&E rep.
Edit: John – after thinking about it a little more, it does make sense. While the second meter is metering at various rates, the primary meter is now tasked with metering two different rates at the same time (the second meters time-of-use rate and the house’s Domestic Residential rate), which it did not have to do before.
Ernie,
Will you be able to make it to the Hometown Buffet breakfast on Apr 23? I plan to be there, and would surely like to pick your brain on a few things.
Neil B.
As it stands now, it looks like I might be able to make it.
SDG&E swaps out your primary meter (even if it’s a smart meter) and replaces it with a GE Interval Data Recording (IDR) meter. A second GE IDR meter is installed on the EVSE circuit. A meter reader pulls the data monthly from the optical port on the front of the meter. The primary meter includes the EVSE circuit usage, so that usage will be subtracted from the kWh reported from the primary meter. The EVSE meter is ToU based. The subtraction process requires both meters to be IDR meters. Also, data from both meters (15 minute intervals) is available from the SDG&E Energy Waves website once the data from the meter reader has been uploaded.
indy – thanks for the clarification. It was late when I was writing, and after my edit I realized that it was not right, but wasn’t really sure of the reason for the primary meter swap.
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