How to Read So Cal Edison Bill Pay

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Southern California Edison (SCE) is one of the largest utility companies in both California and the United states of america. Based in Rosemead, they provide natural gas and electricity to about 15 million people in the southern function of the state.

Many electricity customers throughout the country receive their electric neb every month and pay it without really diving into the details of what they're actually paying for…and nosotros're here to assist intermission it downward. In this article, we'll review the most important parts of a SCE electricity bill, and how that changes in one case you install solar panels.

Cardinal takeaways

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• Your SCE beak includes charges for supply, transmission/distribution, and miscellaneous charges
• SCE offers a variety of rate plans, including tiered, time-of-use (TOU), and EV plans
• Compare quotes on the EnergySage Market to see how much you can save on your SCE bills with solar

How SCE calculates your monthly electricity beak

There are ii important factors in determining how much y'all'll owe on your electricity beak: your electricity usage and your rate programme/schedule.

Electricity usage

How much electricity you utilize in a given month is calculated in kilowatt-hours (kWh). This number may change significantly from season to season based on your consumption habits – many people use more electricity during summer months when they run their ac units, and will run across lower electricity bills during colder months. It's important to keep track of how your monthly electricity usage changes over time, rather than just looking at the overall cost of your bill. Seeing that your electricity pecker is increasing because of an uptick in consumption (which you lot can control), rather than changes to utility rates, gives you the opportunity to alter your behaviors and save money.

Agreement your electricity consumption is also important because of SCE's baseline allowance: the number of kWh of electricity you lot can consume earlier you begin to pay a more than expensive charge per unit for electricity each calendar month. Baseline allowances vary past area and season, but generally, it'due south a good thought to exist every bit energy-efficient as possible to maximize your chances of remaining in Tier ane (therefore paying the lowest rate possible).

Charge per unit plan

Next up, rate plans: you may or may not know which rate plan you're on (or even that y'all have the opportunity to change it). Many utility companies have default charge per unit options for their customers that remain in place unless y'all proactively make changes.

SCE offers plans that not only vary in pricing, simply in structure: 2 of the most common types are a tiered-rate plan and a time-of-use programme.

If y'all're on a tiered-rate program (e.g., Schedule D), you're charged a fixed rate for each kWh of electricity yous use until you pass your baseline assart; the more electricity you utilize, the higher the tier, and the more you're charged for each kWh of electricity.

SCE's fourth dimension-of-employ (TOU) plans, on the other mitt, charge a unlike rate for electricity depending on the solar day, time, and season. This blazon of charge per unit structure is called a "fourth dimension varying rate," since the cost of electricity varies based upon the time that y'all apply it. You lot can benefit from lower rates during times when demand for electricity is lower (morning and late at night), but pay more during "superlative hours" when demand for electricity is high (evening hours).

Lastly, if y'all ain an electric vehicle, SCE offers a EV charge per unit plan known as TOU-D-PRIME. This plan encourages EV or plug-in hybrid auto owners to charge their vehicles overnight when the overall demand for electricity is low. You can save a lot of money by charging your auto during these off-peak hours, as opposed to during the day or immediately after piece of work when rates are at their highest.

For more information on SCE's current plan offerings, visit their website.

Types of electricity beak charges

Electricity bills tend to take a lot of confusing terms and line-items, making information technology difficult to identify the all-in rate you're paying for electricity. However, most of these line items can be categorized into three separate buckets: supply, distribution/transmission, and miscellaneous. These rates embrace the electricity you use, getting the electricity to your home or business and whatever other charges and fees related to the maintenance of the grid.

Supply

It's easiest to think of supply charges equally paying for the actual electricity you use. You lot can see all of your supply charges on the section of your SCE bill labeled "Generation charges."

Utilities across the country charge different amounts for electricity supply depending on the power plant it comes from and the cost of the fuel (i.e. coal or natural gas). As of 2019, a lot of electricity delivered past SCE comes from renewable energy resource (35.i percent), however, they as well evangelize a fair amount of energy generated from natural gas (16.one), nuclear power plants (8.2 percent) or unspecified sources of power (32.6 percent).

Importantly, you lot may notice that SCE delivers electricity to your home, but you're paying someone else for supply: California has a partially deregulated electricity market place, meaning other entities, outside of utility companies, have the opportunity to procure and sell electricity. Community option aggregation (CCA) programs, which are condign increasingly popular in California, let local governments to aggregate electricity purchases for their constituents. Many towns practice this equally a way to deliver cheaper, cleaner electricity to the area. If you lot run across a different company or organization mentioned in the supply section of your bill, this may be your town's CCA provider.

Distribution and manual

Distribution and manual charges, sometimes referred to as delivery charges, are fees from  SCE to send yous the electricity. The utility company uses these charges to build and maintain poles and electrical wires that deliver electricity from ability plants to your holding. You can recollect of the delivery charge as effectively the aforementioned as paying for shipping and handling on any product you purchase online.

On your SCE bill, y'all volition see your distribution and transmission charges on the third page under "Delivery charges."

Miscellaneous charges

In addition to paying supply and demand, utility companies often have a number of miscellaneous charges. Some of these are charges mandated by the land to help fund statewide initiatives. For case, if you live in a state with energy efficiency goals or a renewable free energy mandate, a fraction of your bill charges may get to supporting clean free energy programs. Some examples of this for SCE customers are the nuclear-decommissioning charges (which go towards making nuclear power plants safe to shut down) and public purpose program charges (which go towards funding energy efficiency and low-income programs). Additionally, most utilities, including SCE, also charge a customer fee: this is a bill accuse that is unrelated to the amount of electricity you use in a given month. For SCE, the charge is a fixed rate per day of service over a given billing cycle.

What will my SCE bill look similar subsequently going solar?

After you install solar panels, y'all will continue to receive your monthly electricity bills from SCE. Each month you need to pay your nonbypassable charges (NBCs), which are fees required to stay connected to the grid.

In addition, the monthly bill includes a summary of your Generation and Delivery charges. These charges will take into business relationship any solar credits you lot receive via net metering. Cyberspace metering is a solar incentive that allows you to claim credits for any excess solar electricity you ship to the grid. You tin use these credits to counterbalance what you pull from the filigree at times when your solar console system isn't generating enough electricity to meet your needs (like at night).

Every bit a new solar customer in California, you lot will be required to go on a fourth dimension-of-use (TOU) programme to take advantage of the state's net metering 2.0 (NEM 2.0) program. Nether this plan, the value of your solar credits depends on the fourth dimension of day y'all transport it to the grid, and whether that was during peak hours (when electricity is most expensive) or off-peak hours (when electricity is the most affordable).

In both your delivery and generation charges summary, you will see separated charges for On peak, Off elevation, and Super off height usage. If you run into negative numbers here, those correspond credits yous tin can conduct forward. Positive numbers point that you drew more electricity from the grid than your solar console organization produced, then you'll have to pay SCE for that electricity.

However, even if your monthly bill includes a net positive usage, yous don't necessarily have to pay information technology withal – all SCE customers have an option to receive an Annual Billing Statement. This is a neb you'll receive once a year that summarizes the total money you owe to SCE, accounting for how much electricity your solar panel system exported to the filigree and how much you drew from the grid over the course of 12 months.

If y'all send more than electricity to the grid than y'all consume during this menstruum and have a negative balance on your almanac billing statement,  you volition run into a line item for Internet Surplus Energy Compensation (NSC). Effectively, SCE takes any excess credits that yous didn't use over during your annual billing menstruum and pays them out at a lower, wholesale charge per unit (known at the net surplus compensation rate). You tin either utilize this monetary credit during your next billing menstruum, or request to receive the balance as a check.

Save on your SCE bill with solar

Many SCE customers already save on their electricity bill thanks to solar–and you could be adjacent! On the EnergySage Marketplace, you lot can receive upwardly to vii quotes to compare. These quotes provide custom savings estimates based on your electricity usage, the rate you pay, and the solar potential of your belongings. If y'all'd like to start out with a rough estimate of solar costs and savings, endeavor our Solar Figurer.

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Source: https://news.energysage.com/how-to-read-your-sce-bill/

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