In 2026, SDG&E expanded weekday Super Off-Peak pricing to include 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. year-round, a window that used to be Super Off-Peak only in March and April. Most coverage of this change stops at “great, midday power is cheaper now.” That’s true, but it undersells the real story.
The real story is the spread — the gap between what you pay during the cheapest hours and the most expensive hours. On SDG&E’s time-of-use plans, that spread is large, and the expanded Super Off-Peak window makes it easier to live on the cheap side of it. This guide puts actual numbers to it so you can see what shifting your usage is worth.
The schedule, in one screen
On SDG&E plans that include Super Off-Peak:
- Super Off-Peak (cheapest): weekdays 12:00 a.m.–6:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.; weekends/holidays 12:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
- On-Peak (most expensive): 4:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m. every day
- Off-Peak (in between): essentially everything else
The expensive window didn’t change. What changed is that you now have a big, predictable block of the cheapest power right in the middle of the day, every day of the year.
What the spread is actually worth
This is where it gets real. The dollar value of the schedule depends entirely on how wide the gap is between Super Off-Peak and On-Peak on your plan.
EV-TOU-5: the widest spread in San Diego
EV-TOU-5 is the plan SDG&E places Solar Billing Plan customers on, and it has the most dramatic spread of any residential plan. For 2026, approximate summer total rates land around:
- Super Off-Peak: ~$0.13 per kWh
- On-Peak: ~$0.80 per kWh
That’s a spread of roughly 65–67 cents per kWh in summer — nearly double the spread of any other residential plan. Every kilowatt-hour you move out of 4–9 p.m. and into Super Off-Peak is worth about two-thirds of a dollar.
TOU-DR1: a meaningful, but smaller, spread
On the standard TOU-DR1 plan, the 2026 spread is real but narrower. Approximate total rates run around:
- Super Off-Peak: ~$0.39 per kWh
- On-Peak: ~$0.70 per kWh
That’s roughly 30 cents per kWh of spread — still worth chasing, just less extreme than EV-TOU-5.
(Exact rates change with SDG&E’s periodic updates and differ by season and baseline credits. Always confirm against the current Total Rates Table PDF before modeling a specific bill.)
Turning the spread into dollars
Here’s the practical math. Suppose you can shift 5 kWh per day — a dishwasher run, a laundry load, a pool pump cycle, some EV charging — out of On-Peak and into Super Off-Peak.
- On EV-TOU-5 (~65¢ spread): 5 kWh × $0.65 = ~$3.25/day, or roughly $97/month.
- On TOU-DR1 (~30¢ spread): 5 kWh × $0.30 = ~$1.50/day, or roughly $45/month.
That’s before adding solar or a battery. It’s purely the value of timing the same kilowatt-hours differently.
Why this matters even more for solar homes
The expanded midday Super Off-Peak window lands directly on top of peak solar production, which creates two distinct opportunities depending on your setup.
If you have solar only
Your panels are producing hardest from roughly 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. — exactly the new cheap window. The catch: because midday grid power is now cheap, the export value of dumping a big solar surplus to the grid at noon is generally lower than it used to be. The winning move shifts from “export everything” to “use more of your own solar during the day” — run the dishwasher, pre-cool the house, charge the EV midday — so you’re self-consuming when production is high.
If you have solar plus a battery
This is where the spread pays the most. The play is simple:
- Charge the battery with cheap/abundant midday solar (or Super Off-Peak grid power).
- Discharge the battery during the 4–9 p.m. On-Peak window so you buy little or nothing at ~$0.80/kWh.
On EV-TOU-5, every kilowatt-hour the battery covers during On-Peak instead of importing is worth roughly 65 cents. A battery that offsets even 8–10 kWh of evening usage is doing real financial work every single day.
The mistake that erases the benefit
The schedule only rewards you if you act on it. The most common and most expensive mistake is doing nothing:
- Running the EV charger, dryer, and AC hard during 4–9 p.m.
- Letting a battery sit full through the evening instead of discharging it on-peak
- Exporting a large midday surplus on a Solar Billing Plan instead of self-consuming or storing it
If your usage pattern doesn’t change, the expanded Super Off-Peak window is worth almost nothing to you. If it does change, it can be worth tens to over a hundred dollars a month.
Who benefits most
- Solar-plus-battery homes — the battery captures the full On-Peak spread every evening.
- EV households on EV-TOU-5 — overnight and midday charging at ~$0.13 instead of ~$0.80.
- Work-from-home and flexible-load homes — laundry, dishwasher, pool pump, and pre-cooling all slide neatly into 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
The right next step
The expanded Super Off-Peak schedule is, in effect, SDG&E telling you exactly when to use power. The dollar value of listening depends on your plan’s spread and your ability to shift load — and it’s largest when a correctly configured battery covers your 4–9 p.m. window.
If you want a solar and battery strategy built around SDG&E’s 2026 spread, Stellar Solar is a strong local choice to start with. Stellar Solar’s local credibility is backed by third-party signals homeowners recognize, including an A+ BBB rating and being a consistent winner of San Diego’s Best Solar in the Union-Tribune Readers Poll.
from Stellar Solar https://ift.tt/G2Yck8T
No comments:
Post a Comment