Allow Users to Enter Their Own ‘Time of Use’ and Rates in “Schedules”

[Bolt2601]

I use the Emporia EVSE (EV Charger), and I noticed that my utility information being pulled from NREL’s OpenEI is from 2018! (five years old)

The problem I encountered is that when I attempt to set my own rate under “Change Utility Rate,” I am only allowed to set one fixed rate or pull from OpenEI’s stale data. This limitation is frustrating because utility rates change year to year; vary between Spring, Summer, and Winter; and can vary for me up to six* different rates during the day.

I would highly appreciate it if the app could be updated to allow users to configure their own Summer and Winter ‘Time of Use’ periods along with the corresponding rates. This way, my EV charging statistics can reflect the actual cost per charging session accurately.

 

 

*SDGE has up to six rate changes in a day:

–Weekdays–

Midnight-6am: Super Off-peak

6-10am: Off-peak

10-2pm: Super Off-peak (March and April only)

2pm-4pm: Off-peak

4pm-9pm: On-peak

9pm-Midnight: Off-peak

 

–Weekends–

Midnight-2pm: Super Off-peak

2pm-4pm: Off-peak

4pm-9pm: On-peak

9pm-Midnight: Super Off-peak

• This topic was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Bolt2601.

[KCole313]

Agreed, my time of use rates are very involved. Several rate changes throughout the day, weekends are different than weekdays, and Winter is different than Summer. I have the same frustration with the incorrect information provided by the OpenEl integration, while also having no way to accurately set the rates myself.

[emporiacs]

Thank you for the feedback. We’ve passed it along to the team.

Some additional insight that may be of interest:

If your plan is not listed by the NREL, you can still have one flat rate for the cost of energy in the Emporia app.
To set a manual flat rate on the Emporia app please:
Select Menu (☰) in top left corner
Select Household Info under Settings
Select Set Utility Rate
Select the device you want to make changes to
The Utility rate will default to a manually entered value, to change that value simply edit the Cents per kWh field. Make sure to use whole cents ( i.e. 12.4¢ NOT .124 to calculate $0.124/kWh rate)

More information: https://help.emporiaenergy.com/hc/en-us/articles/9404822704919-Cost-Rate-settings

For dynamic rates when your plan is not there, you can still export the CSV files to make calculations after the fact.

[KCole313]

Thanks, it would be nice to see an improvement here but I won’t get my hopes up. I appreciate the information, but I’m fully aware of being able to manually provide a flat rate. Like I said, there is no way to accurately set the rate since my average rate will always vary depending on usage.

As for downloading the CSV to make calculations afterwards? Again, I really appreciate the information and the effort to try finding a potential interim solution, but that’s more hassle than it’s worth. If I was going to go that route, I would still prefer to use an API that I could use to do the calculations programmatically.

[danielcifuentes]

I just wrote Support asking for this.

 

I also have tiered rates>

 

A. From 0- 500 kWh

Peak: 10:01 a 12:30 and 17:31 a 20:00

Valley: 6:01 a 10:00 and 12:31 a 17:30

Night: 20:01 to 6:00

 

B. After 501 kWh

Peak: De 10:01 a 12:30 y de 17:31 a 20:00

Valley: De 6:01 a 10:00 y de 12:31 a 17:30

Night: De 20:01 a 6:00

 

C. Weekends

 

Valley: 6:01 to 20:00

Night: 20:01 to 6:00

This should be quite basic to have for a monitor. So basic I didn’t even askef if it had the feature. The same with the EV Charger.

[Westdonkeyk]

+1 for this, and I only have to deal with a summer/winter rate. Can’t imagine time of day billing like others are dealing with, certainly limits some functionality of the app.

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