Solar City Lease and issue with LA DWP fees

More information is needed to do any analysis. How many kiloWatt Hours (kWhrs) has your system produced over a year? You will need to get that information from Solar City who is monitoring the output of your system. How much have you consumed over that same period. Your bill says NEM so I assume you have one meter with a Net Energy Metering arrangement. So you may have to do some math to figure out your total consumption by adding the kWhrs produced to the net energy that LADWP is billing you for. While you may be considered commercial, you may still have rate options within that.. Do you know what those are? LADWP is a municipal utility that is not regulated by the CPUC as far as I know. The good news is that municipal utility rates have tended to be lower than SCE.

If you are already on a TOU rate or that is available then one of the options you may have is to shift loads to a less expensive time. You didn't mention what your loads are and whether you have already done any energy saving efforts. Replacing Incandescent bulbs with LED light bulbs is the low hanging fruit of energy saving processes.

I went to the LADWP website to try to get a better understanding of their rate structure. I didn't learn much except that the largest component of your bill may be a demand charge (the facility charge of $108}. If that is the case it would be based on the highest demand over the past 12 months. There may be an opportunity to reduce that by peak shaving but I would need to know more about the large energy consuming devices in your home. What are they and when do they start running? Do you know when that peak demand occurred that the facility charge is based on?

Ampster Thanks for the input. I think your idea for cutting off appliances during peak time is a good idea. I know that I produce about 6,500kWh per year and it covers most of my electricity use. But when I compare my bill with other people who have bought their solar panel systems, they have none of the expenses that I have except for city taxes. Thus their bill is only $20 to 30. The question I have is how to get rid off all those fees I'm getting charged.

You aren't going to get rid of any of those fees per se, but you can reduce them by understanding what drives them. The charges for energy usage are small so it would seem that you are covering some of your usage with your solar. .

The biggest fee is the demand charge. LADWP uses the highest usage during a specific interval. I don't know if that is 5 minutes or one hour. Whatever the period it then becomes a fixed charge for the rest of the year. Whatever you can do to reduce that could save a lot. If I recall it is over $50 per month. Is there some equipment with a big motor that uses a lot of power running sometime in the last year? That is what you need to focus on. LADWP may be able to help you identify when that high usage occurred and when it might roll off. Another one if your fees is a tax based on the total of the bill so that should come down if you can get that demand charge reduced. Is this a home or business?

Ampster I agree that the solar panels are helping to keep the actual usage low but the fees are so high that they are negating any savings. Your point on the demand charge makes sense. If anything uses the most power it's our AC unit and the fridge. I'll try asking LADWP what the demand period is. My guess it's in the evening when we're home and using everything for dinner and hanging out at home. I'm in a residential duplex so it makes me wonder if some of these fees are because I'm seen as a 'commercial' place.

Absolutely, the demand charge is only used for commercial accounts and that is what is hurting you. Over $50 a month for that alone. I have a 4 unit apartment but tenants have individual residential accounts and I have one house meter for lights, EV chargers and gate openers. That house meter is on a commercial rate and EV chargers only run at 4kW and I have them connected in a way that they share the 4kW to avoid larger demand charges with SCE.

Perhaps you can show them you own and live there. I dont know LADWP rules but there has to be a workaround. Try framing the issue for some Google searches and you might find better info than on this forum alone.