PG&E bills a depot's worst 15 minutes at double the subscription rate

Picture four electric trucks on four 50 kW chargers, and one night when the late returns all plug in at once. On Pacific Gas and Electric's Business Electric Vehicle (BEV) rate, that one quarter-hour can set the depot's overage charge for the whole month.

Environment+Energy Leader walked through the tariff on November 9. The rate sheet, in force since March 1, 2026, drops the conventional demand charge. Instead, a depot buys a monthly subscription in blocks of kilowatts. Demand is metered in 15-minute intervals. When a site goes over its subscription, PG&E charges for the excess once each billing period, using the highest reading of the month. On the larger secondary-voltage option, that overage costs $3.82 per kW. The subscription itself comes to $1.91 per kW, so the overage rate is exactly double.

So the dispatcher now affects the power bill. A fleet manager deciding whether to renew charging software, or to add a few chargers in 2027, is really setting a limit on what one bad quarter-hour can cost.

Subscription blocks and a 4 p.m. peak

PG&E splits the schedule into two tiers by load. BEV-1 is for customers with loads of 100 kW or less, and its subscriptions come in 10 kW blocks. BEV-2 covers loads at or above 100 kW and sells 50 kW blocks, with one price for secondary-voltage service and a lower one for primary or transmission voltage. On every option, the overage fee is double the informational per-kW subscription price.

Energy is priced separately by time of use. Peak pricing applies from 4 p.m. until 9 p.m. daily, all year, with weekends and holidays included. The super off-peak period covers 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and off-peak covers the overnight stretch from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m., which is when most depots already charge.

That leaves a depot with two separate levers, and they're easy to mix up. Overnight charging gets the cheaper energy price. It does nothing to protect the subscription if too many trucks draw power in the same 15 minutes. A site can get its energy timing exactly right and still pay overage.

The price of one crowded night

The publication's illustrative depot shows what is at stake. Four trucks each use a 50 kW charger. Software limits charging to two trucks at a time, so load peaks at 100 kW and two BEV-2 blocks cover it for $191.12 a month. Then the trucks return late one night, and all four start charging in the same quarter-hour. The meter records 200 kW. For that billing period, the depot owes $382 on the 100 kW over its subscription, double what it paid for the subscription itself.

Because overage is charged once a month, the rule cuts both ways. In the rate sheet's own example, a customer with a 60 kW subscription first reaches 61 kW and then 65 kW. The bill covers 5 kW of overage rather than 6. Hitting that same peak again on another night costs nothing extra. Scheduling software exists to stop the first such night.

The fixed two-to-one ratio also simplifies the question of whether to buy more headroom. Each extra 50 kW block costs $95.56 a month. Because PG&E prices overage at twice the subscription on every option, an extra block likely pays for itself only at depots that would exceed that level in most billing months. For depots that spike less often, preventing the spike is likely the cheaper path. That calculation leaves out energy, which is priced separately. It also has to account for the lock: after a grace period closes, a customer must wait three consecutive billing cycles before changing the level again.

Three penalty-free months to find the peak

Once a customer enrolls in a BEV rate, PG&E does not charge overage fees for three billing cycles. An enrolled customer that reports new charging equipment that increases load also gets another grace period. Should a site's load stay above its subscription during the third cycle, the utility may raise the subscription in month four to cover the overage, rounded up to the next block. When a grace period is over, a customer must wait three consecutive billing cycles before changing its level again.

In practice, the three months reveal what a depot's peak really is under its normal dispatch, without any penalty, before its subscription level becomes fixed. Rounding also matters. A site that is still over its subscription in the third cycle may see PG&E reset the level in month four so it covers that overage, rounded up to the next block. A crowded quarter-hour late in the grace period could therefore shape the bill for months afterward.

The grace period doubles as a test of the vendor. According to Environment+Energy Leader, fleet charging platforms that time sessions around energy prices have been marketed to school districts and trucking companies since at least 2022. A buyer can check a vendor's claims against the meter's 15-minute interval data. If the grace-period log shows peak load stayed below the subscription even with real late returns, the scheduling worked at that site.

Where the spike risk shrinks

The case for tight scheduling is weakest at depots where the crowded quarter-hour happens all the time. If late returns stack up most weeks, that 200 kW reading is the site's real peak, not an accident. By the same two-to-one arithmetic, subscribing to it is likely to cost less than paying overage month after month. Overage is billed once per month, on the highest reading, so a second bad night at the same level adds nothing.

Smaller sites have more room to adjust. BEV-1 sells headroom in 10 kW steps at $12.41 a block, so a site at or below 100 kW can add a sliver of margin without committing to another 50 kW.

Fleet plans built around decade-long chargers

The South Placer Municipal Utility District, a sewer agency in Placer County, adopted a Fleet Transition Master Plan through Resolution 26-10 on a 3-1 board vote. Presenting the plan, Gurbir Antaal of DKS Associates told directors that most of the cost comes up front, in readying facilities for electric vehicles. He added that the average charger lasts eight to 10 years. The district had given its board a briefing on California's Advanced Clean Fleets rules in May 2024.

An eight-to-10-year charger life means the layout and peak assumptions in a plan like that will outlast several software contracts and several subscription resets. For any agency or carrier writing such a plan in PG&E territory, how many chargers can run in the same quarter-hour is a design input, not just a dispatch detail. The scale is growing. California's latest charging infrastructure assessment, which Environment+Energy Leader covered on October 20, expects fleet depots to carry much of the state's electrical buildout through 2030.

Watch for the next trigger: when an enrolled customer reports new charging equipment that raises load, PG&E starts another grace period. For operators who add chargers, that window could show whether a site's scheduling can absorb the extra trucks, or whether buying more blocks makes more sense.