San Diego residents just got a little incentive to plug in while the sun is high. SDG&E is expanding its cheapest "super off‑peak" window to cover weekdays from 10 AM to 2 PM all year, opening up more low‑cost hours for power‑hungry gear like EV chargers and pool pumps. For standard time‑of‑use customers, that midday period drops from roughly 43¢ per kWh to about 34¢ per kWh on common tiers, so the steepest rates stay concentrated in the 4 to 9 p.m. peak.
How the change works
In SDG&E's updated rate tables, weekdays from 10 AM to 2 PM now sit in the super off‑peak bucket, with Tier 1 delivery charges in that block listed around 34.0¢ per kWh. Those same hours were previously billed at the higher off‑peak level, about 43.1¢. According to SDG&E, those numbers only cover the utility's delivery charges; customers served by a Community Choice Aggregator will see separate generation prices that determine what actually shows up on the final bill.
Where CCAs fit in
Local Community Choice Aggregators have been marching in the same direction. San Diego Community Power's rate schedule already carves out a 10 AM to 2 PM super off‑peak window for residential customers, and San Diego reporting says the Clean Energy Alliance added a weekday midday super off‑peak period earlier this spring. For the generation portion of your bill, differences among CCAs determine whether customers actually pay less overall, as shown in San Diego Community Power's rate documents and reported by The San Diego Union-Tribune.
What it means for your bill
Cheaper midday delivery charges give households a clearer reason to push flexible use, like EV charging or running big appliances, into the daytime. How much money that actually saves depends on each customer's generation rate, baseline tier and habits at home. SDG&E is steering people to its online pricing tools and My Energy Center so they can compare plans and run the numbers before overhauling charging routines or appliance schedules. Customers served by CCAs are told to check their agency's rate pages for the same kind of breakdown of bill impacts.
Why now
Utilities and CCAs say the bigger midday super off‑peak window helps soak up plentiful daytime renewable power and eases pressure on the grid in those late‑afternoon and early‑evening hours when demand tends to spike. The timing also lines up with a broader reality that has been hitting customers in the wallet. A report by the Legislative Analyst's Office found that residential rates at the state's big investor‑owned utilities jumped sharply from 2019 through 2023, climbing roughly 48% to 67%. Those increases have pushed providers and regulators to lean more heavily on time‑of‑use tweaks as a tool for managing both demand and costs, a trend laid out in detail by the Legislative Analyst's Office.
"Lower midday pricing will give ratepayers some much-needed flexibility to shift their electricity usage away from the 4 to 9 p.m. block," SDG&E spokesman Michael Powers said in comments reported by The San Diego Union-Tribune. Anyone curious about how much this could change their bill is being nudged to try SDG&E's pricing plan calculator or their CCA's rate pages to test different what‑if scenarios before committing to a new routine.
