FAQ's
PG&E’s Hourly Flex Pricing (HFP) is a three-year pilot that rewards participants for allowing their EV to smart charge during the cheapest, greenest times on the grid.
The pilot is open to residential, commercial, and agricultural customers who are enrolled or switched into one of the rate plans:
- Electric Home (E-ELEC)
- Home Charging (EV2-A)
Dual participation in Hourly Flex Pricing and the following Demand Response programs is allowed:
- Smart Rate
- Peak Day Pricing
- Emergency Load Reduction Pilot Subgroup A1, A3, and A6
Dual participation in Hourly Flex Pricing and the following programs is NOT allowed:
- Base Interruptible Program, Capacity Bidding Program, Demand Response Automation Mechanism Demand Response Resource Adequacy Contracts, Demand Side Grid Support
- Flex Market Pilot
- Emergency Load Reduction Program Subgroup A2, A4 and A5, Subgroup B
- Optional Binding Mandatory Curtailment, Scheduled Load Reduction Program
- Any supply-side Demand Response programs or event-based load-modifying programs
If you are a Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) customer, your CCA must participate in the pilot for you to be approved to enroll. Participating CCAs include:
- Ava Community Energy
- Central Coast Community Energy (3CE)
- CleanPowerSF
- MCE
- Peninsula Clean Energy
- San José Clean Energy
- Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE)
- Valley Clean Energy (VCE)
In this pilot, energy prices will vary by-hour based on supply and demand on the grid. PG&E will forecast energy prices 7 days in advance and publish them on their website. Final prices are set one day in advance by 4 p.m. On Flex Alert Days, prices are set by 6 p.m.
While we will make sure to always charge at the cheapest cost available, the prices can be higher on extreme weather days or when the overall electricity demand increases. Note: You will never pay more for your EV charging, this is a no-risk pilot where in a worse case scenario you would earn zero bill credits.
Enrollment in the pilot is risk-free financially. Billing is based on your current rate plan and you will receive a credit for the difference if you would have paid less on Hourly Flex Pricing.
As you participate, you will continue to pay your regular PG&E bills as your normally would.
After 12 months and 24 months of participation, if your EV charging on hourly pricing was cheaper than what you paid on your current rate, you will receive a one-time annual lump sum bill credit from PG&E. Otherwise, your bill credit will be zero and you will not have to pay the difference.
After the pilot ends December 31, 2027, no action is required, your current rate plan remains unchanged.
You can continue to earn exclusive incentives from ev.energy in other ways once your participation in the HFP pilot concludes. Ahead of the end of the pilot ev.energy will send you information via email, push notification and in-app-messages to guide you through the transition to ev.energy incentives.
While we encourage participation for the duration of the pilot (3 years), you can unenroll at any time
If you would like to unenroll from the pilot, please email us at pgehourlyflex@ev.energy.
Supported Chargers
Please note that certain makes and models require an active connected services subscription. If you don’t see your EV or charger, please reach out to us! We’ll add you to the waitlist and be in touch if the integration becomes available.
If you need to charge your EV urgently, and want to bypass smart charging optimized for the HFP pilot or ev.energy incentives, you can simply tap the ‘Boost’ button anytime within the Dashboard tab.
The ev.energy app will shift charging predominantly to off-peak hours when you have the smart schedule set up, however a small burst of energy may be delivered to your vehicle when you first plug in until the app polls the EV or charger to schedule the charge. If you would like to prevent this, open the app immediately after you plug your vehicle in. This action will trigger the app to poll your EV or charger right away.
For us to smart charge your vehicle, we need to communicate to send start/stop charge commands. This is done through the vehicle telematics, however some manufacturers require a subscription to allow us access to their data. Should you have any questions regarding your subscription, please contact your EV manufacturer directly.
Under certain circumstances, Teslas or Tesla models can take up to 12 hours to pair the virtual key. If it is outside the 12 hours and you still cannot pair, please reach out to our support team a supportt@ev.energy
ev.energy charging events are triggered when there is little to no carbon on the electric grid. When this happens, a push notification is sent to your mobile device notifying you to plug-in your vehicle so it can automatically charge during the specified event time.
EV drivers in northern California who connect to ev.energy can benefit from a range of exclusive incentives or participate in PG&E’s Hourly Flex Pricing pilot to save on their EV charging.
There are 4 ways to save on your EV charging:
- ev.energy enrollment incentive
- PG&E Hourly Flex Pricing enrollment offer, provided by ev.energy
- PG&E Hourly Flex Pricing pilot annual bill credits (see HFP FAQs)
- ev.energy charging events incentives
Check out the other FAQs below to learn more about each incentive.
EV drivers with a smart charging capable EV or home charger can earn a one-time $20 enrollment incentive just for joining ev.energy.
To qualify, you must connect at least 1 EV or home charger, enable smart charging in the Smart tab, and complete at least 1 smart charging session of a minimum of 5kWh consumption.
The ev.energy enrollment incentive will be paid via your preference of Paypal or Venmo. To ensure you receive your program incentives, you will need to enter your preferred payment choice in the ev.energy app under the Incentives tab.
ev.energy users that are verified by PG&E as eligible and enrolled in the Hourly Flex Pricing pilot can earn an additional one-time $30 enrollment incentive after completing their first smart charge session, courtesy of ev.energy.
To qualify, you must connect at least 1 EV or home charger to ev.energy, enroll in the PG&E HFP pilot, enable smart charging in the Smart tab, and complete at least 1 smart charging session of a minimum of 5kWh consumption.
The ev.energy enrollment incentive will be paid via your preference of Paypal or Venmo. To ensure you receive your program incentives, you will need to enter your preferred payment choice in the ev.energy app under the Incentives tab.
Please refer to the PG&E Hourly Flex Pricing pilot FAQs for details.
But in short, if you are a qualified PG&E customer, there is no financial risk in participating.
If you don’t qualify for the Hourly Flex Pricing Pilot, you can still earn cash incentives each month for participating in ev.energy charging “events”.
ev.energy will invite you to participate in events, where we ask you to charge your car during specific days of the week or times of the day. With smart charging enabled, as long as your car is plugged in it will automatically charge during the event.
You can earn up to $4 per each charging event, paid via Paypal or Venmo.
- $2.50 for each charging event you participate in with a Level 1 charger
- $4 for each charging event you participate in with a Level 2 charger
These exclusive incentives are offered to you by ev.energy through our participation in grid flexibility markets run by the California Independent System Operator. Your participation helps to ensure a reliable and more affordable electricity grid for all Californians!
ev.energy incentives are paid via PayPal or Venmo on a monthly basis, and you will be notified by email when a new reward payment has been made to your preferred account.
To ensure you receive your program incentives, you will need to enter your preferred payment choice in the ev.energy app under the Incentives tab. You will need to have a Venmo or PayPal account, which are free to sign up for, and only takes a minute to connect to the ev.energy app.
The annual bill credits earned in the PG&E Hourly Flex Pricing pilot are applied to your PG&E bill automatically after 12-months and 24-months of participation. If you have questions, please email HourlyFlexPricingSupport@pge.com
If approved, your billing rate plan remains unchanged and if you saved energy, you receive a credit on your bill statement once a year (after 12 months of participation in the program).
If declined, you remain eligible for other ev.energy incentives. For example, you can earn up to $4 per each charging event. ev.energy will also notify you if you become eligible for other programs in your area.
Please see our Privacy Policy at https://www.ev.energy/privacy.
And our Terms and Conditions of use can be found at https://www.ev.energy/terms.
ev.energy does not see or store your EV and/or charger username and password. Once you enter your username and password, we instantly exchange them with the vehicle and/or charger manufacturer for a secure token that allows us to be able to continue to access your account to optimize your charging throughout the program. This token is stored securely and encrypted in ev.energy’s cloud platform, hosted by Amazon Web Services.
ev.energy combines your charging data with that of all the other program participants and aggregates it into a set of metadata that is stored on ev.energy’s secure servers, which are hosted by Amazon Web Services.
By connecting your vehicle to ev.energy using telematics, you consent to ev.energy collecting the following data from your vehicle (at minimum): vehicle make, model, trim and year, vehicle identification number (VIN), battery size, vehicle battery state of charge, plug-in, unplug times, start and stop times of charging sessions, kWh of energy consumed by your vehicle, and vehicle charging location.
By connecting your home charger to ev.energy via the manufacturer, you consent to ev.energy collecting the following data from your charging station: charger make, model, charger serial number, and/or JuiceBox ID, plug-in, unplug times, start and stop times of charging sessions, and kWh of energy delivered via the connected charger.
Once you disconnect your EV, we will no longer be able to collect charging data from your vehicle. Any data from previous charging sessions will be combined with other customers’ data and anonymized.
Should you wish to re-enroll, you will need to reconnect your vehicle or charger to ev.energy within the Account section of the app.
Yes, you can view the official enrollment terms here or visit www.pge.com for more information.
Need any help?
If you need support with the ev.energy app, please refer to the FAQ or contact us by email at pgehourlyflex@ev.energy
