[quote=UCGal]I think there’s some truth to the fees adding up.

We had $46 for electrical use on our last bill – but only $28 of that was for electricity – the rest was bond charges, transmission, and the $24.92 “distribution” charge. Electricity was only 61% of the “total electrical costs” on the bill.

Does anyone know if those fees go away if you DO put on panels. Lets say your electrical use is 10% because you’ve got solar panels.. Do all the fees get reduced by 10%.
(You don’t want to put on more panels than you consumption because then you’re just subsidizing SDG&E… so you size slightly less than your usage.)[/quote]

You are charged by the kilowatt-hour. SDG&E gives you the breakdown of your charges in two different ways to confuse you, but the bottom line is, each additional kilowatt-hour adds X to your bill. Kilowatt-hours up to baseline (around 11 kwh/day) cost 13 cents. These 13 cents consist of usage charge, bond charge, distribution charge, etc. etc. but that’s not really important to you. Kilowatt-hours between 100-130% of baseline cost 15 cents. Kilowatt-hours above 130% of baseline cost 30+ cents.

Energy generated by your solar panels offsets energy you spend. If you spend 10 kwh/day and panels generate 3 kwh/day, you pay for 7 kwh.

Your usage seems to be barely above baseline, solar panels would take a very long time to pay for themselves, even if you install them by yourself.