SDG&E Time-of-Use Rates: What You Pay, and When

Most San Diego County homeowners are paying two different prices for the same kilowatt-hour and never notice. Your SDG&E time-of-use rates are set by the clock: run the dryer at 1 p.m. and it costs one thing, run it at 6 p.m. and it costs substantially more. That single design choice explains most of what looks confusing on your bill, and it is also the reason a solar system that would have paid for itself one way in 2018 pays for itself a different way now. Our team at San Diego Solar sizes systems around this rate structure every day. Here is how the plans actually work, what changed in May 2026, and where the real savings sit.

What this guide covers

• What time-of-use pricing is and why SDG&E defaults to it
• The exact peak, off-peak and super off-peak windows
• The May 2026 super off-peak expansion
• How the main residential plans differ
• What time-of-use rates do to the value of solar and batteries
• A practical playbook for cutting your 4–9 p.m. usage

What are SDG&E time-of-use rates?

A time-of-use rate charges you a different price per kilowatt-hour depending on the hour, the day of the week, and the season. Instead of one flat number, your plan has two or three pricing periods — on-peak, off-peak, and usually super off-peak — and your bill is the sum of what you used in each.

The reason is supply, not punishment. Solar output across California peaks in the middle of the day and collapses at sunset, while household demand does the opposite: it spikes exactly when people get home, right as solar generation is falling away. That evening ramp is the most expensive power on the grid to serve, so the price signal is aimed at it.

For you, the practical consequence is simple. Total consumption still matters, but *timing* now matters nearly as much. Two houses using identical kilowatt-hours can get meaningfully different bills.

When are SDG&E's peak, off-peak and super off-peak hours?

On-peak is 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., and it applies every day of the week — not just weekdays. Everything else is off-peak or super off-peak.

As of May 2026, the super off-peak windows on SDG&E's residential time-of-use plans are:

• Weekdays, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. (year-round)
• Weeknights, 12 a.m. – 6 a.m.
• Weekends and holidays, 12 a.m. – 2 p.m.

Off-peak is the leftover time: roughly 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. to midnight, minus whatever falls into a super off-peak block. SDG&E also splits the year into a summer season and a winter season, with summer on-peak prices running higher.

The pattern worth memorising is the shape, not the cents. Cheapest in the middle of the day and overnight, most expensive from late afternoon into mid-evening, with a moderate band in between.

What changed with super off-peak hours in May 2026?

SDG&E extended the weekday 10 a.m.–2 p.m. super off-peak window to run year-round, effective 1 May 2026. Before that change, those daytime super off-peak hours only existed in March and April.

This is the most useful rate development in San Diego in years, and it is still missing from most of the guides ranking for this topic. It means that ten months of the year that used to be ordinary off-peak daytime are now priced at the lowest tier — every weekday, for anyone on a plan that includes super off-peak periods.

Who it helps most:

• Anyone home during the day — remote workers, retirees, families with young kids.
• EV owners who can charge at lunchtime rather than after the evening commute.
• Pool pumps, dishwashers, laundry and water heating that can run on a timer.
• Pre-cooling houses — cooling the place down before 4 p.m. and coasting through the peak.

It is worth checking that your plan actually includes super off-peak hours, because not all of them do. That is a free change and it is reversible.

Which SDG&E time-of-use plan fits your house?

There is no universally best plan — it depends on how much of your usage you can genuinely move out of the 4–9 p.m. window. SDG&E's main residential time-of-use options break down roughly like this:

• TOU-DR1 — the standard three-period plan. On-peak, off-peak and super off-peak. The default fit for most households.
• TOU-DR2 — a two-period plan with no super off-peak tier. The peak-to-off-peak spread is narrower, which suits a household that genuinely cannot shift usage away from the evening.
• TOU-DR-P — adds "reduce your use" event days, where you're rewarded for cutting back during a handful of called events and penalised if you don't. Good for people who will actually respond to a notification.
• EV-TOU-5 — built for electric vehicle owners, with a very cheap overnight super off-peak rate in exchange for a fixed monthly charge and a steeper on-peak rate.
• TOU-ELEC — aimed at all-electric homes with heat pumps, induction cooking and no gas appliances.

The honest way to choose is with your own data, not a rule of thumb. SDG&E publishes your hourly usage history through your online account, and it will compare your actual last twelve months against each available plan. That comparison beats any generic advice, including ours.

One caution if you already have solar or are about to: your rate plan and your export arrangement are two separate things, and changing one does not change the other. Confirm both before you switch anything.

How do time-of-use rates change what solar is worth in San Diego?

Time-of-use pricing means solar is now worth more for the power it *replaces* than for the power it *sells*. Under California's current net billing tariff, exporting a kilowatt-hour to the grid earns roughly $0.05, while buying one back during the 4–9 p.m. peak costs around $0.40. That is roughly an eight-to-one difference on the same unit of electricity.

This is a real regulatory change, not a market wobble. Since 15 April 2023, every new interconnection application in California has been placed on the net billing tariff rather than the older retail-rate net metering, under the CPUC's net-billing rules. The CPUC also notes that more than 90% of all megawatts of customer-sited solar capacity interconnected in the three large investor-owned utility territories sit on the older net energy metering tariffs — which is exactly why so much advice still circulating online quietly assumes rules that no longer apply to a new system.

What this means in practice:

• Self-consumption is the priority. A kilowatt-hour used in your own house is worth full retail; the same one exported is worth a fraction of that.
• Oversizing to bank credits no longer works well. Honest sizing against your actual usage produces better payback math than a bigger array does.
• The 4–9 p.m. block is where the money is. Solar alone can't reach it, because production is dropping right when the price spikes.
• Battery storage bridges the gap by charging on cheap midday production and discharging into the expensive evening window.

None of this makes solar worse in San Diego — the retail rates it offsets are among the highest in the country. It changes *how* a system should be designed. If you're weighing the numbers, our residential solar page walks through how we size to actual consumption, and the solar panel cost breakdown shows the tiers by home size.

How do you actually cut your 4–9 p.m. usage?

Start with the loads that are both large and schedulable, because those give you the most saving for the least disruption.

Free changes, this week:

1. Move laundry and the dishwasher to before 4 p.m. or after 9 p.m. Most machines have a delay-start button. 2. Re-time the pool pump into the 10 a.m.–2 p.m. weekday window. Pool pumps are often a home's single largest controllable load. 3. Pre-cool the house to a couple of degrees below target by 3:45 p.m., then let the thermostat drift up during peak. 4. Shift EV charging to overnight or the midday super off-peak block instead of plugging in at 5:30 p.m. 5. Check your plan against your own usage history in your SDG&E account.

Equipment changes, over time:

• A heat-pump water heater on a timer becomes a thermal battery: heat the tank at super off-peak prices, draw hot water whenever.
• A smart thermostat with a peak schedule automates the pre-cool instead of relying on you remembering.
• Battery storage is the only thing that covers the evening block without changing your behaviour at all. Installed cost runs $12,000–$16,000 per unit, with most homes needing one or two. If your address is served by San Diego Community Power, its Solar Battery Savings programme pays an upfront rebate per kWh of storage plus $0.10/kWh for energy discharged during weekday dispatch windows inside that 4–9 p.m. block; California's SGIP rebate may also apply to qualifying households. Our battery storage page covers sizing and backup options.

Do the free items first and read your next bill before spending anything. You'll learn more from that one comparison than from any estimate.

If you'd like a second set of eyes on it, we'll read your usage data and your current plan and show you what a correctly sized system would actually offset, with no assumption that a bigger array is a better one. We've been designing systems for San Diego County homes since 1996 with 100% in-house crews, licensed under CSLB #970079 — a licence you can verify with the CSLB in about a minute. Request a free solar quote or call San Diego Solar at (619) 514-0095.