SDG&E Time-of-Use Rates: How to Actually Save With Them
If you’re a San Diego Gas & Electric customer, you’re almost certainly on a time-of-use rate. The gap between your cheap hours and the expensive ones is wider than most people realize. Capturing the benefit of that gap means using less power during a five-hour window every evening. That can be hard to do by hand. It’s straightforward to do automatically.
This guide explains how SDG&E’s residential time-of-use rates work, where the savings are, and two ways to go after them.
How SDG&E time-of-use pricing works
SDG&E splits the day into pricing periods, and the price per kilowatt-hour changes depending on when you use power. The expensive window — on-peak — is 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. every day, including weekends. That’s the stretch when grid demand is highest, so it’s when electricity costs the most.
Most of SDG&E’s residential plans share the same three time periods:
- On-Peak — 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. (the expensive window, every day)
- Off-Peak — 6–10 a.m., 2–4 p.m., and 9 p.m.–midnight
- Super Off-Peak — midnight to 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (the cheapest hours; midday is cheap because of abundant solar on the grid)
Every SDG&E residential plan, side by side
SDG&E offers nine residential rate plans. Here’s the full lineup with approximate summer prices (¢/kWh, Tier-1 / below-baseline). These are drawn from SDG&E’s tariff sheets effective in 2026. Always confirm your exact numbers on SDG&E’s pricing plans page, since rates change and depend on your baseline allowance, season, and whether you buy generation from SDG&E or a Community Choice Aggregator like San Diego Community Power.
| Plan | Who it’s for | Super Off-Peak | Off-Peak | On-Peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOU-DR1 | Standard residential plan | ~27¢ | ~36¢ | ~58¢ |
| TOU-DR2 | Simpler 2-period plan (no midday discount) | — | ~31¢ | ~58¢ |
| DR (standard) | Non-time-of-use, flat tiered | flat ~41¢ (Tier 1) ~52¢ (Tier 2) | ||
| TOU-ELEC | EV, battery, or heat-pump homes | ~35¢ | ~39¢ | ~72¢ |
| EV-TOU-5 | EV owners (whole home) | ~13¢ | ~50¢ | ~79¢ |
| EV-TOU-2 | EV owners (whole home, older plan) | ~31¢ | ~56¢ | ~85¢ |
| DR-SES | Households with solar | ~35¢ | ~44¢ | ~74¢ |
| TOU-DR-P | TOU-DR1 + Reduce-Your-Use event days | ~31¢ | ~38¢ | ~43¢ |
| EV-TOU-5-P | EV owners + Reduce-Your-Use event days | ~12¢ | ~48¢ | ~74¢ |
A few things worth knowing:
- The “-P” plans (TOU-DR-P and EV-TOU-5-P) have lower everyday peak prices, but add a $1.16/kWh surcharge during “Reduce Your Use” events — a handful of high-demand days each year when SDG&E asks customers to cut back. They reward you for shifting load on those days and penalize you if you don’t.
- EV-TOU-5 has the widest swing — roughly 6× from super-off-peak to on-peak. That’s the single biggest reason to automate if you drive electric.
- Super-off-peak includes midday (10 a.m.–2 p.m.) on most plans, not just the overnight hours — useful if you have solar or a battery.
The headline across all of them: when you use power matters as much as how much you use.
Where the savings are
The savings come from moving flexible loads out of the 4–9 p.m. peak and into the cheaper hours:
- Charging an EV. On EV-TOU-5, charging a 40 kWh top-up during super-off-peak instead of on-peak is the difference between roughly $5 and $32 for the same energy. Over a year of regular charging, that adds up fast.
- Cooling your home. San Diego’s hottest hours overlap the peak window. If your AC can do most of its work before 4 p.m. and let the house coast through the evening, you shift a big chunk of usage into cheaper time.
- Heating water and running the dishwasher or laundry outside 4–9 p.m. — smaller individually, but they’re easy wins.
None of this requires using less energy. It’s the same comfort, the same clean clothes, the same charged car — just timed against the rate.
The core move on any SDG&E plan: pull flexible load out of the 4–9 p.m. peak (circled) and into the cheap midday and overnight hours — pre-cooling, leaning on your own solar, and coasting through the expensive window.
How to capture it: by hand vs. automatically
By hand, the playbook is: pre-cool the house in the early afternoon, set the EV charger to start after midnight, and avoid big appliances from 4 to 9 p.m. This works, but it’s a daily chore and it ignores tomorrow’s weather, which decides how much pre-cooling actually pays off. Miss the window on a hot evening and you give the savings right back.
Automatically is where it gets practical. Hungry Machines connects to your setup and builds an optimized schedule for your HVAC, EV charger, water heater, and home battery each night. It looks at SDG&E’s rate schedule, tomorrow’s forecast, your solar production, and a model of how your specific home holds temperature. Then it pre-cools and shifts loads so you ride through the 4–9 p.m. peak on stored comfort and cheap overnight energy. You set the comfort limits; it handles the timing.
The same idea, running on its own: Hungry Machines pre-cools the office ahead of the 4–9 p.m. peak — note the price axis climbing toward $0.68/kWh — then lets the room drift up through the expensive hours while staying inside the comfort band. 31% off that day’s cooling cost.
Most homes on aggressive time-of-use rates can trim 10–25% off their bill this way without feeling a difference indoors.
Common questions
Is time-of-use worth it in San Diego?
For most homes with an EV, AC, or electric water heater, yes — the 4–9 p.m. peak is steep enough that shifting even part of your usage pays off. The more flexible load you have, the more there is to capture.
Do I have to give up comfort during peak hours?
No. The goal is to do the work early and coast, not to sit in a hot house from 4 to 9 p.m. A properly pre-cooled home typically drifts only a couple of degrees over the evening.
What if I forget to shift my usage?
That’s exactly the problem automation solves. A schedule that runs every day doesn’t forget, and it accounts for the next day’s weather instead of guessing.
Next steps
If you’re in California, our PG&E time-of-use guide covers the same ideas for Northern California. And if your utility uses hourly pricing that changes day to day rather than fixed time-of-use blocks, see how ComEd’s hourly pricing works.
Ready to stop watching the clock? See how Hungry Machines works and sign up now.