Best Powerwall settings for PG&E EV2-A
EV2-A in plain English: PG&E’s home-charging time-of-use rate for EV owners.
A 61¢ evening peak against 32¢ overnight power is one of the widest spreads in the country. EV2-A is practically designed for a battery — if the battery plays it right.
The plan at a glance
| Period | Hours | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Peak | 4:00–9:00 PM, every day | $0.61/kWh |
| Partial-peak | 3:00–4:00 PM & 9:00 PM–midnight | $0.49/kWh |
| Off-peak | Midnight–3:00 PM | $0.32/kWh |
EV2-A applies these windows every day of the week, all year. Rates come from the published tariff as reflected in SolDial's rate database in mid-2026 — always verify current numbers with your utility.
What this plan means for a Powerwall
EV2-A pays you to time-shift. Every kWh your Powerwall stores at the 32¢ off-peak rate (or from your solar) and discharges during the 4–9 PM peak is worth about 29¢ — before the battery’s ~10% round-trip loss, call it 25¢ of real margin per kWh. A Powerwall cycling 10 kWh into the peak most evenings is worth roughly $65–85 a month in avoided peak purchases, depending on season and how much of the peak your household actually spans.
The settings that make it work: Time-Based Control (not Self-Powered — Self-Powered starts spending the battery the moment the sun dips, often leaving nothing for the expensive hours), a backup reserve low enough to leave working room (20–35% for most homes), and grid charging enabled so cheap overnight power can top the pack up when solar won’t.
Because PG&E still credits legacy NEM customers near retail for exports, mid-day solar you can’t use or store isn’t wasted — keep exports enabled and let surplus flow.
The automations worth having
A pre-peak hold that makes sure the battery is full before 4 PM instead of leaking into the afternoon. EV charging pinned to the overnight window — charging a car at 6 PM on EV2-A is the single most expensive mistake this plan allows. A storm watch that abandons the arbitrage game and holds full when an outage threatens. And a low-reserve alert during peak so a heavy evening never surprises you.
Does this apply to my exact situation?
Plans vary by zone, season, and enrollment vintage, and utilities revise rates. SolDial matches your account to the actual published schedule from ~50,000 tariffs and recomputes the strategy — and the honest savings math — from your windows, not a blog’s snapshot. If your plan differs from this page, the app follows your plan.