Southern California Edison for Cannabis Facilities: TOU-GS Schedules, Two Demand Charges, and the Best DA Odds

Service area and where cannabis sits in it

SCE's territory wraps around Los Angeles city without including it: Orange County, the Inland Empire (San Bernardino and Riverside counties), Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, Kern County's southern end, the Coachella Valley, and a long list of Los Angeles County cities that are not served by LADWP. Desert Hot Springs, Cathedral City, Adelanto, and the industrial parks of the Inland Empire hold some of the largest indoor and greenhouse cannabis facilities in the state, nearly all of them on SCE lines. Pasadena, Burbank, Glendale, Anaheim, and Riverside city have municipal utilities inside the footprint; a facility in one of those has no CCA and no Direct Access.

SCE is a participating transmission owner in CAISO, the same grid operator as PG&E and SDG&E.

The climate here is the hot end of California's 929 cooling degree day statewide average [noaa-cag-california]. Inland Empire and desert facilities see summer highs that push condenser efficiency down at the same hours the tariff prices on-peak demand up; coastal Orange County and Ventura are milder. For an indoor grow this means the facilities-related demand peak almost always lands in July or August.

Delivery schedules and placement

SCE's general service rates are tiered by monthly registered demand [sce-rate-options-2025]:

Schedule	Registered monthly demand	Demand charge structure
TOU-GS-1	20 kW or less [sce-tou-gs-1-factsheet]	Option D: time-related and facilities-related demand with lower energy rates; Option E: no demand charges, higher energy rates [sce-tou-gs-1-factsheet]
TOU-GS-2	Above 20 kW to below 200 kW [sce-rate-options-2025]	Facilities-related demand plus time-related demand; Option E replaces TRD with higher on-peak energy [sce-rate-options-2025]
TOU-GS-3	200 kW to 500 kW [sce-rate-options-2025]	Same as TOU-GS-2
TOU-8	Regularly above 500 kW [sce-rate-options-2025]	Facilities-related and time-related demand, with sub-schedules by service voltage
TOU-PA-2	Agricultural and pumping, below 200 kW [sce-rate-options-2025]	Facilities-related demand plus summer time-related demand
TOU-PA-3	Agricultural and pumping, 200 kW to 500 kW [sce-rate-options-2025]	Similar structure

Placement follows the meter. An account that registers 210 kW moves to TOU-GS-3; an account that regularly registers more than 500 kW moves to TOU-8. The current $/kW and $/kWh figures are on each schedule's sheet in the SCE tariff book [sce-tariff-books]; they change with rate filings and we do not reprint them here.

The 20 kW line at the bottom is the one that matters for dispensaries and small labs, because TOU-GS-1 Option E is the only SCE business rate with no demand charge at all [sce-tou-gs-1-factsheet]. The 200 kW and 500 kW lines matter for grows, because each step up changes the balance between demand and energy charges and, at TOU-8, adds voltage-level variants.

Two demand charges and what each one responds to

SCE splits demand into two charges on its demand-metered schedules [sce-rate-options-2025]:

• Facilities-related demand (FRD): billed on the highest 15-minute demand in the month at any hour. It reflects the size of the delivery facilities SCE has to keep in place for you. For a grow it is set by connected load and coincidence; for a lab by the chiller bank.
• Time-related demand (TRD): billed on the highest 15-minute demand inside the on-peak window, 4:00 to 9:00 pm on weekdays excluding holidays [sce-rate-options-2025]. It reflects what you draw when the CAISO system is tightest.

Option E on TOU-GS-2 and TOU-GS-3 removes the TRD charge and raises on-peak energy prices instead [sce-rate-options-2025]. Whether that helps depends on the ratio of on-peak kW to on-peak kWh. A flower room that runs its lights-on period through the evening has high on-peak kW and high on-peak kWh, and Option E does little for it; the fix is the photoperiod. A lab with a short daily chiller peak that happens to land at 5 pm has high on-peak kW and low on-peak kWh, and Option E can help. The difference between peak demand and peak usage is exactly this distinction.

Agricultural schedules for cultivation

TOU-PA-2 and TOU-PA-3 are SCE's agricultural and pumping rates, split at 200 kW [sce-rate-options-2025]. Whether an indoor or greenhouse cannabis grow qualifies depends on the end use on the meter; growing plants is agricultural, while drying, extraction, and packaging are not. As at PG&E, the practical advice is to meter cultivation separately from processing and to get SCE's written determination before assuming a PA schedule. TOU-PA-2 carries a facilities-related demand charge, a summer time-related demand charge, and seasonal energy charges [sce-rate-options-2025], so it is not a demand-free rate; its value relative to TOU-GS-2 or GS-3 has to be modeled on your own data.

Generation options: bundled, CCA, or Direct Access

SCE bundled service is the benchmark. Twelve CCAs operate in SCE territory [sce-cca]; Clean Power Alliance is the largest, covering many Los Angeles and Ventura county cities and unincorporated areas, and the Inland Empire and Orange County have several smaller ones. CCA customers are billed on SCE's consolidated bill with the CCA's generation charge in place of SCE's. Departed load, whether CCA or DA, pays the Power Charge Indifference Adjustment, set by vintage and re-forecast each October [cpuc-pcia].

Direct Access is where SCE stands apart. Its enrollment window opens the second full week of June each year, and since 2014 SCE has assigned enrollment by randomized lottery [sce-direct-access]. In the 2023 cycle SCE had 1,206 GWh of load available under its share of the cap, received 326 valid notices, enrolled through lottery number 416, and ended December 31, 2023 with no customers on its waitlist [cpuc-da-lottery-2023]. PG&E and SDG&E, by contrast, had hundreds of customers still waiting [cpuc-da-lottery-2023]. That was one cycle, and the CPUC's most recent published report is for 2023; we could not find results for 2024, 2025, or 2026, so confirm current headroom with SCE's DA group before planning around a slot.

Returning from DA to bundled service at SCE requires a Six-Month Advance Notice to Return, after which the account makes an 18-month commitment to bundled service and cannot re-enter DA until it is complete; meter replacement fees can apply on the way back [sce-direct-access]. For a facility that has won a slot, that rule turns contract renewal into a deadline that must not be missed. The filing steps are in the switching guide.

Interconnection and metering notes

Inland Empire and desert facilities often sit on industrial-park circuits with real capacity, which shortens interconnection timelines compared with rural PG&E territory, but a 1 to 3 MW greenhouse campus can still require a dedicated transformer and a service planning study. Ask SCE for the study at the same time you apply for local permits. TOU-8 has standby sub-schedules that apply when on-site generation regularly supplies part of the load [sce-rate-options-2025], so a facility planning solar plus storage should model the standby terms before sizing the system. As with the other IOUs, keep cultivation and non-cultivation loads on separate meters if there is any chance of a PA schedule.

SCE efficiency programs for cannabis

SCE's Agriculture Energy Efficiency (AgEE) program pays per-fixture rebates on DLC-listed horticultural LED fixtures with photosynthetic photon efficacy of at least 2.86 umol/J, with separate tiers for greenhouse cannabis (flowering and vegetative), non-stacked indoor, and stacked indoor; incentive rates were cut 25 percent for projects not pre-approved or completed by August 31, 2025 [sce-agee]. That source is an implementer's summary; SCE's own program page was not reachable when this page was written, so confirm tiers, caps, and pre-approval steps with SCE before budgeting.

The 2.86 umol/J threshold sits above the Title 24 indoor minimum, so a fixture that earns the rebate also satisfies the building code. The LED retrofit FAQ covers how rebate pre-approval fits into a construction schedule, and the LED versus HPS guide runs the payback.

Worked TRD savings on TOU-GS-2 Option E

Assume an SCE hydrocarbon lab at 95 kW facilities-related demand with 95 kW time-related demand when batch chillers run through 4 to 9 p.m., and 40 kW time-related demand when batches finish by 3:30 p.m. (inputs) [sce-rate-options-2025].

Case	TRD kW	Effect
Option D, batches through peak	95	Pays full TRD $/kW [sce-rate-options-2025]
Option D, batches off peak	40	TRD billed on 40 kW only [sce-rate-options-2025]
Option E	n/a	No TRD; higher on-peak energy $/kWh instead [sce-rate-options-2025]

Option E helps when on-peak kW is high but on-peak kWh is modest [sce-rate-options-2025]. Flower rooms with lights on through the evening have high on-peak kWh; Option E rarely beats shifting photoperiod. Labs with short chiller peaks at 5 p.m. should model Option E on interval data before electing it [sce-tou-gs-1-factsheet].

Inland Empire greenhouse vs desert indoor peaks

Coachella Valley and Adelanto indoor sites see condenser efficiency fall above 110 F outdoor air while TOU on-peak pricing runs 4 to 9 p.m. [noaa-cag-california] [sce-rate-options-2025]. Greenhouse mixed-light tier 2 facilities in the Inland Empire may qualify for TOU-PA-2 or TOU-PA-3 if SCE accepts the agricultural end use on the meter [sce-rate-options-2025]. Processing, packaging, and extraction on the same service point disqualify the agricultural share; separate meters early avoid reclassification surprises [sce-rate-options-2025].

What this means for a facility choosing between SCE and its neighbors

If the choice of where to site a facility is open, SCE territory offers the most realistic path to a supplier contract in California, a defined 200 kW and 500 kW schedule ladder, an Option E that lets some loads avoid the time-related demand charge, and a cannabis-specific lighting rebate. Its disadvantage is climate: Inland Empire and desert cooling loads are the highest in the state. The rates page compares the three utilities' structures side by side, and the PG&E and SDG&E pages cover the alternatives.