A 9.8-acre vacant land site near the corner of Coleman Avenue and Santa Teresa Street in downtown San Jose. PG&E San Jose Substation B is located in the background. (George Avalos/Bay Area News Group)
OAKLAND — PG&E monthly electric bills are rising far faster than those levied on customers of its two California utility cousins, a new official report shows — although PG&E claims it’s on a path to rein in costs.
For roughly a decade, customers of PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric have all been burdened with electricity bill increases that are rising far faster than the inflation rate, according to the report from the Public Advocates Office at the state Public Utilities Commission.
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“Residential average rates have significantly increased,” the consumer advocacy group’s Dec. 5 report stated.
The report also determined that the increase in electricity rates is far more pronounced for PG&E customers when compared with the bill burdens for ratepayers served by Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.
Despite the current forbidding trends for customers of PG&E and other California utilities, some hopeful projections are appearing on the horizon, in the view of PG&E spokesperson Lynsey Paulo.
Electricity bills do not increase continuously, Paulo asserted. Bills might flatten or even decrease if costs diminish for programs such as mitigation of wildfire hazards.
“There are rate increases, but there are also rate decreases when program costs are removed from rates,” Paulo said.
Monthly electricity bills, however, have trended decidedly higher for PG&E customers.
Here is how increases in electricity bill rates compare for California’s three major utility companies over multiple time frames, as outlined in the state advocacy group’s report.
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— During roughly three years from January 2021 to October 2024: PG&E, up 56%; Southern California Edison, up 48%; and San Diego Gas & Electric, up 21%.
— During approximately 10 years from January 2014 to October 2024: PG&E was up 118% — more than double. Southern California Edison was up 86% and San Diego Gas & Electric was up 83%.
Over the 10 years in the survey period detailed in the report, the inflation rate as measured by the consumer price index increased by 34%, the state consumer advocacy group reported.
PG&E officials point out that the company’s current average electricity rates for residential customers are below those charged by the San Diego utility, although they are greater than the Los Angeles-area utility.
Electricity rate costs as of October 2024 were an average of 38 cents a kilowatt-hour for PG&E, 32.5 cents for Southern California Edison and 38.5 cents a kilowatt-hour for San Diego Gas & Electric, according to the public advocacy office’s report.
Wildfire mitigation costs, investments in electricity transmission and delivery systems, and rooftop solar incentives were listed as the primary drivers of the fast-rising electricity costs for California’s three major investor-owned utilities.
Oakland-based PG&E insists that its residential customers can expect decreases in monthly electric bills in the coming years.
In April 2024, in response to questions from this news organization after an Earth Day event in Richmond, PG&E Chief Executive Officer Patricia Poppe sketched out her vision for a time when PG&E customers would pay less in their monthly electricity and gas bills.
“We see a future where customers’ bills can start to come down,” Poppe said in the interview. Poppe added, “We are working very hard to modernize our methods for customers and make (monthly bills) more affordable.”
Some changes are already in place, according to Poppe.
“We have implemented a lean operating system to shave costs out of our system and improve the customer experience,” Poppe said.
If these assurances were to morph into reality, that would be a welcome counterpoint to the ominous trends PG&E customers have faced.
In 2023, PG&E’s monthly bills for residential customers soared 22.3%, while the Bay Area inflation rate rose 2.6%.
Paulo pointed to one component in the report by the public consumer advocates that suggested an upcoming early 2025 jump in residential electricity rates for PG&E customers would be followed by a decline in rates by late 2025 and going into 2026.
In October, PG&E residential customers were paying somewhere around 38 cents a kilowatt-hour, although this rate was expected to reach 39.6 cents a kilowatt hour in early 2025, the Public Advocates Office reported. By sometime around January 2026, PG&E customers can expect to pay 35.2 cents a kilowatt-hour.
All of these current costs and projected expenses for electricity, however, are well above what PG&E customers were paying as recently as early 2022. At that time, PG&E customers were paying just a bit more than 30 cents a kilowatt hour.
Put another way, if PG&E electricity rates for residential customers decrease to the projected level of 35.2 cents a kilowatt hour, that would still be approximately 17% higher than what PG&E customers were paying around the start of 2022.
“Rates have increased substantially since 2014, surpassing inflation,” the Public Advocates Office stated in its report.
Originally published at George Avalos