Is Yet Another Hike Coming to Your PG&E Bill This Spring?

Source: GV Wire  |  By Nancy Price

Customers of Pacific Gas & Electric could be facing yet another bill increase — possibly as early as this spring. On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission issued a proposed decision that would allow PG&E to start collecting $516 million in revenues for what the utility spent on wildfire safety and infrastructure upgrades several years ago.

The Utility Reform Network, which advocates for ratepayers, says the proposal would hike customers’ bills on average by $4 to $6 per month. And that’s on top of the $35 average monthly increase that went into effect on Jan. 1, plus other rate hike proposals pending before the PUC. PG&E had been authorized to spend $4.7 billion on wildfire mitigation and other costs but overspent by $10 billion, Toney said. A 2019 state law apparently gave carte blanche to the utility to spend freely without prior authorization. PG&E is guaranteed a specified profit, so $14 billion would generate more profit for investors than $4 billion. AB 2154 created the California Wildfire Fund to provide insurance protections to utilities in the event of catastrophic wildfires and to prevent them from going bankrupt. It was designed to give PG&E some flexibility in spending and the ability to recover its costs later, but “I don’t think anybody imagined that they would have overspent by this magnitude, ” Toney said.