PG&E electricity, gas monthly bills on the rise

PG&E electricity and natural gas residential customers must brace for a jump in their monthly bills in March, an increase the utility says will be used to finance an array of efforts to improve safety and reliability.

The monthly bill for the average customer who receives both electricity and gas service from PG&E is jumping to $196.95 a month effective March 1, an increase of $8.73 a month from the average monthly bill of $188.22 that went into effect on Jan. 1, PG&E stated in a post on its web site.

That works out to an increase of 4.6% in the average monthly electricity and gas bill compared to the average bill in January.

“PG&E rates for natural gas and electric service will be increasing,” Robert Kenney, vice president of regulatory and external affairs, said in a post on a PG&E blog. “We want to be upfront about that. We understand it may be a hardship for many.”

In December 2020, the state Public Utilities Commission approved the higher monthly bills as part of a regular general rate case for PG&E’s gas and electricity services.

Electricity bills at the beginning of 2021 were $133.84 for the average residential customer and will increase by $5.01 as of March 1, or 3.7% increase. Natural gas bills were $54.38 a month for the average gas customer and are ste to rise $3.72 a month, up 6.8%.

Thoe increases — the combined bill, electric bill, and gas bill — are all far above the overall inflation rate for the Bay Area. During 2020, the consumer price index, which is the official measure for inflation as it affects consumers, rose 2% in the Bay Area, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The higher revenue that PG&E is collecting will be used to finance varied measures and programs to improve the utility’s electricity and gas system.

San Francisco-based PG&E’s planned improvements include:

• reducing the risk of wildfires by upgrading and hardening the electricity system

• enhancing vegetation management

• expanding PG&E’s network of weather stations and highdefinition cameras to monitor fire-danger conditions

• improving the utility’s program of intentional power shutdowns, officially known as Public Safety Power Shutoffs, which are designed to reduce the chance of fires caused by the company’s electric equipment.

• making improvements to gas system programs such as gas leakage surveys, leak repairs, engineering, and preventative maintenance.

PG&E is attempting to bounce back from a decade of disasters ushered in by a 2010 fatal explosion in San Bruno that killed eight and destroyed a city neighborhood.

During the decade, PG&E caused a string of catastrophic wildfires, including a deadly blaze in Amador

County and Calaveras County in 2015, fatal infernos in the North Bay Wine Country and nearby regions in 2017, and a lethal conflagration in Butte County in 2018 that became California’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire.

In 2016, a federal jury convicted PG&E of felonies it committed before and after the San Bruno explosion.

In 2020, PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the Camp Fire in Butte County.

The results of the Butte County case placed PG&E in the grim pantheon of America’s deadliest corporations.