This is absolutely the wrong time for utility bills or any bills to be going up, said Mark Toney, the Executive Director of The Utility Reform Network. We re in the middle of the worst public health crisis with coronavirus that we have ever seen in our lifetime.
The filing is an Energy Resource Recovery Account trigger application. SDG&E said it is required to submit the filing when the actual cost of power is different than what it charged customers. A spokesperson told NBC 7 Responds that the filing is triggered automatically when that cost is too far off.
In documents submitted to the CPUC by SDG&E, the utility said it paid more for electricity due to warmer than expected weather. In those documents, SDG&E also estimates by March 2021 it will have under-collected $181 million.
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San Diego Gas & Electric customers may pay a few bucks more on their bills from March until the end of this year if the California Public Utilities Commission signs off on a request recently filed by the local power provider.
SDG&E officials blamed the increase partly on high electric prices due to last summer’s hot weather.
“At a very high level, it basically boils down to the price of electricity being higher than was forecasted,” SDG&E said in an email to the Union-Tribune.
If the commission approves the application, typical customers in the inland climate zone using 400 kilowatt-hours of electricity would see a 3.3 percent increase in their bills starting March 1 and going through Dec. 31. That works out to an increase of $3.66 per month during the winter pricing months of Nov. 1 through May 31 and $3.72 for the summer months of June 1 through Oct. 31. The increase, if approved, would expire after 10 months Jan. 1, 2022.