SAN DIEGO, March 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- California is changing the way the state's
investor-owned utilities charge customers for electricity to
establish more equitable and transparent energy pricing. For more
than a year, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has
been evaluating changes that would help to reform electricity
rates. A decision on a new rate structure is expected this summer.
In the meantime, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) is
educating and informing customers to make sure they're aware these
changes are coming. A bill insert that describes SDG&E's rate
reform proposal is included in this month's utility bills.
"At SDG&E, we recognize that reforming the electric rate
structure takes time," said Caroline
Winn, SDG&E's vice president – customer services. "It is
our hope that rate reform will help to protect all of our customers
from punitively high electricity bills by treating all customers
equally, regardless of where they live, and provide more
transparency on customer's bills with simpler and easy to
understand bills with no hidden charges. We are encouraged that the
CPUC is aggressively addressing the efforts to redesign an outdated
rate structure created more than a decade ago and engaging our
customers in this process, which included public participation
hearings in San Diego County last
September."
The CPUC has given the utilities a road map for rate design
changes that is guided by core principles, making rates easier to
understand, fairly charging for the services utilities provide and
continuing to encourage conservation.
With these goals in mind, SDG&E filed its rate reform
proposal in January 2014. SDG&E
is proposing to:
- Reduce the number of tiers from four to two. Shrink the
difference between the top and bottom tiered prices from 136% today
to 20% by 2018.
- Reallocate some existing costs to a monthly service fee
starting at $5 in 2015 and increasing
to the approved cap of $10 by 2017.
This fee would cover a portion of the cost associated with the
transformer, meter, service line and billing functions. (For
low-income customers, the fee would be half those proposed
amounts.)
- This monthly service fee is not an additional charge or revenue
source for SDG&E. The dollar amount that will be charged is
embedded in rates today and will be identified in a separate line
item on the bill; it's a different and more transparent way to
collect SDG&E's fixed costs.
- Gradually transition the California Alternate Rates for Energy
(CARE) discount for low-income customers to the legislatively
mandated range of 30% to 35% by 2018.
- Offer new options, such as rate plans based on when customers
use energy and how much energy they use at once. This can help to
encourage conversation; customers will save by shifting their
energy use.
For more information on electricity rate changes and ways
customers can save energy and money, visit
sdge.com/ModernRates.
SDG&E is a regulated public utility that provides safe and
reliable energy service to 3.4 million consumers through 1.4
million electric meters and 868,000 natural gas meters in
San Diego and southern
Orange counties. The utility's
area spans 4,100 square miles. SDG&E is committed to
creating ways to help customers save energy and money every
day. SDG&E is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), a
Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Diego. Connect with SDG&E's Customer
Contact Center at 800-411-7343, on Twitter (@SDGE) and
Facebook.
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SOURCE San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E)