‘How Was Your SDG&E Bill?’ – Open Thread

by Frank Gormlie on January 28, 2022 · 22 comments

On initial perusal, our current SDG&E bill is a whopping 100% increase from our December bill! And we’re being told next month’s bill will be even higher.

So, how’s your SDG&E bill?

This is an open thread – which means we’re asking readers to give us thoughts and feedback in the comments section to this post.

{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }

Nancy Vukovich January 28, 2022 at 12:20 pm

$306.77 I live in ~550 square feet with a small wall furnace. During these cool days I can’t turn off the wall furnace as it take 24 hour to heat up just some of the house. I also run a small Vornado heater in the bathroom for an hour or two a day, it’s an important room!

Adam January 28, 2022 at 7:13 pm

You need to have SDGE come do an energy assessment. See where you’re losing all your heat. Also, turn off the heat, put on a beanie, socks and a sweatshirt. You’re in southern California, you’re not going to freeze.

Frank Gormlie January 29, 2022 at 7:23 am: Sure dude, it was only 37 the other early morning. I suppose those frost warnings are only for show.

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lyle January 29, 2022 at 6:32 am

In my case it is more than 100% increase. Maybe they needed two million per day to make ends meet.

sealintheselkirks January 29, 2022 at 10:46 am

This morning the dog’s nose on the edge of the bed woke me up snuffling under the sheet wanting out, pulled on sweat pants and Ugg slippers and walked downstairs to let her out the front door. The tigerkitty was outside waiting for her food already while Cinners went for her morning roll in the snow off the porch (a daily ritual this time of year). I rubbed on the kitty while I put crunchies in her bowl and checked the outside thermometer, 30’F. Much warmer than yesterday’s last dog walk at 14’F. Came back inside and added some wood to the woodburner coals, checked the inside thermometer it was 61’F. Went back upstairs for a longsleeve t.

It’s amazing what an OB/MB-raised surfer kid can get comfortable with. No goose bumps, just a little body chill is all. I’m used to it.

My Avista bill for this 1,900 sq ft, 1 1/2 story house with two water wells was $47 last month as my electricity comes from the Columbia dams. I keep everything on surge protector strips and turn them off when not in use including the dryer and washing machine. If I still lived in hometown OB…I wouldn’t be able to live in San Diego as I couldn’t afford to just with the monthly electric bills!

Why aren’t Public Utilities, you know, public? Because it’s all about privatization for profit, shareholder dividends and enormous CEO paychecks and golden parachutes…vultures. Same problem with Public Health that isn’t public, either. Corporate vampires sucking the blood out of everything and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it. Greed. Maybe if utilities were publicly-owned they wouldn’t keep burning California towns town due to cutting maintenance in favor of those CEO bonus checks, eh?

sealintheSelkirks

Sam January 29, 2022 at 6:13 pm

My bill actually went down!

December cost per kWh = .5852
January cost per kWh = .4139

Don Wood January 29, 2022 at 8:23 pm: How about your natural gas bill?

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unwashedWalmartThONg January 29, 2022 at 7:43 pm

What a pack of thieves. Nothing but thieves. Remember about seven/eight
years ago & the company introduced the tiered system for rates? Yea, what a pack of thieves. Once upon a morning back then, I owned a little biz. Before the rate hike biz SDG&E bill ran about $1300.00. Then someone bribed the PUC & the bill spiked one thousand dollars a month, & it stayed that way for over a year. The company did nothing for this money; they just took it. So they took about 12/15 thousand right off the top of the lil biz’ profit.
Pack o’ thieves in suits ‘n ties.
Now a days, at home, I tuck a hairdryer under the covers at night to warm up that chilly cotton, & I sleep like a baby bunny. Rest o’ the house is freezin’ but I don’t give a shit.

unwashedWalmartTHOng January 29, 2022 at 7:52 pm

Nice little fluff piece at KPBS.org re SDG&E’s microgrid pilot project. I’m so glad to have assisted these crooks with their pet project; that lost $15k must have helped a great deal with their vanadium redox flow batteries.
Take a hike you pack o’ grifters. Go join a Tr*mp rally somewhere in a
backwards state like Texas or Florida.

Don Wood January 29, 2022 at 8:27 pm

Now that people are beginning to revolt over SDG&E’s unreasonably high electricity rates, and 700K customers have migrated to the local CCAs, SDG&E has decided it’s time to increase its natural gas bills. It colludes with its Sempra affiliate SoCal Gas to increase what SoCal Gas charges SDG&E for gas supplies, then tells its customers and the CPUC that it can’t do anything because its cost of gas is going up, and all its doing it pass along those increases to its customers.

Michael January 30, 2022 at 5:30 am

Lol. When I left San Diego, I still receives bills from SDG&E saying I owed about $48 per month for no usage at all.

Judy Swink January 30, 2022 at 7:33 pm

Laugh if you will but I’m one of those people who still hangs on to paper bills, in this case SDG&E. Struck by the huge increases in my electricity bills this winter and last winter, I pulled out several years worth (older bills now shredded). Historically, my Dec.-Jan. bills have always been below $100. My last two bills have been $165 & $193.

These substantial increases are not exclusively due to kWh price increases. My Dec.-Jan. bills, 2017-2022, show a substantial decrease in Baseline kWh allowance, from 2019 (419) to 2020 (363). This is followed by larger decreases in Baseline allowances in Dec.-Jan. 2021 (290) & 2022 (273). These are the coldest months in SD Co. so ratepayers will by necessity use far more kWh.

So, Dec.-Jan. 2020, Baseline was 363; I used 406 kWh and did not exceed the 130% of Baseline that would have kicked me into the next, more expensive tier.

Dec.-Jan. 2021, Baseline was 290; I used 479 kWh and exceeded the 130% of much lower Baseline by 101 kWh.

Dec.-Jan.2022, Baseline was 273; I used 354, exceeding the Baseline by 101 kWh.

It seems probable that Baseline allowances for residences throughout the county are experiencing the same decreases in allowance and concomitant increases in their cost for electricity, both in winter and in summer with use of air conditioning, a problem I don’t face here at the coast very often. So, again, our rapidly rising electricity bills are due both to increasing electricity & generation rates and to rapidly decreasing Baseline kilowatt hours allowances.

Fletcher Miller February 1, 2022 at 8:20 am

This was really interesting to see how the baseline allowance has been going down each year for the months you compared. We are approaching six years now with solar, so we don’t have any issues with that. However, it made me wonder how they can keep reducing it? I found this:

Baseline allowances are set between 50%-60% of the electricity the average residential customer uses in each territory.

For more detail see: https://www.sdge.com/residential/pricing-plans/how-pricing-plans-work/how-rates-are-set

So, as people in your area switch to LEDs, more efficient refrigerators, and take other electricity-saving measures, the baseline ratchets down! It forces you to keep up with the neighbors or you pay more. What a scheme!

I will put in a plug for solar if you have the roof for it. We love it. Just do it before May of this year, as the net-metering law is under massive assault by the utilities and may change then.

Judy Swink February 4, 2022 at 4:25 pm: Fletcher – thanks for the link. I’ll explore it. The explanation of how the baseline rate is set seems worth some journalistic research, maybe Voice of San Diego.

I live in a condo complex. Although we now can add solar, it’s not worth my while to spend thousands to put in when my electricity bills are generally low here in the coastal zone. I rarely use air conditioning and use heat only during Nov.-Feb. (at least, so far) so am usually well below even the low Baseline rate. BTW, my Dec.-Jan. Baseline in 2018 & 2019 was 419 kWh, then began shrinking a little in 2020 then a lot in 2021 & 2022.

I’m inclined to think that the formula now in use to calculate Baseline rates is designed by SDG&E to ensure that most ratepayers will exceed Baseline and slip over into the higher rates during the coldest and the hottest months. I look forward to being transferred to the Community Choice Aggregation system in May (City of SD). I may not pay much less but at least the CCA will purchase far more renewable energy AND I’ll no longer be paying SDG&E for the electricity even though I will still be paying them for transmission and various other charges.

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Babs Schmidt February 4, 2022 at 10:54 am

Oct. 2021 $94.08
Nov. 2021 $129.95
Dec. 2021 $184.89
Jan. 2022 $ 236.26
WTH? I live alone, hardly cook, run my dishwasher after 9pm, and hardly use my gas wall heater! I guess we’re paying for the lawsuit that SDG&E lost when they were held responsible.

Babs Schmidt February 4, 2022 at 12:24 pm

Has anyone heard of San Diego Community Power? Imperial Beach has already started in Feb. 2022 and San Diego is set for May of 2022.
I can’t wait to change & get out from under SDG&E

https://sdcommunitypower.org/billing-rates/residential-rates/

Jim January 28, 2023 at 5:37 pm: You so right man, I worked there for 20 years as a contractor and watch them rob, deceive, racism, sex with managers for better positions. My best friend had noose found in his car implying they were gonna hang him. They just let him go as a contractor. I have so much on them including contract fraud, blackballing long term contractors to get young people in at low wages. When I left in covid I was making 50 per hour and we weren’t getting raises. I asked about our contracts and sdge ended my contract. 3 years later the whole team I put in place is still there and we all got shared profit at around 10-20 grand a year for all employees and more for manager. I’ve been trying to find a legal team to help me but nothing yet. They don’t care about anything u less they’re making 100 mil a year in profit. Another rule they used to teach us was that electric is not guaranteed they don’t have to provide it by law if someone isn’t in compliance they’ll turn it off and freeze them out. I live in a rv yea after being a 20 year contractor promised employment after year one. Never happened so if anyone has any advice I’d love to spend the rest of my life fighting them legally. I have no idea where to start. All those employees that did all that had shit are still there. Minus the one contractor.

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Michael Croy July 22, 2022 at 12:33 pm

990 s/f apartment. SDGE bills running on average $60 per month. Last month something called CCA appears on the bill raising it $56. What the? CCA is supposed to be for the communities good and
Meanwhile it clears out our wallet. I thought SDGE was bad, this is theft.

Judy Swink July 24, 2022 at 7:16 pm

SDG&E charges us for “transmission and Delivery” of electricity. CCA charges for Electric Generation, the actual electricity that SDG&E transmits/delivers to your home . You should go back to your detailed bill and look at the charges from CCA for electricity generation are for your May-June bill which is when we were transferred to CCA, and compare that to your previous month’s electricity generation charged by SDG&E. Look also at the total number of days in the billing period.

My electricity generation charge through CCA in my most recent billing period (mid-May to mid-June) for 32 days. My total bill was under the SDG&E/CCA billing was $4.36 more than the previous month but, as noted, the billing period was 3 days longer than the previous month.

I would suggest that you check your bills to determine the number of kWh consumed in your previous bill and the current one under CCA, check the kWh electricity charges under SDG&E and then under CCA, then look around your home to see if you can identify anything which may be consuming more electricity than in the previous billing period. Have you added any new electronic devices? Has your television been on for longer periods of time in the CCA billing period. If you have an electric stove and/or electric water heater, have they been used more than usual. How about air conditioning? It seems to me that something in your home is consuming more electricity than you realize. A $60 jump in your bill makes no sense otherwise.

Judy Swink July 24, 2022 at 7:17 pm: Ooops, sorry. … a $56 jump…..

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Gs3464 July 24, 2022 at 9:21 pm

SGDE: Private company — that needs to generate profit for shareholders — has the highest rates in the state . On average between $0.38 and $0.59 /kWH.
SMUD: A public utility that provides electricity to residents of Sacramento. The board of directors is publicly elected and there are no shareholder/dividends/profits. Summer peak rates (the highest price) run between $0.13 and $0.32/kWh (during the highest peak time from 5-8pm). Non-summer rates are below $0.11/ KWH.

In this instance, capitalism has failed San Diego residents.

Mateo January 31, 2023 at 9:07 am

I work out of the house an only turn the heat on when it is 40 degrees or colder; and even then use the central natural gas heating unit only sparingly. Our gas bill went from $126 to a projected $420. Hardly “doubled” as was originally purported by the smarmy “sucks-to-be-you-San Diego” SDG&E spokesperson in the City Council Committee meeting.
My neighbor was fortunate enough to hear some rustling coming from the back porch of one of our many elderly residents in our neighborhood of Rose Creek. She was trying to wrestle her propane barbecue into her house, because she “cannot afford the bill coming for heating.” Thank God he heard her and checked on her. Thank God we still have what locals have remained in what we once referred to as America’s Finest City that even know our neighbors.

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