Customers brace for utility rate hike

By Morgan Lee

Originally appearing in UT SanDiego San Diego utility customers are bracing for a rate increase that will boost typical bills by about 11 percent starting Sunday.

Amid September’s often sweltering heat, utility ratepayers who don’t watch their thermostat and energy use closely could see a substantial jump in their bill, consumer groups and utility officials are warning.

A residential inland customer using 500 kilowatt hours of electricity during summer months can expect to see electricity charges rise 5 percent from $84 to $89, said Stephanie Donovan, a spokeswoman for San Diego Gas & Electric.

A similar customer consuming 1,500 kilowatt hours can expect a 20 percent bill increase, from $375 a month to $452.

State utility regulators granted San Diego Gas & Electric a 7.6 percent rate increase that applies retroactively to the start of 2012. Past-due increases will be applied to bills between Sept. 1 and the end of 2015.

On top of that general rate increase, which exceeds $500 million over a four-year period, utility customers in San Diego and southern Orange counties also will be charged an additional $40 million in annual transmission fees starting Sunday, according to SDG&E.

Further bill increases from commodity costs, some linked to the extended outage and retirement of the San Onofre nuclear plant, are expected later in the year, after SDG&E underbilled customers, Donovan said.

Businesses that sell or lease solar rooftop equipment have seized upon the rate hike as an opportunity to recruit customers, blanketing media with advertisements.

San Francisco-based Sunrun, which purchases and installs solar equipment for homes and then sells the output to homeowners under lease agreements, opened a temporary sales showroom outdoors at a shopping center in Mission Valley on Friday, writing up estimates for passersby.

An entrance sign challenged customers: “Electricity rate through the roof? You can do better.”

Solar customers can offset much of their electricity bills with credits for the energy they generate, under state “net metering” provisions. The solar payoff also has been sweetened by California’s rate structure, a legacy of the energy crisis of 2000-2001 that saw rolling blackouts amid electricity market manipulation.

That equation may soon change. SDG&E regards the current rate structure as unfair to some customers and unsustainable, joining the state’s two other investor owned electrical utilities in lobbying state lawmakers and utility regulators to rewrite the rules.

Under California’s steeply tiered rate structure, electricity charges rise in steps as the customer uses more energy within each billing cycle. Customers who exceed the highest benchmark -- tier 4 -- pay roughly double the base rate for electricity.

SDG&E asserts costs are being piled on nonsolar customers who are heavier users of home electricity, slowly undermining the utility’s ability to pay for distribution infrastructure and customer programs. The September rate increases, the utility says, will be shouldered by about 25 percent of customers.

Environmental and consumer groups say the utilities’ proposals to increase fixed charges would undermine incentives for conservation and rooftop solar.

Local politicians including Oceanside Mayor Jim Wood and San Diego County Supervisor Dianne Jacob joined rooftop solar installers at a protest Wednesday at the downtown San Diego headquarters of Sempra Energy, parent company to SDG&E. They sang a protest song to the tune of “You Are My Sunshine.”

Dan Sullivan, president of San Diego-based solar installer Sullivan Solar Power, urged lawmakers to resist efforts to redraw utility billing regulations.

“Do not tell Californians to go solar and then pull the rug out from under them,” he said.

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Customers brace for utility rate hike

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