My utility bill made me hate PG&E. But California’s clean energy failure is also to blame
I start this by stating that I despise PG&E. In the same week that fire investigators blamed equipment from California’s largest investor-owned utility for starting the Dixie Fire, I got the biggest and most preposterous natural gas bill of my life.
How much do I have to pay?
If you guessed $300, you’d be way off and way short of what I will have to pay Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in two weeks. So, $400? Yeah, I wish. Viewing a $400 PG&E bill as something to celebrate is an insane example of our utter failure to create enough clean energy capacity in California.
A guess of $500 would mean you were getting warmer, though not nearly as hot as the back of my neck when I saw what I owe PG&E: $568.68.
Honestly, I sat for a while and stared at the digital bill on my computer screen in utter disbelief that a family of two adults, two teenagers, a small dog and a very loud bird could wrack up a natural gas bill approaching $600 when California’s coldest months still lay ahead.
Is there a $650 bill coming in February? Do I surpass $700 in March? Should I get a second job? Should I tell my kids they are on their own to pay for college?
My January bill is more than 14% greater than the bill one year ago. I had PG&E analyze and compare my $487.25 bill from January 2020 with the current one. They identified two guilty parties: me and a global spike in natural gas prices.
Lynsey Paulo, a PG&E spokesperson, said that natural gas commodity prices are 90% higher in PG&E’s service territory than last year. Those spikes are driven by a drop in production during the pandemic, while demand for natural gas is high and getting higher by the day.
Paulo said PG&E does not charge customers more than what it pays to procure natural gas. Last year, it paid 48 cents per therm (the unit of measurement used for gas). This year, it’s paying 82 cents. That’s a 70% increase. Paulo said the average homes in PG&E’s service area use 70 therms a day in December. My house used more than 200.
It was Christmas. People were home from work and school, and our house was warm. The temperatures provided a respite from omicron, the pandemic and a challenging year. Then the bill for a feeling of comfort on cold days that we used to take for granted came due. It’s a nightmare.
The truth is, I can pay for it. It’s a budget buster and it’s an obscene number, and it will mean belt-tightening in other areas. But my family is blessed and privileged. It’s going to hurt us but not debilitate us.
But the spikes in natural gas costs — the highest in recent memory, according to Paulo — will affect everyone, privileged or not.
Paulo said that since the pandemic took root in March 2020, PG&E has not cut off gas service to customers who struggle with their bills. She said PG&E offers rate discount programs for people enrolled in public assistance or who qualify based on PG&E income guidelines. There are also family rates for electrical customers in households of three or more, and PG&E offers help with past due bills, including for low-income residents. A full list of programs is at pge.com.
And that’s great, but I wonder how much debt poor families are piling up as their natural gas and electricity bills soar.
This month, the rate increases that PG&E sought to cover grid safety and guard against wildfires will kick in. Combined gas and electric bills will go up nearly 10%, the San Jose Mercury News reported, and bills for gas-only customers like me will go up more than 11%. These are PG&E-generated increases that are over and above what we are paying for natural gas.
Hello, $600 bill!
As I am typing these words, I’m wearing a jacket inside of a cold house. My wife and kids are bundled up. Our furnace is off, a luxury to be rationed.
But I would bet that the money that will go to PG&E for a cold house in January will still add up to a brutal natural gas bill in February. For me, it’s the latest example of how the climate crisis moved into our homes and altered our lives.
It’s like a merry-go-round of misery caused by our collective failure to alter our wasteful habits and wake up to the damage those habits have caused to our environment. As The Bee’s editorial board just wrote, California is not as progressive as it thinks it is on climate change.
We still define transportation according to our cars and our freeways. We are hopelessly behind on making clean energy a reality. In that void of leadership and stewardship, PG&E has become one of the most — if not the most — hated entities in California.
Cal Fire investigators determined last week that electrical distribution lines owned by PG&E started the Dixie Fire, which burned 963,309 acres in Butte, Plumas, Lassen, Shasta and Tehama counties. With California behind on clean energy, we pay obscene prices for natural gas that is bad for the environment.
We’re paying for our wasteful, irresponsible habits with $568 bills, and with wildfires, destruction and incalculable loss.
So I’ll end as I began: I despise PG&E. But if I’m being honest, PG&E is a symptom of a larger problem. That problem is us, and we’re paying dearly for it. I have the bill to prove it.
This story was originally published January 9, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
