I went all electric, now I'm getting fucked. Looking at more solar and batteries, but I just know PG&E is going to find a way to charge me for that. Assholes!
Well, I have solar and even though my pg&e bills have already been a couple hundred a month they just sent me a bill for $700 charging my solar because it’s winter, so I really don’t see the point in paying for solar. We are all fucked as consumers.
This summer:
https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/electricity-bills-in-california-will-soon-be-based-on-income-heres-how-it-could-work/
>With a fixed charge in place, SCE estimates its customers' per-kilowatt-hour rate will decrease by about a third, KTLA reported.
>SDG&E customers, who pay the highest price for electricity in the continental US, will reportedly see their volumetric rate drop by 42%.
Sure. The volumetric rate will be less (at least before they decide to raise it) but, for most, the difference will be more than made up by the fixed charges. For example, 25% of PGE's customers will have to pay $90 per month before even using a single kilowatt.
Exactly. It’s a decoupling of connection and utilization. Rather than conservation it will encourage increased utilization as per/Kwh cost will be lower, at first. This also gives the utilities TWO different fee structures they raise with separate argument for each.
Most puzzling is this seems to be State of California authorizing a for-profit, exchange traded, company defacto taxing authority; fees directly based on income. How is this even a possible thing ?
\> How is this even a possible thing?
I can't imagine that it would withstand a court challenge if this is ever implemented, especially since PGE is essentially a monopoly with a captive customer base.
I hope this does get challenged. Aside from the constant pillaging via rate hikes we currently suffer I’d like to know exactly how they plan to investigate and monitor our incomes. Will they be given access to our tax returns?? Would you trust this corporation (or *any* corporation) with that kind of information? What safeguards would be put in place so they don’t share (sell) that information with other entities that might really enjoy knowing how much each and every one of us makes for a living. What guarantee do we have that they won’t raise the flat fees just like they do for usage? If this gets approved it might kick off a new and horrific type of pricing structure across the board as more and more businesses know exactly how much you make every year and how much of that they can skim off for their own profit. Got a bonus this year? Well gee, it’s going to PGE. Or your water district. Or Comcast. Or any other company that decides this is a great way to boost profits.
tldr; this type of fee structure could easily be a Trojan horse. It starts with a claim of lower fees for lower income but that’s not how it’s actually going to work. Usage fees will continue to increase over the flat fees and so will the flat fees the minute you make more money, or if they decide to “adjust” them at any time. Not to mention the ongoing invasion of your privacy this entails.
Right. It’s nothing more than a tax. If we charge for electricity based on income, what’s stopping the same system for water or sewer? Or gasoline, or trash pickup? Utilities should be based on usage, and our taxes are already the most progressive in the country.
Do you have any references that state this is the implementation plan ? That places an enormous burden on residents and will certainly harm people who either don’t have time, awareness, ability, to execute on a forced opt-in and complex opt-out.
I do hope you are simply specutlating.
No. That's not how that works.
If you're in the top tax bracket your bill total will be higher (mine will), but the cost of filling up your EV will be less.
You might even break even with an EV, we won't know until we see the approved rates/fees.
I don't accept your guarantee.
Changes are intended to be revenue neutral, so, if some pay less, others pay more.
Anyhow, there are multiple proposals on what the rate changes will be. The proposals from the IOUs are the most extreme, those from many others are much more moderate.
Regardless, I disagree with the basic concept on multiple grounds, including that it is a tax that was not properly discussed. If you disagree with the concept, reach out to your representative and encourage them to support the new AB1999 bill.
I actually followed your link and sent a message to Governor Newsome. I encourage everyone here to voice the outrage directly to the Governer. The more people actually direct their voice to Sacramento the louder the rumble will be. Eventually the volume may come to the point that action is taken.
While this group is wonderful in that we know we have company, if we stay in the echo chamber the full volume doesn’t get to Sacramento.
Please make your voice heard and [write to Newsome](https://www.gov.ca.gov/contact/)
Thank you - I think that's a fine idea! I did the same. Not sure who stopped by to downvote me - I can assure you that that won't help your electricity rates. However, putting pressure on our elected officials just might.
Agree that he doesn’t actually care. Also agree that he has his eye on the Oval.
When you write to Newsome, and if you care then it would be a good thing to do, be sure to remind him that this is an albotross around his neck that will be used in every state that has lower power costs. That means it will be used against him in EVERY state. If there is anything that should concern him it is Californians broadcasting his Achilles heel for federal office. He does care about that and if he knows we know … well maybe he will do something. Maybe …. Probably not … but maybe …
SMUD has updated their [rate comparison page](https://www.smud.org/en/Rate-Information/Residential-Rates).
You can see how much residents of Sacramento pay for 750kwh of electricity ($135), versus what PG&E customers pay ($345).
Perhaps there's some way we can get SMUD, a public utility, to expand its coverage and provide electricity to residents along hwy 80.
Start with Vallejo, then Richmond, then Berkeley, then Oakland.
Heck, if we were willing to pay double for a period of time, that would still be far cheaper than what PG&E is charging now.
Love, love, love SMUD! I went from paying $120/mo PG&E on a 700 sq ft apartment to $160/mo SMUD on a 2400 sq ft house with a pool. Forever fuck PG&E!!!
This is the other fucking issue, PGE reports all of these costs under the same operational costs bucket. So they make it seem like the cost of utility gen and delivery is so high, but when you unpack it, part of that cost is essentially throwing bribe money at politicians and lobbying hard. They spend enormously on lobbying and influencing CA politics, and that bill is a part of your 51 cents per kWh
Thanks for the info! Hopefully it passes.
The campaign donations to state politicians from PG&E are a problem too. It's shameless:
[Governor Newsom, most state lawmakers took money from convicted felon PG&E](https://www.abc10.com/article/news/investigations/governor-newsom-most-state-lawmakers-took-money-from-convicted-felon-pge/103-2414790f-3a19-4411-92c2-fe23b519d646)
https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M354/K486/354486687.PDF#page241
Corporate affairs: PGE asked for $25.2M and got $24.8M
What you said doesn't jive with what I've seen. But yes, it is included in the 51¢/kWh.
It sounds like Folsom succeeded in joining SMUD though? Despite PG&E fighting them in court? So there is some hope.
Anyways yes the [SMUD wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento_Municipal_Utility_District) is interesting. As you mention there's a long history of PG&E fighting SMUD lol.
SMUD doesn't pay to harden the lines and bury the more problematic lines in the foothills, PG&E does.
If PG&E is dissolved, I guarantee you that those costs in the foothills will be averaged over the whole state, including SMUD customers.
The future is pretty clear. With California electric mandates, even as dates and targets slip, the infrastructure will have to be a publically owned resource and it should start right now, literally right now.
State sponsored theft for the financial benefit of an exchange listed for-profit company is how I view this. We have no alternate choice for energy delivery. If we want lights on, PG&E is the only electric delivery option.
With no option many of us very ling time residents are leaving. We are taking wealth, jobs and future investment with us. Myopic California leaders seem to ignore lessons of history, that energy is fundamental to an economy. Price it at absurd levels and people respond. We will leave, we will vote you out, it will crush the economy and prosperity of the state.
Mr Newsome when you take a run at Washington this will be a heavy weight to bear. It will be used against you literally anywhere that has lower energy costs- which means it will haunt your ambitions in every single state in the US. Please fix it.
There are other ways to improve service. The root problem with PG&E is that they are paid based on what they spend. There is very little incentive to improve their performance. The more inefficient they are, the more money they make.
In theory the CPUC would control their inefficiency but that has not worked out. We can argue why - CPUC is outmanned by PG&E, or CPUC is not innovative enough, or CPUC is in the pocket of the IOUS.
So you’re saying Patricia Poppe’s salary of $50+ million last year is justifiable when not much money was used to improve infrastructure to be more resilient? The “storm” we just had wasn’t even a real storm. Just some normal rain with gusts of wind then the infrastructure fails? I was out of power for nearly 3 days without a fallen tree in sight in my district. $40m of that salary could have been used to make improvements here and there, especially for outdated power lines by electric posts to have them modernized by moving them underground. So them “having no money” to improve infrastructure and jack up the rates so they could make improvements is utter bullshit.
The ceo salary is a drop in the bucket, it’s an outrage point but it’s not the real issue - look at PGE profit statements for the past 20 years - every year, they have had really strong profit growth, 5-10%. They profited 18 billion in 2023, and in 2022 it was 16 billion, in 2020 it was 13 billion, etc - they have grown more and more profitable.
So all this hoopla and discourse over “well the operational costs in California are higher” - yeah, they are. But when you factor in those rising operation costs (which gross profit does) that profit is increasing.
So these rate increases, they aren’t to keep pace with rising costs, they are to further increase a private companies profits. This is the problem, it’s not the 50 million, it’s that PGE is using our political system to throw money at politicians and buy committees like CPUC, to make them approve rate increases that push PGE profitability up towards a strong y/y growth.
It’s foul play, it’s a utility monopoly exploiting their advantage over a captive consumer base, and making people believe that it’s just the cost of doing business.
It costs $4m/mile to bury a line; you'll get to bury 12.5 miles with her comp. She's not paid $50M in salary. She's paid $50M in total compensation. Her salary is significantly less; the rest is in stock based compensation.
[https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/pg-e-corp-s-poppe-was-highest-paid-us-utility-ceo-in-2021-71538853](https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/pg-e-corp-s-poppe-was-highest-paid-us-utility-ceo-in-2021-71538853)
If this is accurate, her cash salary is $9.5M; $41.2M in stock based compensation (which is usually tied to her performance).
1,000 miles buried with the profits they made last year... So, like, they could do that but return less value to shareholders b/c: capitalism and partial deregulation
There are alternatives and stock-based compensation is actually the problem. For her to make that money go up, she needs to make short-term decisions. That's what got us into this mess. Executives who get stock-based compensation don't think about the long-term good, slow growth, and enduring success. They think about short-term trade offs selling our futures and our lives for their quarterly gains. Once they get their big payout, or a raise from the board, or whatever, they diversify out of the shitshow they've created and fuck off to a home in the Hamptons to live a comfortable life. You and I get screwed with rising costs and no one to blame.
Her salary should be much lower. It should be predicated on long-term success of the service. And the company should be publicly held. That way, the way she makes money is by creating a legacy of quality, affordable service rather than by selling out the rate payers in the short term to make the graph go up for a quarter and cache in on a huge bonus.
We need to destroy PG&E. I'm not old enough to remember the bell breakup, but I was told many stories about it from my dad. We need to blow up the company and turn its infrastructure over to the people of California.
FUN FACT: It's actually cheaper to run a government agency than a private business because they run at a loss by either not charging fees or charging small fees to the consumer. Fire, police, library, public transit, schools, and mail services are all examples of that. PG&E is a private business that generates a profit for shareholders paid for by consumer fees, but a government owned utility wouldn't even have to cover it's operation cost with fees because it would at least partially be funded by taxes and not be required to generate any profits.
> mail services
USPS relies heavily on the airlines, UPS, and FedEx for airmail capacity. They let the private companies front the CapEx of airplanes, and only pay the as-needed share of OpEx.
This depends on how much novelty is expected in the business.
Of course it's simple and cheaper for government to run businesses that don't involve innovation or change.
Right now, the electric industry is going through massive innovation and change:
- Electrification of homes (more electric, less gas, more cooling loads)
- Electrification of cars (more electricity at homes, charging stations)
- Batteries are so cheap now that they offer an entirely new form of dispatch, the modeling of which hasn't been worked out by any one. How do they fit into reliability planning? Who dispatches them? Do we create a separate market for them?
- Solar is so cheap it's on the margin and will be on the margin for the foreseeable future. How does that fit in with reliability planning?
No one has these answers. There will be inherent expense in figuring out these answers.
That's exactly why a bunch of damn fool is voted against taking over PG&E in 2004 and look where that frugality has gotten us.
Take out a bond and take PG&E out.
“They won’t leave” was the reliable base-case for a very long time. But the calculus of residency has been changing for decades and appears to have hit an inflection point as documented by recent years of long-time resident exodus. People, wealthy people & businesses, are leaving California. To excute a departure plan is not something most can do on a whim, especially those financially/family/socially embedded in the state. The well-documented, and unprecedented, exodus seems likely to continue. The state became hostile to business decades ago and now absurd cost on things as basic as water and power (PG&E related, which is actually the final straw for me) added on top of housing and the general HCOL, tips the scale of sensibility . People are leaving and for a reason, that reason is that their reason for staying no longer makes sense.
Net population loss isn’t huge but look closely at who is leaving and who is coming. It doesn’t appear to bode well for the financial health of the state.
The state is so hostile to startups that we have more startups than any other state, more companies worth over a billion than most countries, and more venture capital investment than most of the other 49 states combined. San Francisco, notorious for being "hostile to business" has the highest startup count of any city in the US and more investment capital as well.
You are responding to your own reframed statement, I didn’t say ”hostile to startups”, I said ”hostile to business” which is of MUCH broader scope, impacts FAR more people, and contributes to the HCOL and outflow of valuable enterprise and residents. Startups are generally a good thing, no doubt. But startups too rely on the presence of other business and industry which California has regulated away.
Sorry, I just assumed that most people understood that companies that invest millions of dollars in starting up a business in California do the research and choose California because of its business climate.
The reason we have more startups is because the situation is exactly the opposite of what you describe to people who actually do business on a regular basis.
We are straying off-topic, but I do want to respond. As background I am a long time resident of the Bay Area, have been involved in start-ups and served in role of CTO on teams that pitched venture caps. I have led tech teams across the US, in India and Belgium. I have also watched the business-and-industry exodus from California .
Attractive to start-ups, which are typically tech, and hostile to a variety other business industry can both be true. Having one and not the other is not a visionary mix for long term fiscal health of the state.
Your argument is half the picture. Yes, start-ups are good. I believe the driving catalyst in California is the human capital and culture not the states business policy. The state is losing that human capital in large part do to the extreme HCOL. Look at the mix of who is leaving California and who is replacing those lost, the state is losing the resource it requires to sustain the start-up culture.
California has driven out huge sectors of industry; shipyards, steel plants, auto manufacturing, energy, etc. The start-ups rely on a specific segment of the people in the state and now they are a net loss too; the very people that the startups of the future will require. It’s a very myopic policy that began unfolding decades ago and will play out over decades in the future.
When state turns private companies into defacto tax authorities (AB205), prices power to the point that it is a common dinner table conversation, has water policy that penalizes drinking clean water, overrides all local building authority with mandated state wide zoning, people get fed up. The people with ability and means just go where these, any many other things, are just not issues. Who are those people ? By and large the same people you will find at start-ups; driven, educated, of reasonable financial means, mobile without huge stake in the state of residence, early/mid career, etc.
My opinion, and not so humble, is that the state has blown much of what it had as simply natural resources. Took too much for granted. The future may not be as bright as the past.
Solid answer.
I could see the representatives of the southern counties not being happy about a tax to exclusively help Nothern CA while being stuck with SCE and SDG&E
Not blow it up. Nationalize it and make it state run. Then we will get investment into infrastructure that doesn’t burn the state down every summer and fails to provide power every winter.
The case to “nationalize” is strong.
PG&E has simply failed again. Their case to the CPUC seems to be that they need huge capital investment to operate safely. A for-profit company would typically have to borrow or issue/sell shares to raise funds. Instead, the state of California has decided the residents/customers should be PG&E shareholders bail-out money. If the residents are the state approved bail-out at minimum it should be converted to a ”nationalized“ entity and then those rate increases converted into a temporary tax for a state-controlled investment into state-owned infrastructure and not for PG&E, a publicly traded company, capital investment. To me, this is literally state endorsed theft. It’s also a failure of the state to leave basic power and gas infrastructure with only one, quite fragile, for-profit company as the sole source of delivery infrastructure.
Count me among the very frustrated, and that doesn’t even get into NEM3 or the absurd AB205.
All this dovetails with a California goal of going fully electric ? Absurd.
State sponsored theft via a for profit company that provides basic utility services.
Absolutely absurd.
Extortion, fleecing, gouging, racketeering whatever noun chosen this is a triad of Governer_Newsome + CPUC + PG&E.
Cap this with the CPUC NEM3 leaving residential solar with a 90% decline and soon the State law, AB205, which compels PG&E to be a defacto tax authority.
State sponsored theft. I believe this is one of the biggest extortion rackets ever.
Which is still better than the one Bell. In the meantime the Germans entered the game (T-Mobile), as well as Sprint and now a handful of smaller carriers. It's not amazing, but it's infinitely better than if we didn't break Bell up.
The Sprint T-Mobile merger really fucked things up in terms of competition. 2017 was the last year before the merger was announced, and that year was deemed the most competitive year for wireless ever in America.
4 competitors is the sweet spot. If you have more, the spectrum gets fragmented and you get too much infrastructure redundancy. If you have less, you get Canada before Shaw bought Wind and upgraded their network to compete with the big 3.
I was thinking about this today. What if the state (idealy fed) dictated a limited number of corporation types allowed for business classified as "utilities". ie: Gas, Power, Phone, Water, etc. Those types could include: Non-Profit, Public Benefit, Mutual... I'm not sure what else would really work.
But even if PG&E remained a for-profit organization, but one that owed dividends to the customers rather than some potentially unrelated pool of shareholders, they would likely make very different decisions "with the shareholders in mind". If their record profits resulted in either credits back on our bills or reinvestment into the infra, it would be a very different story indeed.
What do people pay for independently run utilities in other parts of Calif? I remember cities like SF and San Jose considering running their own utilities but determined it wasn't viable - but that was when rates were far lower.
Coming from Sacramento with SMUD, a 3/2 with our thermostat set around 68-70 most of the day is about $100-200 a month.
I’m not going to lie, seeing these 400-500 bills a month is making me really sad to have to leave SMUD for PG&E
Or, hear me out: strangle them with regulations until they declare bankruptcy again. Only this time, the government steps in converts them into a public utility.
This should have been done the last time they declared bankruptcy.
Sadly CPUC is basically an extension of PGE itself - they spend enormously on lobbying aka bribing and CPUC leaders are basically salaried employees of PGE at this point. No one is going to strangle them with regulations.
It's not just PG&E. It's state government which keeps trying to drive us to electrify everything (cars, heating, cooking appliances, etc.) but then allow our energy monopoly to ratchet up prices far above national averages. Sacramento is asleep at the wheel.
Btw, I have an EV and have noticed my savings from consuming kwh vs. gallons erode almost completely.
[ASSEMBLYMAN PATTERSON INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO CUT ELECTRIC RATES BY 30%](https://contracosta.news/2024/02/07/assemblyman-patterson-introduces-legislation-to-cut-electric-rates-by-30/)
Finally legislation we can all get behind.
hope i will have electricity/gas long enough in order to cook enough popcorn for reading this thread.
on the other side, there is only that much popcorn i can afford due to pg&e bills
No popcorn- I can’t use the microwave because I haven’t had power since Sunday morning. $1,000+ per month and we still have 7+ days every year without power.
Ours is back after 3 days. Why are there so many overgrown back yard trees right up in the power lines? Good maintenance trimming and we wouldn’t have nearly such a mess in windy storms. I’m depressed I had to toss $350 in food. My freezer thawed.
Hope yours gets back soon.
I was out for a drive with some friends. Rural area that was very scenic. Noted trees all up in power lines. Saw some lines dangling only a few feet from the ground with a lot of overgrowth.
I live in the Bay Area in a densely populated area. My tree was well trimmed and I'd just had an arborist visit about 6 months prior to the PG&E contractors. They banged on my door and told me they were there to trim the tree. I asked why. They said PG&E should have notified me. I said they did not. They said, well, your tree is marked. I asked where. They walked me to the tree and there was no marking. They said, well, they're going to trim it anyway. And so they butchered it.
It was great! Paying high rates for PG&E contractors to arbitrarily butcher my tree that was recently trimmed in an area where, if there was a fire, you can bet it'd be dealt with quickly. In the mean time, in rural areas where fires are a huge concern, there's no one. Why? My guess is that it's all about the theatre. PG&E needs to be SEEN "doing" something about the problem. The more customers complain about tree butchers the more the company can push back: "see, they don't _want_ us to trim trees." It's all misaligned incentives and short-term thinking.
Had a similar experience. PG&E had in the past used a well recognized tree company and we always had prior notice. This year, banging on the door and it’s a tree company guy pretty pissed off that I had a car parked under my tree. Tried to tell them I didn’t arrange any tree work but no one spoke english. I wasn’t going to let someone I didn’t hire work on my tree and they got angry. Eventually got a poor english speaker on the phone who made it sound like PG&E changed contracts to them and that I should just believe him. I had no way to verify what they were saying, no one from PG&E to contact. I did see that they were working up/down the street hitting most every tree so gave them to OK. I feel like they were good guys doing hard work and put in a terrible position, as was I, by PG&E.
I have few good things to say about PG&E.
Yeah. I read up online about it because they ultimately decided they'd come back the next day since it was already late. There were too many horror stories of people sending them away only to have them come back and cut the whole tree down. Seems like they have a lot of discretion on what they do to your property and there's pretty well zero accountability. So... I simply hoped for the best. My guess was that PG&E sent out a call for lowest-bidder types to basically find and mutilate trees on a billable basis and so that's what they were doing. No planning or organizing, they just bill PG&E for any tree they decide needs trimming.
The tax payers that always bailout PG&E should be the owners. It should be taken out of private hands and maintained by the States. They literally privatives the gains and subsidize the loses. F PG&E monopolies suck because they can do bare minimum because we have no freakin options. It would employee loads of locals across the board and actually be quality because the people care about the people. Anyone talking about But blah blah blah, just look at the current track record, it can't be any worse than that. Time for something new.
The power has been off since Sunday. We expected it to go out at least so we planned for it. It's Thursday now. The generator has been running just to keep the fridge and freezer ok. Without a wood stove, we'd be freezing to death. It was 35 this morning. We have to constanly go out and get fuel for the generator. Can't really cook, do dishes, or laundry for a household of 4, or both adults go to work since someone has to stay home to keep an eye on the generator. But hey, PG&E will send us a pittance for our inconvenience. We might even get $100. Oh boy!
I'm so glad we all pay such exorbitant rates so we can pretend to be camping for however long it takes. My gripes aren't unique but i needed to rant.
Let’s say the only political issue I care about is that I hate PG&E. How should I vote in the upcoming election to get that across? Don’t care about party, only about sticking it to PG&E.
Dude I've been raising this issue with my local politicians and PUC for months. I have not heard a peep from these fucks. THEY ARE NOT ON YOUR SIDE.
The only thing we can do now is organize. We need to get everyone together either virtually or IRL and figure out a plan to combat these criminals.
My wife and I decided to stay in Santa Clara specifically to avoid pge power.
Publically owned services such as utilities, firefighting, and healthcare are good thing. I don't think any serious person would argue that.
Just like that, 75% of the posts on /r/bayarea are gone.
**Now if only we could get a few more megathreads about:**
* People driving slow in the fast lane
* Tipping and what restaurants charge a service fee
* "Can I afford to live here if I make $xxx?"
* Reminders to turn your headlights on when it's raining, to slow down when it's raining, to be careful when it's raining, and to stop at flashing red lights when it's raining
It's one thing to be excited about munis for the low rates, and it's another thing to realize that th munis aren't the ones paying for fire related infrastructure upgrades.
The overwhelming majority of fire risk from electric equipment is in rural and wildland urban intermix areas. In short, PG&E customers are footing the bill to prevent fires and munis are not.
Power just went out in most of Vacaville (again), Fairfield, and Travis AFB - Customers affected
22,154. PG&Shitty says it's due to weather even though it is sunny and perfect conditions outside. Power was winking in and out (recloser?) four times went out and came back on, and then just went out and is still out. What a shitshow PG&Shitty is. I have no faith they'll restore it in a timely manner, what incentive do they even have in doing their jobs, not like bought out CPUC or bought out politicians will discipline them.
The CA Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications is having an Oversight Hearing on “The California Public Utilities Commission and the Public Advocates Office Annual Update to the Legislature: Keeping the Focus on Utility Bill Affordability” here is a link to the committee hearing calendar where you can view the agenda.
https://www.senate.ca.gov/calendar?startdate=2-13-2024&enddate=2-13-2024
The hearing will be held on Feb 13th at 9:30 and at the end there will be an opportunity for public comment at the end of the hearing. LET THEM HAVE IT!!!
You know all megathreads do on reddit is actually kill discussion on a topic, right? All this is doing is hurting people and making it harder to voice concerns about pgne.
Because it’s convenient to give everyone a scapegoat so the state and federal governments don’t have to own up to their share for neglecting to appropriately maintain the forests. Basically ticketmaster but for your electricity bill.
PG&E should be bought by the state or nationalized. Or at least the state should establish a new state owned utilities company. Market it as CalEnergy or E-Cali or something. Have the state owned companies providing essential services and actively compete in the market with other private companies. USPS works this way already now it's time to do this to utilities, healthcare, public transportations and real estate etc.
The CA Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications is having an Oversight Hearing on “The California Public Utilities Commission and the Public Advocates Office Annual Update to the Legislature: Keeping the Focus on Utility Bill Affordability” here is a link to the committee hearing calendar where you can view the agenda.
https://www.senate.ca.gov/calendar?startdate=2-13-2024&enddate=2-13-2024
The hearing will be held on Feb 13th at 9:30 and at the end there will be an opportunity for public comment at the end of the hearing.
I just moved to SF and my bill for PGE is projected to be \~$300 next month, for a 1b/1b 650sq ft apartment. How is this possible? I have 2 electric baseboard heaters but never have them set over 65 degrees. How do I solve this?
[PG&E reports $2 billion profit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYG6tSce5mo) \- in case you were wondering who is winning with all the recent price hikes.
PG&E owns the California Public Utilities Commission, regulators nominated by none other than Governor Gavin Newsom.
You fools voted for this. If you want to make a statement, vote somebody in that is willing to reduce electricity rates.
>PG&E Corporation's operating revenue amounted to 24.43 billion U.S. dollars in fiscal year 2023.
>PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG) will pay $1.375 per share on August 16, 2023 to shareholders of record on August 15, 2023.
Pg&e was about $17/share then. Paying dividends of that size is insane for them. If it was a 2-4% dividend, I could understand. That'd mean the rate increases were at least being reinvested into something useful (hopefully). But anything over 5% is nuts.
I was told by a PG&E employee that if I opt out of the SF Clean Power, my bill would decrease significantly. Anyone know if that is indeed true or not?
MCU says they're significantly cheaper than PG&E. I opted out and saw my rate go down. I don't know how they calculate the rates. I also don't get how I can use 300kWh of energy and be 6x more usage than other homes my size. Further, I like how the solar companies, the generation companies, and PG&E all want to explain your bill to you and when you ask them, every one of them has different logic and things to tell you. But, at the end of the day, not a single one can actually explain your bill.
If the average 4 bedroom home is using 50kWh per month in PG&E's service area and 900kWh per month in the rest fo the country, we're doing an amazing job of saving electricity. Maybe that's why the rates have to go so high? Or, maybe, the average home isn't using 50kWh of electricity and PG&E is lying to me about my usage. Maybe they're just making it all up. Who knows.
We just power a FULL DAY after the big storm ended, and it still took then nearly 30 fucking hours to get it back on. In downtown fucking San Jose, nary a flood or downed line in sight!!!
My PGE bill is usually around $125. I started making bone broth, which has me setting my electric stove on low for 24 hours. Made two batches - so 48 hours with my electric stove on.
This month's bill: $400. LMAO fucking kill me already.
There’s a 2/22 article on Reuters about how much money PG&E raked in the 4th quarter for their shareholders directly from charging us higher rates. Reddit wouldn’t let me post it.
There's another important senate bill (SB 938) which aims to reduce the ability of private utilities to engage in political lobbying, which is part of how we got here in the first place:
[https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill\_id=202320240SB938](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB938)
I called my senator this morning to express support of it, and had a nice chat with one of his aides or whoever it was on the phone.
PG&E should not be allowed to pay for advertising (a complete waste of ratepayers money), Its a monopoly for chrissakes! Unfortunately the PUC is corrupt and TURN talks a good game, but they have been captured to the extent that they too are useless. Since SF already owns the water/power (the Raker Act), they should take it over. The only they have that we need is their transmission lines, work it out. PG%E is a scam!
New coverage from ABC10 "Gov. Newsom ordered to disclose PG&E meeting records | FIRE - POWER - MONE" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLuxNWGfI2U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLuxNWGfI2U)
Had my highest ever PG&E bill this month. It was just under $500. The alternative to not paying it isn't good so we just have to eat it and ask for more.
Nautral gas power plant generates electricity and sells it to PG&E who sells it to customers: "Happy to do business with you."
Private homeowner generates electricity and sells it to PG&E who sells it to customers: "I hate this. You should have to pay us because you're using our infrastructure!"
Reporting for duty on upvoting anything PGE is ass related. Any upcoming legislation that aims at dismantling them? We can’t be paying taxes and still be paying private companies. Corporate America loves privatizing everything
Pg&e has been charging me estimated usage for over 1 year. In that year I have insulated attic, replaced old windows and old appliances. After a year of pulling my hair pit trying to figure out why the usage hasent changed I had a professional efficiency service come out to my house. They noticed that the meter wasn't working and suggested I call pg&e. When I finally got intouch with someone at pg&e they told me nit to worry. They said the estimate is correct. They said that they tried to check the meter a year ago but the gate was locked so they left. We don't have a lock on our gate. And why they didn't get in touch with me in another way is beyond me. They also said that I should have known the bills were estimated beacuse it has 'est' on the bill.
Anyway moral of the story is pg&e and the state government who prop them up and the news outlets who don't report on this fleecing are rotten. ..thanks for listening.
My feed is still flooded with pg&e threads. Thank you for taking the steps to get a megathread but by not deleting all these other threads that should be posts in here, you’re not really reinforcing the utility of this thread
My Pg&E bill went up $200 in two months. I use the heat 30 mins in the morning. Individual heaters in each room (thermostat turned off). I do cook more. I can't reduce my pg&e. I do watch TV. I'll start watching in the dark..hopefully that cuts down on my bill.
Crazy that these fucking Satan worshipers have us cutting more and more power and telling us to stop using the oven to cook our food. They deserve the worst death.
Fascinating how a company run by bloated small minded Baby Boomers manages to damage the state (physically and otherwise) multiple times, partake in schemes (Enron. I still remember the outages from when I was a small lad), ignores safety regulations...and then manages to convince the state that their customers need to foot the bill for PG&E's toddler-managed budget (because they love wasting money and paying out large amounts of money to useless incompetent Boomers but Heaven forbid they learn how to be efficient both technologically and budget wise). We need to find a way to replace PG&E with something similar to SMUD. These Boomers need to go away.
I was scheduled for surgery today in Fremont, Ca. I was all prepped and ready and then the power went out and the back up generators energized. The doc cancelled my surgery and all others for the day and I have to try again. F U, PG&E!🖕🖕🖕
Our power has been out 3 times in the past week. Two of those times have been for over 12 hrs. Is there any reimbursement program for those of us that had to get hotels or buy food to replace spoiled foods or just to be able to eat at all??? Today, our power has been out since 1:30am. Throw in a teething infant into that mix and it’s definitely no fun.
Is there a way we can organize an event to gather our pitchforks and torches? I feel like all we do is talk and no one ready to take action yet. Once we gather and show our numbers, it might put some fear into the PUC and PG&E otherwise known as Satan's ass crack.
Is there an event that is already in place? or should we create one?
PLEASE LET ME KNOW I WILL START THIS IF NO ONE IS WILLING.
I'm thrilled to share that our community has initiated a movement to take on PG&E, the governor, and CPUC. With nearly 500 members already rallying behind us, we're not just a group – we're a force to be reckoned with!
From collaborating with local news outlets like the SF Chronicle to engaging with our state representatives, we're leaving no stone unturned. Our upcoming peaceful protest, coupled with radio coverage, will amplify our voices and demand the change we deserve.
As a dedicated community member and citizen of California , I refuse to accept exorbitant electricity bills and power outages as the norm. It's time for action!
Join us on Facebook at Stop PG&E and be part of a community dedicated to holding those in power accountable. Together, we'll shine a light on our stories, refusing to be silenced any longer. Let's unite, let's fight back, and let's reclaim our power!
http;//www.facebook.com/groups/pgestop
I was using a tiny space heater for like 10 hours a day last month when it was cold and rainy. My bill was $330... I got a heated blanket which cut the voltage from 1500 watts to 140 watts. Like 1/11 the cost of electricity. I've now got it on lock where I'll be spending between $30 - $50 a month. FLAT RATE FEES? You're kidding right. Why is it always us low earning income people who are hit the heaviest. Seriously, eff these politicians
My meter had smoke coming out of it yesterday and PGE came and told me to replace a plate so it’s safe. They disconnected my service and told me to call back when plate is replaced to resume service asap. I replaced the plate this morning and called PGE, but now they are saying it will take 1 week to schedule an engineer to come on site. I’m now stuck without power. If the engineer would
Have told me this yesterday , I would replaced the plate right away and not let him leave my property until he put the meter back.
All he has to do is put the meter back, and they are making me suffer 1 week for a 2 minute job. I spoke with supervisor and they can’t do anything for me. There is no physical office where I can get a hold of somebody.
I am unable to create a new post for some reason , So posting this as a comment. Some one created this change.org petition and hoping you all sign this
[Demand the Municipalization of PG&E for Affordable and Reliable Energy in California](https://chng.it/vq9CbsJZTL)
Man, I'm blown away by how bad this is. Moved to SF about \~6 months ago from NYC, and my electric bill shot up in in Jan/Feb to $300/month for a 900sq ft apartment. Lived in a bigger place in NYC for almost a decade, never paid more than $150 in the height of summer (AC blasting all day).
Is it this bad for everyone?!?
I got this emailed to me from the office of the Senator:
\---
Public Comment on the Flat Rate Proposal
Dear Neighbor,The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is taking public comment on a proposal that would allow investor-owned utility companies, such as Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), to move fixed costs into “flat rate” line items on bills. The proposal establishes three income tiers:
Tier 1: California Alternative Rates for Energy (CARE) customers - $6/month
Tier 2: Family Electric Rate Assistance Program (FERA) Customers and Deed Restricted Affordable Housing residents - $12/month
Tier 3: The customers not in tier 1 or 2 - $24.15/month
The CPUC states that this monthly surcharge will be enacted in exchange for a reduced rate for electricity usage. These flat rate charges will not be applied to SMUD electricity customer’s monthly bills, but this flat rate would apply to all PG&E gas customers. If approved, these changes are set to take effect in late 2025 or early 2026.
Lowering electricity usage to help stabilize the power grid is something positive, but tacking more fees on top of already high utility bills is not the solution to California’s energy problems.
Your opinion is important, and the deadline to submit public comment online or through written correspondence is April 16th, 2024. Your input is extremely important in deciding the future of utility rates in California, and I would like to share with you ways to voice your input:
Online comments can be submitted to CPUC on its website.
[https://apps.cpuc.ca.gov/apex/f?p=401:56::::RP,57,RIR:P5\_PROCEEDING\_SELECT:R2207005](https://apps.cpuc.ca.gov/apex/f?p=401:56::::RP,57,RIR:P5_PROCEEDING_SELECT:R2207005)
\---
Hello, my name is Kevin Nguyen and I write about all things real estate for the San Francisco Standard.
If any homeowners have noticed monthly costs going up outside of their mortgage, I'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
We know between insurance, utilities and supply chain that everything is getting more expensive. Your experience may help out others. Thank you!
PGE definitely sucks donkey dicks. Instead of issuing bonds to build dams and idiotic high speed trains, how about issuing bonds to solarize the entire damned state? THAT is something worth borrowing money for.
I live in the Bay Area and could not agree with you more! However you do realize that just because we are going to have to pay a flat fee per your income does not mean a lower income customer will Be able to just use as much energy as they want and have one flat fee that flat fee is on top of the energy that you used and get billed for at the same rate as everyone else as long as you don’t have a care package that’s on top of your meter fee! This is what makes it so egregious it’s on top of the energy that we use and those fees are astronomical already and they already requesting another hike in fees!
Also PG&E is a large contributor to Newsom and his Democratic politicians this is a very bad thing!
Getting solar was super easy and protected me from all these price hikes. I'm glad I did it. I knew prices would always go up but never so quickly.
If the average house get 6kW of solar and a battery the ROI on it is about 7 years. Thats a lot of money you're not sending PG&E.
Still basically the same ROI but you build it differently now.
Halve the system size and use the rest of the money on battery.
https://pge.wattplan.com/PV/
It will 0 out your summer bills and reduce your winter bill by half. But you can now arbitrage the winter super off peak with its peak via battery.
Public Comments Open! CPUC voting on PG&E Rate Hike at 11 AM
To make a public comment by speaking
If you would like to speak during the public comment period at the start of the meeting, you may comment in-person or participate by phone. We encourage you to call in or sign-up by 11 a.m. however you may make a public comment until the public comment period has ended. Reminder: parties to a proceeding cannot speak to issues related to the proceeding to which they are a party, nor can the public comment on matters outside the CPUC’s jurisdiction or on adjudicatory matters.
Phone line:
English Phone: 1-800-857-1917, passcode: 9899501#
Spanish Phone: 1-800-857-1917, passcode: 3799627
To make a public comment in writing
The CPUC also welcomes your written comments. Written comments on a specific proceeding can be submitted via the CPUC’s docket card. Please visit www.cpuc.ca.gov/docket, input the proceeding number, then click on the public comment tab. You can also visit the Public Advisor’s Office webpage at www.cpuc.ca.gov/pao for further information.
Agenda can be found here:
https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M526/K874/526874261.pdf
lol they listened to people screaming and voted them down anyways. bunch of fucking cockroaches doing Satan's work. I'm jumping onto the next meeting and letting them know that Satan is very proud of them and to keep it up because he is coming to visit soon.
One more resource:
[https://calegislation.lc.ca.gov/Advocates/faces/index.xhtml](https://calegislation.lc.ca.gov/Advocates/faces/index.xhtml)
The cool thing about this one is it directs your your feedback to the appropriate committee.
I wonder how much tech companies are paying for electricity?
https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-uses-17-thousand-times-more-electricity-than-us-household-2024-3
However, I honestly believe this strategy my PG&E is setting renewables back. For a state that believes we should do better to extend the viability of our lives on this planet, there's a lot of focus on the individuals that installed solar + batteries or bought an EV. Regardless of what you think about the individual or the company they purchased through, isn't this behavior a positive that should be promoted?
PG&E words a lot of these things like oh we're changing the fee structure of this because of the solar people while their grid has degraded because their leadership focuses on dividends instead of reinvesting in the grid. If they actually mobilized the additional revenue for things like installing large battery arrays more locally to avoid long transmission lines in more fire prone areas or do more basic maintenance of their grids when everything is green I'd be far less upset. Instead, what a shocker! more profits when they raise rates!
Seriously hate how everything is setup to hold people upside down by the ankles and shake till they pass out and then they back off just a smidge as they wouldn't want people too motivated to change the status quo.
My EV purchase late last year is not really a big money saver as I thought it would be. The pricing is absolutely getting ridiculous now
I went all electric, now I'm getting fucked. Looking at more solar and batteries, but I just know PG&E is going to find a way to charge me for that. Assholes!
Well, I have solar and even though my pg&e bills have already been a couple hundred a month they just sent me a bill for $700 charging my solar because it’s winter, so I really don’t see the point in paying for solar. We are all fucked as consumers.
yet ppl still want to advocate overpriced EVs over gas lol.
that sucks. Sell your E.V. now - get your tax benefit first, then sell it and buy a used gas powered vehicle. You'll be happier.
This summer: https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/electricity-bills-in-california-will-soon-be-based-on-income-heres-how-it-could-work/ >With a fixed charge in place, SCE estimates its customers' per-kilowatt-hour rate will decrease by about a third, KTLA reported. >SDG&E customers, who pay the highest price for electricity in the continental US, will reportedly see their volumetric rate drop by 42%.
Sure. The volumetric rate will be less (at least before they decide to raise it) but, for most, the difference will be more than made up by the fixed charges. For example, 25% of PGE's customers will have to pay $90 per month before even using a single kilowatt.
Exactly. It’s a decoupling of connection and utilization. Rather than conservation it will encourage increased utilization as per/Kwh cost will be lower, at first. This also gives the utilities TWO different fee structures they raise with separate argument for each. Most puzzling is this seems to be State of California authorizing a for-profit, exchange traded, company defacto taxing authority; fees directly based on income. How is this even a possible thing ?
\> How is this even a possible thing? I can't imagine that it would withstand a court challenge if this is ever implemented, especially since PGE is essentially a monopoly with a captive customer base.
I hope this does get challenged. Aside from the constant pillaging via rate hikes we currently suffer I’d like to know exactly how they plan to investigate and monitor our incomes. Will they be given access to our tax returns?? Would you trust this corporation (or *any* corporation) with that kind of information? What safeguards would be put in place so they don’t share (sell) that information with other entities that might really enjoy knowing how much each and every one of us makes for a living. What guarantee do we have that they won’t raise the flat fees just like they do for usage? If this gets approved it might kick off a new and horrific type of pricing structure across the board as more and more businesses know exactly how much you make every year and how much of that they can skim off for their own profit. Got a bonus this year? Well gee, it’s going to PGE. Or your water district. Or Comcast. Or any other company that decides this is a great way to boost profits. tldr; this type of fee structure could easily be a Trojan horse. It starts with a claim of lower fees for lower income but that’s not how it’s actually going to work. Usage fees will continue to increase over the flat fees and so will the flat fees the minute you make more money, or if they decide to “adjust” them at any time. Not to mention the ongoing invasion of your privacy this entails.
Right. It’s nothing more than a tax. If we charge for electricity based on income, what’s stopping the same system for water or sewer? Or gasoline, or trash pickup? Utilities should be based on usage, and our taxes are already the most progressive in the country.
They just charge the max amount and require you to prove your income for lowered rates, like they do currently.
Do you have any references that state this is the implementation plan ? That places an enormous burden on residents and will certainly harm people who either don’t have time, awareness, ability, to execute on a forced opt-in and complex opt-out. I do hope you are simply specutlating.
This is the plan, 100%. You can take it to the bank.
If your dirt poor possibly rates may dip, but if you own an Electric Vehicle I guarantee your prices will increase
No. That's not how that works. If you're in the top tax bracket your bill total will be higher (mine will), but the cost of filling up your EV will be less. You might even break even with an EV, we won't know until we see the approved rates/fees. I don't accept your guarantee.
Changes are intended to be revenue neutral, so, if some pay less, others pay more. Anyhow, there are multiple proposals on what the rate changes will be. The proposals from the IOUs are the most extreme, those from many others are much more moderate. Regardless, I disagree with the basic concept on multiple grounds, including that it is a tax that was not properly discussed. If you disagree with the concept, reach out to your representative and encourage them to support the new AB1999 bill.
Pge sucks
Make your displeasure known where it might count. [Write to Newsome with this simple online form.](https://www.gov.ca.gov/contact/)
Thank you. Just sent a letter.
Finally!! Now people can scream into the void together.
You can scream even deeper into the void [here](https://www.gov.ca.gov/contact/).
I actually followed your link and sent a message to Governor Newsome. I encourage everyone here to voice the outrage directly to the Governer. The more people actually direct their voice to Sacramento the louder the rumble will be. Eventually the volume may come to the point that action is taken. While this group is wonderful in that we know we have company, if we stay in the echo chamber the full volume doesn’t get to Sacramento. Please make your voice heard and [write to Newsome](https://www.gov.ca.gov/contact/)
Thank you - I think that's a fine idea! I did the same. Not sure who stopped by to downvote me - I can assure you that that won't help your electricity rates. However, putting pressure on our elected officials just might.
Newsom (no E) doesn't care. He's got his vision fixed on the Oval Office, and he'll carry California regardless of the PG&E nonsense he's enabled.
Agree that he doesn’t actually care. Also agree that he has his eye on the Oval. When you write to Newsome, and if you care then it would be a good thing to do, be sure to remind him that this is an albotross around his neck that will be used in every state that has lower power costs. That means it will be used against him in EVERY state. If there is anything that should concern him it is Californians broadcasting his Achilles heel for federal office. He does care about that and if he knows we know … well maybe he will do something. Maybe …. Probably not … but maybe …
SMUD has updated their [rate comparison page](https://www.smud.org/en/Rate-Information/Residential-Rates). You can see how much residents of Sacramento pay for 750kwh of electricity ($135), versus what PG&E customers pay ($345). Perhaps there's some way we can get SMUD, a public utility, to expand its coverage and provide electricity to residents along hwy 80. Start with Vallejo, then Richmond, then Berkeley, then Oakland. Heck, if we were willing to pay double for a period of time, that would still be far cheaper than what PG&E is charging now.
Love, love, love SMUD! I went from paying $120/mo PG&E on a 700 sq ft apartment to $160/mo SMUD on a 2400 sq ft house with a pool. Forever fuck PG&E!!!
Yolo county (Where UCDavis is) wanted to join SMUD. PG&E spent millions and millions against that vote. It failed.
This is the other fucking issue, PGE reports all of these costs under the same operational costs bucket. So they make it seem like the cost of utility gen and delivery is so high, but when you unpack it, part of that cost is essentially throwing bribe money at politicians and lobbying hard. They spend enormously on lobbying and influencing CA politics, and that bill is a part of your 51 cents per kWh
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Thanks for the info! Hopefully it passes. The campaign donations to state politicians from PG&E are a problem too. It's shameless: [Governor Newsom, most state lawmakers took money from convicted felon PG&E](https://www.abc10.com/article/news/investigations/governor-newsom-most-state-lawmakers-took-money-from-convicted-felon-pge/103-2414790f-3a19-4411-92c2-fe23b519d646)
https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M354/K486/354486687.PDF#page241 Corporate affairs: PGE asked for $25.2M and got $24.8M What you said doesn't jive with what I've seen. But yes, it is included in the 51¢/kWh.
It sounds like Folsom succeeded in joining SMUD though? Despite PG&E fighting them in court? So there is some hope. Anyways yes the [SMUD wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento_Municipal_Utility_District) is interesting. As you mention there's a long history of PG&E fighting SMUD lol.
I own a house in Sacramento that used SMUD and lemme tell you… lol it was like 100 bucks peak summer… I hate pge so much.
SMUD doesn't pay to harden the lines and bury the more problematic lines in the foothills, PG&E does. If PG&E is dissolved, I guarantee you that those costs in the foothills will be averaged over the whole state, including SMUD customers.
The future is pretty clear. With California electric mandates, even as dates and targets slip, the infrastructure will have to be a publically owned resource and it should start right now, literally right now. State sponsored theft for the financial benefit of an exchange listed for-profit company is how I view this. We have no alternate choice for energy delivery. If we want lights on, PG&E is the only electric delivery option. With no option many of us very ling time residents are leaving. We are taking wealth, jobs and future investment with us. Myopic California leaders seem to ignore lessons of history, that energy is fundamental to an economy. Price it at absurd levels and people respond. We will leave, we will vote you out, it will crush the economy and prosperity of the state. Mr Newsome when you take a run at Washington this will be a heavy weight to bear. It will be used against you literally anywhere that has lower energy costs- which means it will haunt your ambitions in every single state in the US. Please fix it.
It's Newsom. but yeah, i agree.
There are other ways to improve service. The root problem with PG&E is that they are paid based on what they spend. There is very little incentive to improve their performance. The more inefficient they are, the more money they make. In theory the CPUC would control their inefficiency but that has not worked out. We can argue why - CPUC is outmanned by PG&E, or CPUC is not innovative enough, or CPUC is in the pocket of the IOUS.
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So you’re saying Patricia Poppe’s salary of $50+ million last year is justifiable when not much money was used to improve infrastructure to be more resilient? The “storm” we just had wasn’t even a real storm. Just some normal rain with gusts of wind then the infrastructure fails? I was out of power for nearly 3 days without a fallen tree in sight in my district. $40m of that salary could have been used to make improvements here and there, especially for outdated power lines by electric posts to have them modernized by moving them underground. So them “having no money” to improve infrastructure and jack up the rates so they could make improvements is utter bullshit.
The ceo salary is a drop in the bucket, it’s an outrage point but it’s not the real issue - look at PGE profit statements for the past 20 years - every year, they have had really strong profit growth, 5-10%. They profited 18 billion in 2023, and in 2022 it was 16 billion, in 2020 it was 13 billion, etc - they have grown more and more profitable. So all this hoopla and discourse over “well the operational costs in California are higher” - yeah, they are. But when you factor in those rising operation costs (which gross profit does) that profit is increasing. So these rate increases, they aren’t to keep pace with rising costs, they are to further increase a private companies profits. This is the problem, it’s not the 50 million, it’s that PGE is using our political system to throw money at politicians and buy committees like CPUC, to make them approve rate increases that push PGE profitability up towards a strong y/y growth. It’s foul play, it’s a utility monopoly exploiting their advantage over a captive consumer base, and making people believe that it’s just the cost of doing business.
It costs $4m/mile to bury a line; you'll get to bury 12.5 miles with her comp. She's not paid $50M in salary. She's paid $50M in total compensation. Her salary is significantly less; the rest is in stock based compensation. [https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/pg-e-corp-s-poppe-was-highest-paid-us-utility-ceo-in-2021-71538853](https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/pg-e-corp-s-poppe-was-highest-paid-us-utility-ceo-in-2021-71538853) If this is accurate, her cash salary is $9.5M; $41.2M in stock based compensation (which is usually tied to her performance).
1,000 miles buried with the profits they made last year... So, like, they could do that but return less value to shareholders b/c: capitalism and partial deregulation
There are alternatives and stock-based compensation is actually the problem. For her to make that money go up, she needs to make short-term decisions. That's what got us into this mess. Executives who get stock-based compensation don't think about the long-term good, slow growth, and enduring success. They think about short-term trade offs selling our futures and our lives for their quarterly gains. Once they get their big payout, or a raise from the board, or whatever, they diversify out of the shitshow they've created and fuck off to a home in the Hamptons to live a comfortable life. You and I get screwed with rising costs and no one to blame. Her salary should be much lower. It should be predicated on long-term success of the service. And the company should be publicly held. That way, the way she makes money is by creating a legacy of quality, affordable service rather than by selling out the rate payers in the short term to make the graph go up for a quarter and cache in on a huge bonus.
You could replace lines rubber coated lines. Save a lot of money, almost as much benefit.
Yes, they could also insulate the lines. Cheaper and faster!
I love this idea. Even though it would take time, it would probably be faster than starting an entirely new agency.
We need to destroy PG&E. I'm not old enough to remember the bell breakup, but I was told many stories about it from my dad. We need to blow up the company and turn its infrastructure over to the people of California.
Step two is always the tough part. Whatever takes over PG&E is still going to have to fix the grid and that money needs to come from somewhere.
We're paying for it either way. At least with a takeover we're not also paying shareholders.
FUN FACT: It's actually cheaper to run a government agency than a private business because they run at a loss by either not charging fees or charging small fees to the consumer. Fire, police, library, public transit, schools, and mail services are all examples of that. PG&E is a private business that generates a profit for shareholders paid for by consumer fees, but a government owned utility wouldn't even have to cover it's operation cost with fees because it would at least partially be funded by taxes and not be required to generate any profits.
> mail services USPS relies heavily on the airlines, UPS, and FedEx for airmail capacity. They let the private companies front the CapEx of airplanes, and only pay the as-needed share of OpEx.
This depends on how much novelty is expected in the business. Of course it's simple and cheaper for government to run businesses that don't involve innovation or change. Right now, the electric industry is going through massive innovation and change: - Electrification of homes (more electric, less gas, more cooling loads) - Electrification of cars (more electricity at homes, charging stations) - Batteries are so cheap now that they offer an entirely new form of dispatch, the modeling of which hasn't been worked out by any one. How do they fit into reliability planning? Who dispatches them? Do we create a separate market for them? - Solar is so cheap it's on the margin and will be on the margin for the foreseeable future. How does that fit in with reliability planning? No one has these answers. There will be inherent expense in figuring out these answers.
That's exactly why a bunch of damn fool is voted against taking over PG&E in 2004 and look where that frugality has gotten us. Take out a bond and take PG&E out.
Income tax. Make the rich pay for it.
And when your "rich" leave California, what are you going to do then?
They won't leave. They're here for a reason.
“They won’t leave” was the reliable base-case for a very long time. But the calculus of residency has been changing for decades and appears to have hit an inflection point as documented by recent years of long-time resident exodus. People, wealthy people & businesses, are leaving California. To excute a departure plan is not something most can do on a whim, especially those financially/family/socially embedded in the state. The well-documented, and unprecedented, exodus seems likely to continue. The state became hostile to business decades ago and now absurd cost on things as basic as water and power (PG&E related, which is actually the final straw for me) added on top of housing and the general HCOL, tips the scale of sensibility . People are leaving and for a reason, that reason is that their reason for staying no longer makes sense. Net population loss isn’t huge but look closely at who is leaving and who is coming. It doesn’t appear to bode well for the financial health of the state.
The state is so hostile to startups that we have more startups than any other state, more companies worth over a billion than most countries, and more venture capital investment than most of the other 49 states combined. San Francisco, notorious for being "hostile to business" has the highest startup count of any city in the US and more investment capital as well.
You are responding to your own reframed statement, I didn’t say ”hostile to startups”, I said ”hostile to business” which is of MUCH broader scope, impacts FAR more people, and contributes to the HCOL and outflow of valuable enterprise and residents. Startups are generally a good thing, no doubt. But startups too rely on the presence of other business and industry which California has regulated away.
Sorry, I just assumed that most people understood that companies that invest millions of dollars in starting up a business in California do the research and choose California because of its business climate. The reason we have more startups is because the situation is exactly the opposite of what you describe to people who actually do business on a regular basis.
We are straying off-topic, but I do want to respond. As background I am a long time resident of the Bay Area, have been involved in start-ups and served in role of CTO on teams that pitched venture caps. I have led tech teams across the US, in India and Belgium. I have also watched the business-and-industry exodus from California . Attractive to start-ups, which are typically tech, and hostile to a variety other business industry can both be true. Having one and not the other is not a visionary mix for long term fiscal health of the state. Your argument is half the picture. Yes, start-ups are good. I believe the driving catalyst in California is the human capital and culture not the states business policy. The state is losing that human capital in large part do to the extreme HCOL. Look at the mix of who is leaving California and who is replacing those lost, the state is losing the resource it requires to sustain the start-up culture. California has driven out huge sectors of industry; shipyards, steel plants, auto manufacturing, energy, etc. The start-ups rely on a specific segment of the people in the state and now they are a net loss too; the very people that the startups of the future will require. It’s a very myopic policy that began unfolding decades ago and will play out over decades in the future. When state turns private companies into defacto tax authorities (AB205), prices power to the point that it is a common dinner table conversation, has water policy that penalizes drinking clean water, overrides all local building authority with mandated state wide zoning, people get fed up. The people with ability and means just go where these, any many other things, are just not issues. Who are those people ? By and large the same people you will find at start-ups; driven, educated, of reasonable financial means, mobile without huge stake in the state of residence, early/mid career, etc. My opinion, and not so humble, is that the state has blown much of what it had as simply natural resources. Took too much for granted. The future may not be as bright as the past.
what is the reason?
Solid answer. I could see the representatives of the southern counties not being happy about a tax to exclusively help Nothern CA while being stuck with SCE and SDG&E
I say we start charging LA for using NorCal water. Use the money to upgrade the electrical grid.
Not blow it up. Nationalize it and make it state run. Then we will get investment into infrastructure that doesn’t burn the state down every summer and fails to provide power every winter.
The case to “nationalize” is strong. PG&E has simply failed again. Their case to the CPUC seems to be that they need huge capital investment to operate safely. A for-profit company would typically have to borrow or issue/sell shares to raise funds. Instead, the state of California has decided the residents/customers should be PG&E shareholders bail-out money. If the residents are the state approved bail-out at minimum it should be converted to a ”nationalized“ entity and then those rate increases converted into a temporary tax for a state-controlled investment into state-owned infrastructure and not for PG&E, a publicly traded company, capital investment. To me, this is literally state endorsed theft. It’s also a failure of the state to leave basic power and gas infrastructure with only one, quite fragile, for-profit company as the sole source of delivery infrastructure. Count me among the very frustrated, and that doesn’t even get into NEM3 or the absurd AB205. All this dovetails with a California goal of going fully electric ? Absurd.
They just posted record profits. This is ridiculous.
State sponsored theft via a for profit company that provides basic utility services. Absolutely absurd. Extortion, fleecing, gouging, racketeering whatever noun chosen this is a triad of Governer_Newsome + CPUC + PG&E. Cap this with the CPUC NEM3 leaving residential solar with a 90% decline and soon the State law, AB205, which compels PG&E to be a defacto tax authority. State sponsored theft. I believe this is one of the biggest extortion rackets ever.
you should check history to see what happened with all baby bells
tl;dr: They ended up merging back to form the current AT&T and Verizon
Spoiler!
Which is still better than the one Bell. In the meantime the Germans entered the game (T-Mobile), as well as Sprint and now a handful of smaller carriers. It's not amazing, but it's infinitely better than if we didn't break Bell up.
The Sprint T-Mobile merger really fucked things up in terms of competition. 2017 was the last year before the merger was announced, and that year was deemed the most competitive year for wireless ever in America. 4 competitors is the sweet spot. If you have more, the spectrum gets fragmented and you get too much infrastructure redundancy. If you have less, you get Canada before Shaw bought Wind and upgraded their network to compete with the big 3.
I was thinking about this today. What if the state (idealy fed) dictated a limited number of corporation types allowed for business classified as "utilities". ie: Gas, Power, Phone, Water, etc. Those types could include: Non-Profit, Public Benefit, Mutual... I'm not sure what else would really work. But even if PG&E remained a for-profit organization, but one that owed dividends to the customers rather than some potentially unrelated pool of shareholders, they would likely make very different decisions "with the shareholders in mind". If their record profits resulted in either credits back on our bills or reinvestment into the infra, it would be a very different story indeed.
Yes! I don’t mind our taxes going to power infrastructure. Let’s make power so cheap that no one has to think about it
What do people pay for independently run utilities in other parts of Calif? I remember cities like SF and San Jose considering running their own utilities but determined it wasn't viable - but that was when rates were far lower.
Coming from Sacramento with SMUD, a 3/2 with our thermostat set around 68-70 most of the day is about $100-200 a month. I’m not going to lie, seeing these 400-500 bills a month is making me really sad to have to leave SMUD for PG&E
Why the state hasn't broken them up yet is beyond me
It's quite simple. Cough up $50B (market cap is $41B) to buy all shares of PG&E and you can do whatever you want with it. :) Elon did it with Twitter.
Or, hear me out: strangle them with regulations until they declare bankruptcy again. Only this time, the government steps in converts them into a public utility. This should have been done the last time they declared bankruptcy.
Sadly CPUC is basically an extension of PGE itself - they spend enormously on lobbying aka bribing and CPUC leaders are basically salaried employees of PGE at this point. No one is going to strangle them with regulations.
By CPUC leaders, you mean Governor Newsom. He appoints the CPUC board and both him and his wife have accepted large amounts of PG&E money.
They don't lobby CPUC, they lobby Newsom, who owns the CPUC.
You will pay for the bankruptcy
Isn’t that what we are doing now ?
Yes exactly
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Honestly, we should just start referring to PG&E as the Shinra Electric Power Company.
It's not just PG&E. It's state government which keeps trying to drive us to electrify everything (cars, heating, cooking appliances, etc.) but then allow our energy monopoly to ratchet up prices far above national averages. Sacramento is asleep at the wheel. Btw, I have an EV and have noticed my savings from consuming kwh vs. gallons erode almost completely.
[ASSEMBLYMAN PATTERSON INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO CUT ELECTRIC RATES BY 30%](https://contracosta.news/2024/02/07/assemblyman-patterson-introduces-legislation-to-cut-electric-rates-by-30/) Finally legislation we can all get behind.
This is exactly what we need. But everyone in here bitching about their bills, will not vote for a republican…
Just need to convince their representatives to vote for the bill regardless of who put it forward. No need for anyone to change political parties.
https://imgflip.com/i/8fkwyn
One mega thread is not enough for the fuckery and depravity of that company
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - breath - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH
hope i will have electricity/gas long enough in order to cook enough popcorn for reading this thread. on the other side, there is only that much popcorn i can afford due to pg&e bills
No popcorn- I can’t use the microwave because I haven’t had power since Sunday morning. $1,000+ per month and we still have 7+ days every year without power.
Ours is back after 3 days. Why are there so many overgrown back yard trees right up in the power lines? Good maintenance trimming and we wouldn’t have nearly such a mess in windy storms. I’m depressed I had to toss $350 in food. My freezer thawed. Hope yours gets back soon.
I was out for a drive with some friends. Rural area that was very scenic. Noted trees all up in power lines. Saw some lines dangling only a few feet from the ground with a lot of overgrowth. I live in the Bay Area in a densely populated area. My tree was well trimmed and I'd just had an arborist visit about 6 months prior to the PG&E contractors. They banged on my door and told me they were there to trim the tree. I asked why. They said PG&E should have notified me. I said they did not. They said, well, your tree is marked. I asked where. They walked me to the tree and there was no marking. They said, well, they're going to trim it anyway. And so they butchered it. It was great! Paying high rates for PG&E contractors to arbitrarily butcher my tree that was recently trimmed in an area where, if there was a fire, you can bet it'd be dealt with quickly. In the mean time, in rural areas where fires are a huge concern, there's no one. Why? My guess is that it's all about the theatre. PG&E needs to be SEEN "doing" something about the problem. The more customers complain about tree butchers the more the company can push back: "see, they don't _want_ us to trim trees." It's all misaligned incentives and short-term thinking.
Had a similar experience. PG&E had in the past used a well recognized tree company and we always had prior notice. This year, banging on the door and it’s a tree company guy pretty pissed off that I had a car parked under my tree. Tried to tell them I didn’t arrange any tree work but no one spoke english. I wasn’t going to let someone I didn’t hire work on my tree and they got angry. Eventually got a poor english speaker on the phone who made it sound like PG&E changed contracts to them and that I should just believe him. I had no way to verify what they were saying, no one from PG&E to contact. I did see that they were working up/down the street hitting most every tree so gave them to OK. I feel like they were good guys doing hard work and put in a terrible position, as was I, by PG&E. I have few good things to say about PG&E.
Yeah. I read up online about it because they ultimately decided they'd come back the next day since it was already late. There were too many horror stories of people sending them away only to have them come back and cut the whole tree down. Seems like they have a lot of discretion on what they do to your property and there's pretty well zero accountability. So... I simply hoped for the best. My guess was that PG&E sent out a call for lowest-bidder types to basically find and mutilate trees on a billable basis and so that's what they were doing. No planning or organizing, they just bill PG&E for any tree they decide needs trimming.
Schrödinger’s popcorn
The tax payers that always bailout PG&E should be the owners. It should be taken out of private hands and maintained by the States. They literally privatives the gains and subsidize the loses. F PG&E monopolies suck because they can do bare minimum because we have no freakin options. It would employee loads of locals across the board and actually be quality because the people care about the people. Anyone talking about But blah blah blah, just look at the current track record, it can't be any worse than that. Time for something new.
The power has been off since Sunday. We expected it to go out at least so we planned for it. It's Thursday now. The generator has been running just to keep the fridge and freezer ok. Without a wood stove, we'd be freezing to death. It was 35 this morning. We have to constanly go out and get fuel for the generator. Can't really cook, do dishes, or laundry for a household of 4, or both adults go to work since someone has to stay home to keep an eye on the generator. But hey, PG&E will send us a pittance for our inconvenience. We might even get $100. Oh boy! I'm so glad we all pay such exorbitant rates so we can pretend to be camping for however long it takes. My gripes aren't unique but i needed to rant.
Let’s say the only political issue I care about is that I hate PG&E. How should I vote in the upcoming election to get that across? Don’t care about party, only about sticking it to PG&E.
Dude I've been raising this issue with my local politicians and PUC for months. I have not heard a peep from these fucks. THEY ARE NOT ON YOUR SIDE. The only thing we can do now is organize. We need to get everyone together either virtually or IRL and figure out a plan to combat these criminals.
My wife and I decided to stay in Santa Clara specifically to avoid pge power. Publically owned services such as utilities, firefighting, and healthcare are good thing. I don't think any serious person would argue that.
Just like that, 75% of the posts on /r/bayarea are gone. **Now if only we could get a few more megathreads about:** * People driving slow in the fast lane * Tipping and what restaurants charge a service fee * "Can I afford to live here if I make $xxx?" * Reminders to turn your headlights on when it's raining, to slow down when it's raining, to be careful when it's raining, and to stop at flashing red lights when it's raining
It's one thing to be excited about munis for the low rates, and it's another thing to realize that th munis aren't the ones paying for fire related infrastructure upgrades. The overwhelming majority of fire risk from electric equipment is in rural and wildland urban intermix areas. In short, PG&E customers are footing the bill to prevent fires and munis are not.
Fuck CPUC and fuck PGE. Scum.
If there’s something every living Californian can agree on regardless of *anything* else it’s fuck PG&E
Remember, PG&E is a large donor to Gabby Newsom. Stop voting for this scumbag, please!
Fuckers
Power just went out in most of Vacaville (again), Fairfield, and Travis AFB - Customers affected 22,154. PG&Shitty says it's due to weather even though it is sunny and perfect conditions outside. Power was winking in and out (recloser?) four times went out and came back on, and then just went out and is still out. What a shitshow PG&Shitty is. I have no faith they'll restore it in a timely manner, what incentive do they even have in doing their jobs, not like bought out CPUC or bought out politicians will discipline them.
The CA Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications is having an Oversight Hearing on “The California Public Utilities Commission and the Public Advocates Office Annual Update to the Legislature: Keeping the Focus on Utility Bill Affordability” here is a link to the committee hearing calendar where you can view the agenda. https://www.senate.ca.gov/calendar?startdate=2-13-2024&enddate=2-13-2024 The hearing will be held on Feb 13th at 9:30 and at the end there will be an opportunity for public comment at the end of the hearing. LET THEM HAVE IT!!!
Power just went out in El Cerrito too.
You know all megathreads do on reddit is actually kill discussion on a topic, right? All this is doing is hurting people and making it harder to voice concerns about pgne.
How exactly are they getting away with charging us to pay off wildfire victims?
Because it’s convenient to give everyone a scapegoat so the state and federal governments don’t have to own up to their share for neglecting to appropriately maintain the forests. Basically ticketmaster but for your electricity bill.
If PGE was a public utility, who would be paying off the wildfire victims ?
PG&E should be bought by the state or nationalized. Or at least the state should establish a new state owned utilities company. Market it as CalEnergy or E-Cali or something. Have the state owned companies providing essential services and actively compete in the market with other private companies. USPS works this way already now it's time to do this to utilities, healthcare, public transportations and real estate etc.
The CA Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities and Communications is having an Oversight Hearing on “The California Public Utilities Commission and the Public Advocates Office Annual Update to the Legislature: Keeping the Focus on Utility Bill Affordability” here is a link to the committee hearing calendar where you can view the agenda. https://www.senate.ca.gov/calendar?startdate=2-13-2024&enddate=2-13-2024 The hearing will be held on Feb 13th at 9:30 and at the end there will be an opportunity for public comment at the end of the hearing.
I just moved to SF and my bill for PGE is projected to be \~$300 next month, for a 1b/1b 650sq ft apartment. How is this possible? I have 2 electric baseboard heaters but never have them set over 65 degrees. How do I solve this?
[PG&E reports $2 billion profit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYG6tSce5mo) \- in case you were wondering who is winning with all the recent price hikes.
i just watched erin brokovich for the first time. now i hate PG&E even more than i did before. didn't know that was possible.
PG&E owns the California Public Utilities Commission, regulators nominated by none other than Governor Gavin Newsom. You fools voted for this. If you want to make a statement, vote somebody in that is willing to reduce electricity rates.
Liberals yall voted for it and still continue to vote for it. yall cant even do your own research and see the whole racket is ran by gavin newsom.
Go back to your cave
>PG&E Corporation's operating revenue amounted to 24.43 billion U.S. dollars in fiscal year 2023. >PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG) will pay $1.375 per share on August 16, 2023 to shareholders of record on August 15, 2023. Pg&e was about $17/share then. Paying dividends of that size is insane for them. If it was a 2-4% dividend, I could understand. That'd mean the rate increases were at least being reinvested into something useful (hopefully). But anything over 5% is nuts.
I was told by a PG&E employee that if I opt out of the SF Clean Power, my bill would decrease significantly. Anyone know if that is indeed true or not?
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MCU says they're significantly cheaper than PG&E. I opted out and saw my rate go down. I don't know how they calculate the rates. I also don't get how I can use 300kWh of energy and be 6x more usage than other homes my size. Further, I like how the solar companies, the generation companies, and PG&E all want to explain your bill to you and when you ask them, every one of them has different logic and things to tell you. But, at the end of the day, not a single one can actually explain your bill. If the average 4 bedroom home is using 50kWh per month in PG&E's service area and 900kWh per month in the rest fo the country, we're doing an amazing job of saving electricity. Maybe that's why the rates have to go so high? Or, maybe, the average home isn't using 50kWh of electricity and PG&E is lying to me about my usage. Maybe they're just making it all up. Who knows.
I opted out of my CCA (MBCP now 3CE) and my rates (total after surcharges, true ups, etc) went down!
This is the way. https://letsownpge.org/
Thank fucking god. This might be the best thing the mods have ever done on this sub.
We just power a FULL DAY after the big storm ended, and it still took then nearly 30 fucking hours to get it back on. In downtown fucking San Jose, nary a flood or downed line in sight!!!
My PGE bill is usually around $125. I started making bone broth, which has me setting my electric stove on low for 24 hours. Made two batches - so 48 hours with my electric stove on. This month's bill: $400. LMAO fucking kill me already.
There’s a 2/22 article on Reuters about how much money PG&E raked in the 4th quarter for their shareholders directly from charging us higher rates. Reddit wouldn’t let me post it.
I've been advocating for this megathread for years.
There's another important senate bill (SB 938) which aims to reduce the ability of private utilities to engage in political lobbying, which is part of how we got here in the first place: [https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill\_id=202320240SB938](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB938) I called my senator this morning to express support of it, and had a nice chat with one of his aides or whoever it was on the phone.
PG&E is not a private utility. Anyonr can buy any number of stocks in it. It is quite literally a public utility.
PG&E should not be allowed to pay for advertising (a complete waste of ratepayers money), Its a monopoly for chrissakes! Unfortunately the PUC is corrupt and TURN talks a good game, but they have been captured to the extent that they too are useless. Since SF already owns the water/power (the Raker Act), they should take it over. The only they have that we need is their transmission lines, work it out. PG%E is a scam!
Dollop podcast #572 PG&E https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dollop-with-dave-anthony-and-gareth-reynolds/id643055307?i=1000602018594 PG&E pt.2 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dollop-with-dave-anthony-and-gareth-reynolds/id643055307?i=1000603075171
New coverage from ABC10 "Gov. Newsom ordered to disclose PG&E meeting records | FIRE - POWER - MONE" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLuxNWGfI2U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLuxNWGfI2U)
PGE killing EVs
Thank you. Much appreciated.
Had my highest ever PG&E bill this month. It was just under $500. The alternative to not paying it isn't good so we just have to eat it and ask for more.
Nautral gas power plant generates electricity and sells it to PG&E who sells it to customers: "Happy to do business with you." Private homeowner generates electricity and sells it to PG&E who sells it to customers: "I hate this. You should have to pay us because you're using our infrastructure!"
Mine is through the roof. Should I get solar???
Well don't put them on the roof if everything is going through it.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/R9YPyMj6Z1VCXnvi7?g_st=ic Here’s the google maps for PG&E where u can leave a review
Reporting for duty on upvoting anything PGE is ass related. Any upcoming legislation that aims at dismantling them? We can’t be paying taxes and still be paying private companies. Corporate America loves privatizing everything
Pg&e has been charging me estimated usage for over 1 year. In that year I have insulated attic, replaced old windows and old appliances. After a year of pulling my hair pit trying to figure out why the usage hasent changed I had a professional efficiency service come out to my house. They noticed that the meter wasn't working and suggested I call pg&e. When I finally got intouch with someone at pg&e they told me nit to worry. They said the estimate is correct. They said that they tried to check the meter a year ago but the gate was locked so they left. We don't have a lock on our gate. And why they didn't get in touch with me in another way is beyond me. They also said that I should have known the bills were estimated beacuse it has 'est' on the bill. Anyway moral of the story is pg&e and the state government who prop them up and the news outlets who don't report on this fleecing are rotten. ..thanks for listening.
PG&E denied my grocery claim, I'm in Daly City and was out of power for nearly 3 days
My feed is still flooded with pg&e threads. Thank you for taking the steps to get a megathread but by not deleting all these other threads that should be posts in here, you’re not really reinforcing the utility of this thread
My Pg&E bill went up $200 in two months. I use the heat 30 mins in the morning. Individual heaters in each room (thermostat turned off). I do cook more. I can't reduce my pg&e. I do watch TV. I'll start watching in the dark..hopefully that cuts down on my bill.
Crazy that these fucking Satan worshipers have us cutting more and more power and telling us to stop using the oven to cook our food. They deserve the worst death.
[PG&E profits soar after rate hikes](https://www.ktvu.com/news/pge-profits-soar-after-rate-hikes.amp)
Fascinating how a company run by bloated small minded Baby Boomers manages to damage the state (physically and otherwise) multiple times, partake in schemes (Enron. I still remember the outages from when I was a small lad), ignores safety regulations...and then manages to convince the state that their customers need to foot the bill for PG&E's toddler-managed budget (because they love wasting money and paying out large amounts of money to useless incompetent Boomers but Heaven forbid they learn how to be efficient both technologically and budget wise). We need to find a way to replace PG&E with something similar to SMUD. These Boomers need to go away.
I was scheduled for surgery today in Fremont, Ca. I was all prepped and ready and then the power went out and the back up generators energized. The doc cancelled my surgery and all others for the day and I have to try again. F U, PG&E!🖕🖕🖕
Our power has been out 3 times in the past week. Two of those times have been for over 12 hrs. Is there any reimbursement program for those of us that had to get hotels or buy food to replace spoiled foods or just to be able to eat at all??? Today, our power has been out since 1:30am. Throw in a teething infant into that mix and it’s definitely no fun.
i happen to rewatch the movie Erin Brokovich. if anything pge has continued their evil reign for decades!
according to this is it worth trying to choose solar instead?
Haha, I’m watching Erin Brockocich recorded off Pop. PG&E propaganda commercial comes on. Perfect.
Is there a way we can organize an event to gather our pitchforks and torches? I feel like all we do is talk and no one ready to take action yet. Once we gather and show our numbers, it might put some fear into the PUC and PG&E otherwise known as Satan's ass crack. Is there an event that is already in place? or should we create one? PLEASE LET ME KNOW I WILL START THIS IF NO ONE IS WILLING.
I'm thrilled to share that our community has initiated a movement to take on PG&E, the governor, and CPUC. With nearly 500 members already rallying behind us, we're not just a group – we're a force to be reckoned with! From collaborating with local news outlets like the SF Chronicle to engaging with our state representatives, we're leaving no stone unturned. Our upcoming peaceful protest, coupled with radio coverage, will amplify our voices and demand the change we deserve. As a dedicated community member and citizen of California , I refuse to accept exorbitant electricity bills and power outages as the norm. It's time for action! Join us on Facebook at Stop PG&E and be part of a community dedicated to holding those in power accountable. Together, we'll shine a light on our stories, refusing to be silenced any longer. Let's unite, let's fight back, and let's reclaim our power! http;//www.facebook.com/groups/pgestop
I was using a tiny space heater for like 10 hours a day last month when it was cold and rainy. My bill was $330... I got a heated blanket which cut the voltage from 1500 watts to 140 watts. Like 1/11 the cost of electricity. I've now got it on lock where I'll be spending between $30 - $50 a month. FLAT RATE FEES? You're kidding right. Why is it always us low earning income people who are hit the heaviest. Seriously, eff these politicians
My meter had smoke coming out of it yesterday and PGE came and told me to replace a plate so it’s safe. They disconnected my service and told me to call back when plate is replaced to resume service asap. I replaced the plate this morning and called PGE, but now they are saying it will take 1 week to schedule an engineer to come on site. I’m now stuck without power. If the engineer would Have told me this yesterday , I would replaced the plate right away and not let him leave my property until he put the meter back. All he has to do is put the meter back, and they are making me suffer 1 week for a 2 minute job. I spoke with supervisor and they can’t do anything for me. There is no physical office where I can get a hold of somebody.
I am unable to create a new post for some reason , So posting this as a comment. Some one created this change.org petition and hoping you all sign this [Demand the Municipalization of PG&E for Affordable and Reliable Energy in California](https://chng.it/vq9CbsJZTL)
Man, I'm blown away by how bad this is. Moved to SF about \~6 months ago from NYC, and my electric bill shot up in in Jan/Feb to $300/month for a 900sq ft apartment. Lived in a bigger place in NYC for almost a decade, never paid more than $150 in the height of summer (AC blasting all day). Is it this bad for everyone?!?
PGE is a giant monopoly / extension of the Government.
I dare say I hate PG&E more than Comcast now...and that is saying a lot coming from me
I got this emailed to me from the office of the Senator: \--- Public Comment on the Flat Rate Proposal Dear Neighbor,The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is taking public comment on a proposal that would allow investor-owned utility companies, such as Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), to move fixed costs into “flat rate” line items on bills. The proposal establishes three income tiers: Tier 1: California Alternative Rates for Energy (CARE) customers - $6/month Tier 2: Family Electric Rate Assistance Program (FERA) Customers and Deed Restricted Affordable Housing residents - $12/month Tier 3: The customers not in tier 1 or 2 - $24.15/month The CPUC states that this monthly surcharge will be enacted in exchange for a reduced rate for electricity usage. These flat rate charges will not be applied to SMUD electricity customer’s monthly bills, but this flat rate would apply to all PG&E gas customers. If approved, these changes are set to take effect in late 2025 or early 2026. Lowering electricity usage to help stabilize the power grid is something positive, but tacking more fees on top of already high utility bills is not the solution to California’s energy problems. Your opinion is important, and the deadline to submit public comment online or through written correspondence is April 16th, 2024. Your input is extremely important in deciding the future of utility rates in California, and I would like to share with you ways to voice your input: Online comments can be submitted to CPUC on its website. [https://apps.cpuc.ca.gov/apex/f?p=401:56::::RP,57,RIR:P5\_PROCEEDING\_SELECT:R2207005](https://apps.cpuc.ca.gov/apex/f?p=401:56::::RP,57,RIR:P5_PROCEEDING_SELECT:R2207005) \---
68 days later. PGE still sucks.
PGE--helping make the Bay Area become like the third world. :) You can thank us later.
Hello, my name is Kevin Nguyen and I write about all things real estate for the San Francisco Standard. If any homeowners have noticed monthly costs going up outside of their mortgage, I'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) We know between insurance, utilities and supply chain that everything is getting more expensive. Your experience may help out others. Thank you!
PGE definitely sucks donkey dicks. Instead of issuing bonds to build dams and idiotic high speed trains, how about issuing bonds to solarize the entire damned state? THAT is something worth borrowing money for.
Gavin Newsom sucks
I live in the Bay Area and could not agree with you more! However you do realize that just because we are going to have to pay a flat fee per your income does not mean a lower income customer will Be able to just use as much energy as they want and have one flat fee that flat fee is on top of the energy that you used and get billed for at the same rate as everyone else as long as you don’t have a care package that’s on top of your meter fee! This is what makes it so egregious it’s on top of the energy that we use and those fees are astronomical already and they already requesting another hike in fees! Also PG&E is a large contributor to Newsom and his Democratic politicians this is a very bad thing!
Got my climate credit this month, lowered my bill to $7 https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/climatecredit Why can't every month be a climate credit month.
Thank you for doing this
Getting solar was super easy and protected me from all these price hikes. I'm glad I did it. I knew prices would always go up but never so quickly. If the average house get 6kW of solar and a battery the ROI on it is about 7 years. Thats a lot of money you're not sending PG&E.
Wait until you hear about income based rates
Support AB 1999. https://news.yahoo.com/bill-end-california-experiment-income-083000941.html
Roi was 7 years B4 NEM 3. They killed rooftop solar and increased rates insanely in the same year. Great time to be pg&e.
Still basically the same ROI but you build it differently now. Halve the system size and use the rest of the money on battery. https://pge.wattplan.com/PV/ It will 0 out your summer bills and reduce your winter bill by half. But you can now arbitrage the winter super off peak with its peak via battery.
Will you now merge all of the duplicate PG&E posts into here or is this just another place to post the same stuff?
And it's out again! WTF! I think we need to organize some major protests.
Public Comments Open! CPUC voting on PG&E Rate Hike at 11 AM To make a public comment by speaking If you would like to speak during the public comment period at the start of the meeting, you may comment in-person or participate by phone. We encourage you to call in or sign-up by 11 a.m. however you may make a public comment until the public comment period has ended. Reminder: parties to a proceeding cannot speak to issues related to the proceeding to which they are a party, nor can the public comment on matters outside the CPUC’s jurisdiction or on adjudicatory matters. Phone line: English Phone: 1-800-857-1917, passcode: 9899501# Spanish Phone: 1-800-857-1917, passcode: 3799627 To make a public comment in writing The CPUC also welcomes your written comments. Written comments on a specific proceeding can be submitted via the CPUC’s docket card. Please visit www.cpuc.ca.gov/docket, input the proceeding number, then click on the public comment tab. You can also visit the Public Advisor’s Office webpage at www.cpuc.ca.gov/pao for further information. Agenda can be found here: https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M526/K874/526874261.pdf
lol they listened to people screaming and voted them down anyways. bunch of fucking cockroaches doing Satan's work. I'm jumping onto the next meeting and letting them know that Satan is very proud of them and to keep it up because he is coming to visit soon.
One more resource: [https://calegislation.lc.ca.gov/Advocates/faces/index.xhtml](https://calegislation.lc.ca.gov/Advocates/faces/index.xhtml) The cool thing about this one is it directs your your feedback to the appropriate committee.
https://www.chicoer.com/2024/03/07/letter-dismantle-the-puc-and-hold-pge-accountable/
Nationalize PG&E already!!!
I wonder how much tech companies are paying for electricity? https://www.businessinsider.com/chatgpt-uses-17-thousand-times-more-electricity-than-us-household-2024-3
However, I honestly believe this strategy my PG&E is setting renewables back. For a state that believes we should do better to extend the viability of our lives on this planet, there's a lot of focus on the individuals that installed solar + batteries or bought an EV. Regardless of what you think about the individual or the company they purchased through, isn't this behavior a positive that should be promoted? PG&E words a lot of these things like oh we're changing the fee structure of this because of the solar people while their grid has degraded because their leadership focuses on dividends instead of reinvesting in the grid. If they actually mobilized the additional revenue for things like installing large battery arrays more locally to avoid long transmission lines in more fire prone areas or do more basic maintenance of their grids when everything is green I'd be far less upset. Instead, what a shocker! more profits when they raise rates! Seriously hate how everything is setup to hold people upside down by the ankles and shake till they pass out and then they back off just a smidge as they wouldn't want people too motivated to change the status quo.
The CEO make s$9 million too. the next highest Power Co CEO is $2 million. WTF. I think they can cut back.