RELIEF COMING ON NEXT SDG&E BILL

Natural gas prices push commission to distribute its climate credits early

San Diego Gas & Electric residential gas customers will see $43.40 taken off their February bill as a result of the state’s climate credit being distributed early. They’ll also see $60.70 knocked off their March electricity bill.

The move comes after the California

Public Utilities Commission voted Thursday to pay some of its climate credits to consumers as soon as possible to give some relief from a spike in natural gas prices.

SDG&E customers can expect the credit on their next bill, however, monthly billing cycles vary for different customers.

All five commissioners voted in favor, agreeing that it’s only a first step in addressing volatility in gas prices.

“We hear you that immediate relief is needed,” said commission President Alice Busching Reynolds. “Each utility has resources for customers to provide additional support,” she said, acknowledging that the credit may not be big enough to fully cover the recent increase in gas bills.

“It is not a long-term solution to the trend we’re seeing around volatile natural gas prices,” Reynolds said, pointing to another commission meeting scheduled for Tuesday to discuss how to combat rising natural gas prices in California.

Typically, in the past three years, the SDG&E climate credit has come in three installments — the first being the gas credit in the April billing cycle, and the electric credit appearing in the August and September billing cycles.

An additional $60.70 will be deducted from SDG&E customers’ monthly electric bills in the second half of this year. All three climate credits for SDG&E customers this

year total $164.80.

“Over the past few weeks, SDG&E and CPUC staff met several times to explore the feasibility of moving up the climate credit to provide our customers with bill relief,” said Dana Golan, SDG&E vice president of customer services. “In anticipation of today’s vote, our billing group has been working hard to put procedures into place to accelerate the climate credit as quickly as possible.”

The California Public Utilities Commission distributes the climate credit to the customers of the state’s three big investor-owned utilities — SDG&E, Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric.

Funding for the climate credit comes from the money raised by California’s cap and trade program that requires power plants, natural gas providers, and other large industries that emit greenhouse gases to buy carbon pollution permits. The amount distributed each year fluctuates, depending on the revenue the cap and trade program collects.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, one caller said she had paid $90 for gas for a one-bedroom apartment over eight days in January, and accused Southern California Gas — a subsidiary of San Diego-based Sempra that buys and distributes natural gas — of being a monopoly that needed to be reined in.

Another caller said his SoCalGas bill for January was $800, double what he paid the month before.

Most utilities that submitted responses to the commission were in favor of the measure to expedite the credits, but some companies dissented specifically on the electric credits, citing steady electric prices for consumers and noting that electric use is likely to go up in the summer.

SDG&E proposed giving out the electric credits during peak electric usage months — August and September.

If electric prices were to rise in later months, they argued, the credits would already be paid out and offer little relief to consumers.

The California Association of Small and Multi-Jurisdictional Utilities argued that the decision to pay early runs “counter to the commission’s justification for current timing for (climate credit) disbursement, which seeks to avoid providing (climate credits) during peak periods.”

The payments were not designed to respond to higher wholesale natural gas prices, a CPUC spokesperson acknowledged. The credit was put in place to offset higher energy costs for consumers from a cap and trade program through which the California Air Resources Board sells carbon pollution permits to industrial greenhouse gas emitters.