Bill Questions

Delivering safe, reliable and clean energy at affordable prices

Providing safe, reliable and clean energy is our most important responsibility. Providing it at a price everyone can afford is just as important.

Changes in your rates and bills can be challenging. We want to help answer questions about your energy costs.

What is PG&E doing to make rates and bills more affordable?

Cutting costs and improving operational efficiencies

Working to keep future bill impacts at or below assumed inflation (2 to 4 percent)
Generating more than $970 million by selling licensing agreements to wireless providers to attach equipment to transmission towers
Moving powerlines underground to reduce recurring maintenance costs
Pursuing federal funding to offset costs of making the energy system safer and more climate resilient
Saving $4.9 billion by streamlining how we plan our work and resources and renegotiating older contracts

Helping you manage your energy use and costs

We are determined to help you save money on your bill no matter your income level.

We provide resources, tools and rebates to make sure you are on the best rate for your household, and to help you lower your energy usage and monthly bill:

Offering financial assistance programs if you are having a difficult time paying your bill:

Automatically enrolling all residential and small business customers with past due balances over 60 days in new extended payment arrangements.
Relief for Energy Assistance through Community Help (REACH) offers one time energy credit financial assistance to qualified customers with past due bills.
Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) offers up to $1,000 to pay eligible household energy costs.
Arrearage Management Program (AMP) offers up to $8,000 in unpaid balance forgiveness, if a customer is enrolled in the California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) program or Family Electric Rate Assistance (FERA) program, owes a specific bill amount and is more than 90 days past due.

We have given credits totaling $548 million to 654,000 customers from the state’s California Arrearage Payment Program. This helped to lower past-due balances as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Working with our partners on ways to lower energy costs, like:

Requesting federal funds to help with some of the costs of making our infrastructure more climate resilient.
Advocating with our regulator and state lawmakers to make energy bills more predictable, simplified, and affordable.

Why did my PG&E bill change?

Energy bills can go up or down for a variety of reasons beyond your control like the weather, state regulations and commodity prices.

female customer talking to PGE employee at her door

You can rest assured that we do not:

Control the market prices for gas and electricity.
Mark up the cost of the gas and electricity that we purchase on behalf of our customers.
Make more money when our customers use more gas or electricity. This is called decoupling.
Encourage customers to use more energy. Our profits do not come from the energy we sell.

We make a profit on:

The cost of building infrastructure (like powerlines) that delivers energy
How efficiently we run our business
Lowering our customers' energy use

There are a few things you can control that may affect your bill, such as:

The amount of energy you use
When you choose to use energy
Your rate plan
Enrolling in bill discount programs that you are eligible for

Rate changes

Our gas and electric rates can change several times each year and are expected to increase overall in 2023.
All changes in rates need to be approved by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The CPUC regulates utilities like PG&E.
These changes include:

Increases in the cost of purchasing gas and electricity
Maintaining our pipes and wires

The money from these rate increases allows us to support critical investments and programs that:

Make the electric grid and gas system safer and more reliable
Reduce wildfire risk
Enable energy efficiency and renewable energy
Provide eligible, low-income customers with discounted energy bills

Annual gas and electric rate change

Customer gas and electric rates changed on January 1, 2023, as part of an annual process called the “true-up” authorized by the California Public Utilities Commission.
These rate changes include charges for:

Gas and electric delivery
Electricity supply
State-mandated assistance programs for income-qualified customers, energy efficiency and public-interest research and development.

As part of this year’s true-up, average residential non-CARE gas bills decreased by 4.6 percent. This does not include natural gas supply costs.
Average residential non-CARE electric (non-Community Choice Aggregator or Direct Access) bills increased by approximately 3.4 percent.

Who decides how much PG&E can charge?

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) regulates and approves the price of energy and all rates paid by customers.

We determine the revenue we need to serve customers safely and reliably and then propose what rate should be charged to recover that money from customers.

Rates are set in formal meetings that are open to public participation and comments.

Regulatory oversight

When we need to make any rate change, we submit an application to the CPUC.
The application describes the upgrade required or a new program or service. It also includes the costs and impact on rates.

Our application is reviewed in a public forum and by stakeholders such as:
- Groups representing residential and business customers
- Low-income and community advocates
- Environmental groups
- Agricultural interests and others
The CPUC issues a decision on the basis of what is just and reasonable for customers to pay in rates.

Once approved, we incorporate the changes into rates.

We file every four years for the CPUC to review and authorize revenues collected for certain electric generation and distribution and natural gas transmission, storage and distribution operations costs.

That process is called the General Rate Case for electric and gas.
In addition to the CPUC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approves the retail electric transmission portion of rates.

What makes up my PG&E bill?

A typical residential electric bill includes:

Energy Cost—what we pay to produce and buy electricity from solar or wind providers and other power plants on behalf of our customers. We do not markup these costs. This makes up about half of the bill.
Energy Delivery—operating and maintaining the electric system including power poles, powerlines and associated equipment. This makes up a little less than half of the bill.
Public Purpose Programs—mandated by the state for the greater societal good, including energy efficiency and low-income customer assistance. This makes up about 5 to 10 percent of the bill.

A typical residential gas bill includes:

Energy Cost—what we pay to buy natural gas on behalf of our customers. We do not markup these costs. This makes up about one-fifth of the bill.
Energy Delivery—operating and maintaining the gas system including infrastructure like natural gas pipelines that deliver gas to your home or business. This makes up most of the bill.
Public Purpose Programs—mandated by the state for the greater societal good, including programs for energy efficiency, renewable energy and low-income customer assistance. This makes up about 5 to 10 percent of the bill.

Weather and climate play a role in determining your bill. Energy usage is generally higher in warmer climates in the summer and in colder climates in the winter leading to seasonally higher bills.

Customers receive a baseline allowance of energy available at the lowest price. This is based on where they live, their heating source and the season (summer or winter).

Customers living in hotter areas receive more electricity at the lowest rate due to home and business-cooling needs.
Customers living in colder winter climates receive more gas at the lowest rate for their heating needs.

We offer programs and tips to help customers with higher bills due to climate.

View a sample energy statement

View energy-related terms and definitions

Where does the money I pay PG&E go?

We are investing in new technologies and modernizing the electric and gas systems so that our transition to clean energy can be safe, reliable, and affordable.

The money you pay:

Buys or generates some of the cleanest electricity in the country—96% comes from greenhouse gas-free sources.
Strengthens power poles and powerlines to reduce the impacts of extreme weather and natural disasters.
Develops new energy efficiency programs to help you save energy.
Invests in new innovations, like battery storage and microgrids, so that you have access to clean energy when you need it most.

Safety

Your safety is our most important responsibility.

The threat of extreme weather and wildfires is real. Our Community Wildfire Safety Program helps protect our communities from the risk of wildfires 365 days a year.

We are making the system safer and stronger so when extreme weather happens, we will continue to be ready for it:

Keeping trees and branches away from powerlines
Undergrounding 10,000 miles of powerlines in highest fire-risk areas
Ensuring safety with enhanced protection and temporary outages
Installing stronger powerlines and poles
Using the latest technologies and equipment

Clean

California is leading the way to a cleaner energy future. Over 96% of our power is already greenhouse-gas-free.

Solar rooftops
- More connected in our service area than any energy company in America
- Investing in the grid that makes widespread adoption of electric vehicles possible
Battery energy storage
- Deploying more so that our customers can access clean and reliable renewable energy—even when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing, and at night
Emissions
- Implementing plans to greatly reduce emissions created by our company and our customers by 2030. This is equal to taking more than 3.2 million passenger vehicles off the road for one year.

Innovation

California is the fifth largest economy in the world and a state of innovators and changemakers.

We are:

Working with the world’s leading car manufacturers on a new program that will enable electric vehicles to become portable power plants for homes and businesses when the power is out.
Partnering with clean energy leaders. We built and are operating one of the world's largest battery storage facilities, so that you have access to energy when you need it.
Building microgrids to keep power on where it is safe to do so during power outages, and remote grids so that even our most vulnerable communities will have power during extreme weather.

Reliability

To support the growing and changing energy needs of our customers, while helping our state reach its climate and clean energy goals, we are:

Upgrading the energy grid
Re-inspecting thousands of miles of powerlines
Moving 10,000 miles of electric lines underground in highest fire risk areas
Trimming vegetation even farther back from powerlines
Working with first responders and communities to protect the most vulnerable.

To serve our 4.6 million natural gas customers safely and reliably, we:

Operate a state-of-the-art 50,000-mile pipeline system
Modernized our natural gas system extensively
- Replaced more than 2,000 miles of gas transmission and distribution pipeline
- Retired cast iron within our system.
Utilize advanced technologies to monitor our system around the clock from our 24-hour Gas Control Center.

Economic development

In 2020—the 40-year anniversary of our Supplier Diversity Program—we invested $3.88 billion with diverse suppliers.

Our overall supplier diversity goal is 40 percent, including 25 percent with minority-owned businesses through 2023.

As one of the largest employers in California—more than 24,000 employees—we have a responsibility to help everyone thrive and prosper.

Our partnerships with small and diverse businesses increase economic opportunities in our hometowns. Women, minority, service-disabled veterans, and LGBT-owned businesses play an important role in helping us deliver energy service to our customers.
Our economic development experts help businesses choose the right location; evaluate real estate costs, availability, fees and taxes; find money-saving business solutions; answer questions about labor costs and supplies; and more.

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Answers to common questions about your PG&E bill