News

PG&E's California Gas Transmission filed its 2015 Gas Transmission and Storage Rate Case today, December 19, 2013.

The filing looks significantly different than past filings. The focus of the case is on safety best practices and system investments in 21st century infrastructure. The funds requested in this case are for future work to meet the higher levels of safety now mandated by the state of California for all gas pipeline companies and rightly expected by our customers and regulators. Ongoing actions include making pipelines piggable, pipe replacement, and valve automation.

The following are proposals in the filing that we believe you, our customers, will be most interested in:

• Backbone rate increases (see table below)
• Equalized Redwood and Baja noncore rates
• Adding a 5th nomination cycle
• Increases in storage capacity for load balancing

Adding a fifth nomination cycle would provide an additional intraday cycle for scheduling changes that will be needed as increases in renewable generation increase fluctuations in demand. A new "Intraday 3" cycle would be limited to transactions to and from PG&E Citygate, PG&E storage and participating on-system Independent Storage Providers (ISPs).

PG&E is proposing an increase in the storage injection and withdrawal capacities dedicated to load balancing. Currently, 75 MMcf/d injection and withdrawal is set aside for load balancing. Our proposal would increase that to 130 MMcf/d of injection and 200 MMcf/d of withdrawal. This more closely reflects the actual operational use of balancing needed for intraday fluctuations in load, as evidenced clearly during our recent cold wave. 75 MMcf/d injection and withdrawal will continue to be the criteria for calling OFOs.

Proposed Backbone Rates ($/Dth):

The filing is linked here .
Contact your CGT Sales Representative with questions.