San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) customers will be getting sizable state climate credits applied to their utility bills early this year amid increased gas costs in the wake of a California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) meeting on Thursday.
State utility regulators held the meeting to consider distributing the California Climate Credits to customers earlier this year due to sky-high costs that impacted residents in January. Typically, the credits, which come from a state program, and are distributed in April and October. This year, the windfall will begin with San Diegan's February bills.
"The California Climate Credit is a state program that requires power plants, natural gas providers and other large industries that emit greenhouse gases to buy carbon pollution permits," SDG&E said in a news release sent out after the meeting. "The credit on customers’ bills represents their share of the payments from the state’s program ..."
SDG&E
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On Thursday afternoon, SDG&E announced that natural-gas customers on average would be given a $43.40 credit on their February bill, followed by a $60.70 credit for electric customers the following month. Electric customers will get a second, matching, credit sometime in the second half of 2023.
Customers need do nothing to receive the credits.
The news comes in the wake of a large spike in natural gas prices in January. SDG&E warned customers in December that a price hike was imminent due to an increased market price for gas and in January, residents received sticker shock with their bill.
“Some of the customers are opening up their January bill now and they don’t know what they’re going to do,” said Anthony Wagner, a spokesperson for SDG&E. “Those are the customers that we want to speak with.”
Resources have been made available to help customers struggling with their bills. SDG&E said it was working on making $1 million available in customer assistance through the Neighbor-to-Neighbor (N2N) program. N2N provides up to $300 in one-time grants to help utility customers with past-due bills.
Relief is expected to be on the way, however, since the price for natural gas is expected to dwindle. The commodity price of natural gas decreased 68% from January's prices, down from $3.45 per therm to $1.11 per therm.
