Sign outside San Diego Gas & Electric building
A sign outside a San Diego Gas & Electric building. Courtesy of the company

Residential utility ratepayers will receive around $104 in bill credit on their February and March San Diego Gas & Electric statements, officials announced.

This comes after a decision made Thursday by the California Public Utilities Commission to advance the timing of two of the three scheduled installments of California Climate Credit to provide winter bill relief to residents statewide.

Following record-high natural gas prices, SDG&E leaders said they hope this might provide relief.

“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 SDG&E Vice President of Customer Services Dana Golan. “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.”

SDG&E’s residential gas customers will see a $43.40 credit on their February bill. Electric customers will see a $60.70 credit on their March bill and the same amount on a bill in the second half of the year.

The climate credit will be reflected on customers’ next bill.

This year’s climate credit will total up to $164.80. In the past three years, SDG&E disbursed the credit in three installments with the gas credit appearing in the April billing cycle, and the electric credit appearing in the August and September cycles.

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.

The credit on bills “represents their share of the payments from the state’s program and provides customers with an increased opportunity to invest in energy-saving products,” according to an SDG&E statement.

There is no action required to receive the credit. All gas and electricity customers, including community choice aggregation customers, will automatically receive the credit in their upcoming billing cycles.

City News Service