OAKLAND — PG&E monthly electric bills are lower than they were a year ago, the utility has revealed — yet costs for customers are still far higher than they were a few years ago.
The utility titan, as part of its latest financial report released this week, disclosed that electricity bills in March were below the cost of that component in March 2024.
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Monthly electricity bills for the typical customer averaged about $215 in March, down 3.2% from a monthly electric bill average of $222 in March 2023, PG&E reported in a recent post about trends in bills.
“Our bills are down in 2025 compared to 2024, and we forecast them to go down again in 2026,” Poppe said during the conference call.
Despite the recent trend and a hopeful outlook for costs that ratepayers must bear in the near future, the current bill levels have soared far higher than they were before.
PG&E’s monthly bills are still way too high,” said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, a consumer group.
Monthly bills in January 2025 for customers who receive combined electricity and gas services from PG&E were $295. That was up $1, or 0.3%, compared with the combined bill of $294 in January 2024.
The sedate rise from early 2024 to early 2025 tells merely the latest chapter of what’s been a grim narrative for PG&E customers, in Toney’s view.
“Monthly bills are up 70% from just a few years ago,” Toney said.
In January 2020, PG&E monthly bills were roughly $175 a month for combined services. That means the January 2025 average bill was 68.6% higher than it was five years ago.
The 2020 figure was followed by a January 2021 monthly bill of $188, a 7.4% increase. The January 2022 combined bill was $221, a 17.6% increase from 2021. The January 2023 bill of $241 represented a 9% increase from 2022. The monthly bill that averaged $294 in January 2024 was an eye-popping jump of 22% from early 2023.
Toney argues that consumers experienced huge yearly increases in monthly bills because state regulators allowed PG&E to charge customers too much for wildfire mitigation work that should have been done sooner.
“PG&E was allowed to overspend for wildfire mitigation,” Toney said.
Despite the decrease in monthly electricity bills, PG&E nevertheless generated higher first-quarter revenue from both its electricity and natural gas operations, according to the company’s latest financial results.
During the first quarter of 2025 compared with the first quarter of 2024, PG&E produced $5.98 billion in total operating revenue, up 2.1% from the year before.
Electricity revenue for the first quarter was $4.14 billion, up 2% from the year-ago first quarter. Gas revenue was $1.49 billion, up 2.2% from the same quarter the prior year.
Profits totaled $607 million during the first three months of 2025, down 17.1% from the company’s profits in the same January-through-March first quarter of 2024.
The utility disclosed to analysts during the conference call that it is preparing to file its general rate case in May with the state Public Utilities Commission. That wide-ranging rate proposal would cover a four-year period from 2027 through 2030.
“Our general rate case is one that truly reflects the power of our simple, affordable model,” Poppe said.
Oakland-based PG&E says the general rate case envisions monthly bills that would increase by no more than the general change in consumer prices.
“Our goal under the model is to stabilize bill increases at or below inflation or 2% to 4%,” Poppe said. “For our customers, it will reflect the benefits of the efficiency gains we’ve achieved in the past three years and, most importantly, interrupt a pattern of double-digit increases.”
PG&E intends to file the general rate case proposal around May 15.
“Our proposal will be a step in the process that will kick off a conversation about California’s ambitions and expectations and how PG&E can best serve those goals,” Poppe said.
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