What are San Diegans paying for with their monthly electricity bill?
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) – Thanks to a cluster of state climate credits distributed under the federal Inflation Reduction Act, many San Diegans may have noticed their electricity rates have dropped this year when compared to last year.
However, San Diego still places close to the top of the nationwide list of cities with the highest cost of energy.
Generally, the bulk of someone’s electricity bill depends on how much electricity they use, when they use it and where they are using it. But some other charges may have nothing to do with when, where or how much energy is used by the customer.
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According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), last month’s household energy in San Diego was still among the most expensive in the nation at about 40 cents per kilowatt-hour.
It was surpassed only by San Francisco at 41.2 cents per kilowatt-hour and urban Hawaii at 42.3 cents per kilowatt-hour. In January and most of last year, San Diego topped the nationwide list at 47.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.
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According to SDG&E, the electricity bill consists of three parts: generation costs, delivery charges and other mandatory fees.
Most customers are charged based on their time of use. On weekdays, the cheapest time to use electricity is between midnight and 6 a.m. in what are called “super off-peak hours.” In the months of March and April, the hours between 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. are also considered super off-peak.
The hours between 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays, weekends and holidays are considered “on-peak,” when energy is most in demand and the cost of usage is higher.
Aside from time-of-use charges, what else are San Diego residents paying for with their monthly electricity bill?
The energy bill includes a charge for public purpose programs. This is a fee San Diego residents pay toward state-mandated programs for low-income customers, such as the California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE), Family Electric Rate Assistance Program (FERA), energy efficiency programs and more.
There are currently six such programs paid for in part by the charge listed on the SDG&E electricity bill, according to SDG&E.
Customers may also notice a charge for what’s called a franchise fee differential, which essentially pays for the cost to distribute power to customers.
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“SDG&E must pay cities for the right to operate in their cities and have our equipment in their cities,” says Anthony Wagner, a spokesperson for SDG&E. “It collects this fee and remits it to the various cities that it operates in.”
For example, the charge pays for the right to have SDG&E poles and wires on city streets.
San Diegans also pay toward shutting down the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), a nuclear power plant north of San Diego, with what’s called the nuclear decommissioning charge.
The competition transition charge (CTC) is in place to help SDG&E recover costs for power plants and long-term power contracts that were made “uneconomic” due to the shift to competition, which included direct access providers and community choice aggregators (CCAs).
Wagner says this is so that the remaining customers are not unfairly imposed with costs from these contracts.
Other charges include: the cost of resources associated with being able to meet the demand for electricity at all times, having enough energy-generating facilities, and the cost of delivering high-voltage electricity from power plants.
Despite lower rates this year than in 2023, those who are still struggling to pay their bills are encouraged to visit SDG&E’s website to explore available resources for assisting with utility costs.
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