California Electricity Rates are the Highest in the Contiguous US (and Still Going Up)

California’s electricity rates have been the highest in the contiguous US for a while now (only Hawaii has higher rates). The rates in California are about double the average in the rest of the country and are still going up. California is run solely by Democrats and the Public Utilities Commission has been totally on board with raising rates, six times this year.

Pacific Gas and Electric on Dec. 19 received its fifth and sixth approvals for rate increases for customers in 2024.

The California Public Utilities Commission’s decision to green-light the rate hikes — slated to hit customers’ bills next year — marked a record-breaking number of increases in what has been a record-breaking year for PG&E.

According to regulators, average PG&E bills swelled 56% over the last three years.

PG&E had profits in 2023 of $2.24 billion, a 24% increase from the previous year, and is on track to earn more in 2024.

PG&E, one of three big regional electric utilities in California, says rates are down 4.5% this month compared to January. That’s true but only because the PUC passed a new billing plan midyear which lowered rates overall while raising them on the state’s higher income customers. Also, that 4.5% decrease will be mostly wiped out by the next rate hike which takes effect Jan. 1.

The utilities are now promising that 2025 rates will still be in line with the start of 2024 but that doesn’t include a big increase coming for natural gas.

“We’ve heard from our customers that this is a major concern for them,” said Lynsey Paulo, a spokesperson for the company. “We understand that, and we’re taking a lot of different steps and a lot of different actions to try to stabilize bills for customers.” 

In its end-of-year rate update, PG&E representatives said combined electricity and gas customers would see a 1% higher bill on Wednesday compared to last January 1. Enrolled customers of a low-income program would see a $1.50 a month decrease. 

Residential gas rates, however, will increase by 8.6% starting in January as the utility replaces old pipelines.

So to sum that up, some low income customers will save about $13 a year, assuming they don’t also have a gas furnace, range, dryer or water heater. If they have any of those things, they can kiss the meager savings goodbye along with everyone else.

But good news! All of those things will be banned in California soon anyway.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) exists to improve regional air quality.

SCAQMD intends to adopt two rules on all homeowners, multi-family residents, and businesses – more than 17 million people in all. The goal: eliminate natural gas appliances. Proposed Amended Rules 1111 and 1121 require homeowners, landlords, and businesses to replace furnaces and water heaters with costly new “zero-emission” electrical units…

As proposed under Rule 1121, if your water heater breaks after January 1, 2027, the government will force you to replace it with an electric model. These contraptions are prohibitively expensive, would require major home or business electrical upgrades, and likely impose lengthy permit wait times. Likewise, Rule 1111 targets natural gas furnaces – if your furnace fails in 2028 or beyond, you must replace it with electric technology. 

The cost to implement these rules? We’re talking potentially tens of thousands of dollars per unit for every homeowner, landlord, and business forced to make these purchases.

It takes a lot of energy to heat water, run a dryer, oven, home heating, etc. If your home currently uses gas for these items, you’ll probably need to spend thousands of dollars just to run electricity for the new appliance. Then it will cost more to operate that new appliance because the price of gas (while going up as mentioned above) is still cheaper than the equivalent amount of electricity in California.

In short, having jacked up prices for electricity to the highest rates in the contiguous US, California is now going to force everyone to use even more electricity for basic home needs like cooking and heating. We’re all just living at the mercy of Gavin Newsom and his left-leaning regulators. Whatever they decide is best is what we all have to do. No wonder so many people are fleeing the state for other less expensive, less Democrat-controlled places like Texas and Florida.