PG&E customers brace for next bill after spikes in gas rates

The source of her shock, it turned out, was the $503 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. bill she had just opened, the highest the Oakland couple had ever been charged.

The recent spikes in PG&E bills are largely due to increases in natural gas prices, according to Donald Cutler, a spokesman for the utility provider.

The utility sells gas to its customers at cost and charges additional fees for transporting it.

Cutler encouraged customers to go online to take advantage of the tools the utility provider offers to help customers better understand and manage their electricity and gas usage.

Cutler added that the money raised from the rate increases would be put toward investments in safety and monitoring efforts for PG&E’s sprawling gas transmission and pipeline system.

Following the San Bruno disaster, PG&E was required to pay $2.7 billion to upgrade its gas transmission system in addition to a $1.6 billion fine from the California Public Utilities Commission.

Several years of comparably mild winters in the Bay Area and across California, when people tend to use less gas to heat their homes, have masked the effects of the utility’s gas rate increases.

Mark Toney, the executive director of The Utility Reform Network, a consumer advocacy group and frequent critic of PG&E, said that his organization has been inundated with calls and emails in recent weeks from the utility’s customers stunned by their January bills.

Laura Estetter of Oakland said her PG&E bill jumped from $120 to $230 in January, despite what she described as only a moderate increase in gas usage this winter.

Paying her bill will be a financial strain for her, but she said her hardship seems trivial compared with the vulnerable families she works with in her role as a director at the Family Resource Center for the Arcata (Humboldt County) School District.

The PUC regulates the state’s private utilities and must approve all of PG&E’s requests to raise rates.