PG&E Increasing Rates To Pay For Upgrades To Equipment

By CBS San Francisco

December 4, 2020 at 8:52 am

SAN RAMON (CBS SF/AP) — California regulators approved a rate hike for Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) Thursday that increases rates for household customers by 8%.

The utility, once-bankrupt, says it needs to raise rates in order to pay for upgrades to equipment that’s been blamed on igniting wildfires in recent years.

The higher prices take effect March 1 and are expected to boost the bills of PG&E’s residential customers by an average of $13.44 a month. That may further strain the budgets of people struggling to make ends meet during a recession caused by the pandemic that is causing governments to curtail commerce and corral people at home in an effort to ease the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Read more at CBS San Francisco