Imagine my joy when I opened my email this morning and I found out I have $44.85 SDG&E bill!
And if you have any of the following utilities: PG&E, SDG&E, SCE Pacific Power and Liberty Utilities, your April bill will have a credit.
The California Climate Credit. From the CPUC website:
“Twice a year, millions of California residents receive a credit on their utility bill identified as the “California Climate Credit.” The California Climate Credit is part of California’s efforts to fight climate change. This credit is from a state program that requires power plants, natural gas distributors and other large industries that emit greenhouse gases to buy carbon pollution permits. The credit represents residential utility ratepayers’ share of the payments from the State’s program. The credit program was created by the CPUC, which also oversees the program’s implementation.
Currently, all residential and eligible small business electricity customers of PG&E, SDG&E, SCE Pacific Power and Liberty Utilities receive the credit, as do all Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) customers. In addition, natural gas residential customers of PG&E, SoCalGas, Southwest Gas, and SDG&E also receive the credit. Customers don’t need to do anything to receive the credit – it is automatically applied to their bills. The credit amounts vary among utilities, CCAs and from year to year.
If you’re not sure whether you’re receiving the Climate Credit, the first thing to do is contact your utility or CCA, the same as you would do with any billing questions. That’s because although the CPUC oversees the credit and can help with any remaining questions you have, your utility or CCA is best positioned to access your individual records and answer questions about individual accounts.”
The 2nd credit will be on the October bill.
In addition to this credit, we also use the TIME OF USE billing to our advantage. Here is an article I wrote about last summer with some tips about how to save on your utility bill. Time of Use billing isn’t for everyone, but we use it as I am able to do the bulk of our energy using chores during off-peak hours, such as dishes and laundry.
And one thing that I find super helpful- We signed up for Ohm Connect a few years ago and it texts and/or emails you when you should conserve more power due to the demand on the power grid. It’s a win-win situation: You save money on your power bill, and you earn points from Ohm Connect that you can cash out for Paypal, Amazon or Target Gift Cards, OhmConnect store credit (to buy energy efficient thermostats, smart plugs, etc.) You can learn more about OhmConnect here.