Environment

SDG&E Customers Getting Credit On Bills

By Ed Joyce / Reporter

Published September 24, 2009 at 12:32 PM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

Electricity customers of San Diego Gas & Electric will get refund checks in October. State regulators approved the refund because the company overcharged for a program that monitors the utility's energy buying.

The California Public Utilities Commission today approved a refund of $124 million. Refunds will come as a one-time credit on next month's electric bills with most residential customers receiving an average of $71.

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SDG&E requested CPUC's approval for the refund.

Michael Shames with the Utility Consumers Action Network says along with that approval, the state agency also approved an energy efficiency plan.

"At the same time that the PUC gave us this refund, they also were agreeing that SDG&E could spend $278 million on energy efficiency programs," Shames explains. "So essentially we were given the money, and will get the money in October, but they're going to be taking back the money in January."

Shames says since the energy efficiency program is supported by ratepayers, the money comes as a charge to utility customers.

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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