SAN DIEGO — Have you ever analyzed your SDG&E bill and wondered why delivery charges are so high?
You're not alone.
"My knee jerk was holy cow," said Mara Laws.
Delivery charge
Laws said she was shocked by her most recent SDG&E bill, especially when looking at the cost of delivering electricity compared to generating it.
"The distribution was five times the amount of the actual kilowatt usage," said Laws.
Laws is a community choice aggregation customer, meaning her electricity is bought by a separate entity from SDG&E.
But, it's still delivered to her Escondido home by the utility company via their infrastructure, such as poles and power lines, which appears on your bill as a delivery charge.
Laws questions if her bill is accurate, saying the delivery charge is higher compared to last year.
CBS 8 took her concerns to SDG&E.
They looked at her bill and assured us it's accurate, adding, on average, delivery charges are actually 11% lower now than they were in 2023.
So, why did Laws' increase?
According to SDG&E,
"The electric delivery rate may vary depending on your rate and electricity use, however, it is charged equally to customers regardless of who provides their electric generation."
How rates differ
- The average customer pays 29.2 cents per kilowatt hour for delivery up to 130 percent of your baseline.
- Anything above that, you'll pay 39.1 cents, or about ten cents more.
- In other words, the more electricity you use, the more you'll pay for delivery.
- Another factor is time of year. Like electricity, delivery rates vary by winter versus summer.
During the winter, which runs from November 1 through May 31, delivery charges are about 13 cents more.
So, starting June 1, you can expect those delivery charges to go down.
SDG&E opponents have long questioned delivery fees saying a lot of the infrastructure used to delivery electricity is unnecessary.
As for Laws, she's fine paying extra for things like wildfire protection, but says everything else seems exorbitant.
"I get it, we have to pay for some of that. But when they're still paying so much for their bureaucracy, it doesn't seem fair."
After CBS 8 reached out to SDG&E about Laws’s bill, a representative called her to go over it in detail and offer solutions.
SDG&E says reducing the amount of electricity you use is the first step in bringing overall costs down.
They also suggested looking into different rate plans.
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