In a recent letter to ratepayers-- signed “with love” -- PG&E CEO Patti Poppe talks about how much the company cares about them.
But some customers at a farmer’s market in South Berkeley on Tuesday weren’t exactly feeling the love.
“PG&E, stop breaking our hearts! We got solar to save our planet. A rate increase -- a small one -- might be OK. But you are too greedy,” Kerry Woodward wrote on a black, heart-shaped mock Valentine to the utility.
She put it in a box at a booth set up by people angry about Poppe partially blaming solar customers for rate hikes. They held black heart-shaped balloons, distributed broken-heart lollipops and held up a sign soliciting mock Valentines: “PG&E blames YOU for their rate hikes: Tell them what you think!”
Woodward said she has had solar since 2020 and was particularly incensed by the part of Poppe’s letter that blames solar power users for “driving up prices.”
Poppe cited both increased solar use and energy efficiency programs as “less apparent” factors leading to price hikes over the last 15 years.
“These are positive developments for our planet and for individual customers,” she said, but “when customers overall use less energy, it means rates rise. And that unfortunately impacts our most financially vulnerable customers.”
She says PG&E has added that 14,000 more customers this year and expects that will help offset growing costs. More offsetting revenue, she said, will come by way of the construction of new data centers and electric vehicle charging stations coming online. PG&E expects the added customers will “take on a share” of the cost burden, which she hopes will make rates more affordable long term.
Poppe opens her letter reciting what she’s hearing from disgruntled customers, saying she understands their pain.
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She said she hears complaints about the burden of what they see as having to pay more to fix PG&E’s past mistakes. Meanwhile, they say they suffer more frequent outages even as they continue to face fire risk.
“Sometimes it seems like shareholders and profits are the most important thing to PG&E,” Poppi said she has heard ratepayers say.
But Poppe says the company has already upgraded its system and inspections, cutting “exposure to wildfire risk by over 90%. And we’re on a multi-year run of no major wildfires due to our equipment, a record we intend to keep.”
She also defended the utility’s costly undergrounding efforts as saving in the long run. Poppe says it costs just a $1 a month per bill to pay to bury power lines, while cutting trees around existing lines costs an average ratepayer $20 per month.
So far, the company has only buried a few hundred miles of power lines, out of its goal of 10,000 miles.
Burying lines, she concludes, cuts fire risk by 98%. “So the more lines we bury, the safer you are, the more reliable our power is, and the less we have to spend cutting vegetation away from our lines.”
Poppe states that advertising, executive salaries and bonuses, fines and legal costs will be borne by stockholders, not customers. “They don’t add to your bill, they reduce our profits.”
In another part of the letter, Poppe insists the company is reinforcing the goal to put customers first while lowering costs. “That’s right, believe it or not, we want you to feel the love from PG&E every day.”
