SDG&E kicks in $16 million of shareholder funds to help financially strapped customers

San Diego Gas & Electric officials said Monday the company is spending $16 million on a pair of programs — $6 million to help customers grappling with high utility bills due to the recent spike in natural gas prices in California and $10 million to bolster community resources for residents in general who are financially strapped.

The funding for each program will come from SDG&E shareholders, not from utility ratepayers.

The announcement comes one day before SDG&E’s parent company, Sempra, releases its earnings report for 2022.

“We understand that we are at a new time in history to where people are struggling and we take that personally and we are committed as an organization to do right by our customers,” said SDG&E spokesman Anthony Wagner.

Edward Lopez, executive director of the San Diego-based Utility Consumers’ Action Network, or UCAN, said his group “certainly welcomes any additional resources and support provided to help SDG&E customers meet their skyrocketing winter bills” but also questioned the timing of the announcement.

“UCAN finds it very interesting, and it doesn’t go unnoticed, that Sempra has been able to rush this type of news upfront, particularly with tomorrow’s (earnings) report.”

Wagner said their was “no correlation” between SDG&E’s funding announcement on Monday and Sempra’s earnings call on Tuesday.

“This is a true and authentic attempt to literally help out our neighbors,” Wagner said. “San Diego Gas & Electric lives in the community. There’s 4,600 of us that are your friends and neighbors and we care about our community ... This is a surgical strike to help those who need it the most.”

At this time last year, SDG&E posted year-end earnings of $819 million for 2021, according to filings by Sempra, a Fortune 500 energy company with offices in downtown San Diego.

The first part of Monday’s announcement adds $5 million to SDG&E’s Neighbor-to-Neighbor program that rolled out in January in the wake of soaring natural gas prices that the company estimated would lead to bills for typical customers with gas hookups to rise 114 percent. Total funds in the program are now $6 million.

With the extra funding, the Neighbor-to-Neighbor program will double the amount that eligible customers can receive from $300 to $600. To receive the grant, SDG&E customers do not have to be considered low-income but they must be at least three months past due on their bills and demonstrate they are unable to pay.

The program is open to all SDG&E customers, not just those who have natural gas hookups in their homes. To apply for the program, call 211 San Diego. Customers who have already received $300 can reapply to receive another $300.

The $10 million program will not be related to high utility bills but will help vulnerable and low-income residents in general, as well as seniors and those struggling to pay for groceries.

SDG&E officials will request proposals from local nonprofits with experience with at-needs communities to identify where the money will have the most impact. More details are expected in the coming weeks.

The $16 million package is one of a number of actions taken to try to soften the financial impact of an unprecedented increase in the wholesale, or commodity, price of natural gas across the state.

The California Public Utilities Commission last month moved up by a few months the distribution of the state’s Climate Credits that go out at various times of the year to customers of all the state’s investor-owned utilities. The credits are funded through the revenue generated from the state’s cap-and-trade program.

In SDG&E’s service territory, residents with gas hookups will see $43.40 deducted from their February bills. In March, all SDG&E customers will have $60.70 knocked off their electricity bills. A second $60.70 credit will be applied in the second half of the year.

On the federal level, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, called LIHEAP for short, is a program that issues grants to utility customers who are past due on their bills. The size of the grants range from several hundred dollars to about $1,000.

Eligibility is based on the size of a customer’s household, the level of income and the balance that is past due. You can dial San Diego 211 for more information.

The wholesale, or commodity, price in January for natural gas in SDG&E’s service territory jumped to $3.45 per therm. A therm refers to one unit of natural gas. The February price dropped to $1.11 per therm, a 67.8 percent decline, although still about twice as expensive as in February 2022.

The March price for SDG&E’s service territory is scheduled to be released Tuesday and is expected to be lower than February’s.

Various reasons have been given for the run-up in natural gas prices, including colder-than-normal weather that led California customers to crank up their gas-fired heating units, which depleted natural gas storage levels. Gov. Gavin Newsom has called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to conduct an investigation to see if any market manipulation has been at work.

The commission’s acting chairman has not confirmed if a formal investigation has been launched but said staffers are “undertaking enhanced surveillance” to see if anybody “contributed to or benefited from the high gas price spikes in California.”