PG&E and my crazy bill

[Cindy Lyman]

Since John passed away, I have been trying to lower my PG&E bill.  Now, I understand PG&E's prices are going up, but as they say, "Houston, I think we have a problem".

Today, I received my PG&E bill showing my "Electric Usage This Period over the past 31 days" in a graph format and I believe there is something very wrong with this PG&E bill.  I suggest you look closely at your current PG&E bill, too.

I wrote down the days of our outages during January directly onto my kitchen calendar starting with January 3rd's long outage from 1:34 P.M. until PG&E turned on their big generator just after 5 p.m. on Saturday, January 7th. 

This means I had no PG&E power from January 3rd at 1:34 p.m. until Saturday, January 7th at 5 p.m.: Not from their main power or the generator located in the field on Conklin Creek Road. Nothing. Period.

However,  my PG&E clearly shows I am being billed for usage during those exact days. I supposedly used 14 kWh on Wednesday 1/4/23; 12 kWh on Thursday 1/5/23; and 10 kWH on Friday 1/6/23.  To add insult to injury, they are billing me both "Peak" and "Off Peak" charges on those 3 days.

I know we had outages on subsequent days last month as well, yet there is nothing on my bill showing less than 8 kWh every day in January.

All the other days our power was off are suspicious to me now as well.  For example, January 14, Saturday/Sabbath. PG&E was off for 10 hours, yet my PG&E bill shows I used almost more electricity than any day in the entire month. 

Has anyone else been keeping track of the times and days of PG&E's outages in their area? I know some families were out for much longer than I.  And I realize the freezer and refrigerator were trying to power back up when either my generator, the PG&E generator, or full power was restored.

We are all trying to keep our bills down, but being charged for power beginning January 1 to date at $0.35+/kWh Off Peak and $0.39+ Peak while we have NO power is just not right.

I'd love your feedback.

Cindy Lyman

[laurac...@frontiernet.net]

Hi Cindy,
I pay good attention to my power bills partly because i have to divide them up to bill the tenant(s). So i am used to seeing average kwh per day figures, etc., and have always found the paper bill's graph format very interesting and satisfying... you can see, for instance, the days when someone turned on an electric plug-in heater, as the bar is way higher than on days with no electric heaters. Days with power outages have always shown up as nada, zip, no use, no bar on the graph. 

I use 1-2 kwh/day in my Tiny House; tenant uses about 2-3 kwh/day; unless the electric heater is involved, of course, then it goes up to about 20-28 kwh. So your bill showing no less than 8 kwh/day in January is ludicrous, especially considering you used none at all on many of those days.

Last month's bill (my meter is read about the 20th of the month, and i receive it the first week of the next month) looked normal. But i haven't seen this month's yet. Yours sounds whacked. Call customer service. Have them take a look at your bill. They messed up. They're all running around like chickens with their heads cut off-- crazily! And their systems are malfunctioning! 

My own experience with them is that they will make your bill right immediately and maybe send you a bonus check for your trouble. But if it was a huge system-wide mistake and they've overcharged everyone, it's going to be a mess. Hope to hear from others about their bills.

~Laura

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[joshua free]

When the grid was down, I fired up a generator to find out I was late to pay my power bill and they were going to disconnect my service. 😂

#crumblingempire 

On another note, I talked with a private contractor for PG&E who was mapping fire risk poles. She said they are building data for building/ maintaining roads to poles. She said these roads would be built in the next 2-4 years. I think it’s important for landowners to engage their process and ensure it’s; legal easement, built correctly, and respecting watersheds. Depending on the property a new or enhanced road could be good or bad. 

Josh Free

On Feb 1, 2023, at 11:26 PM, Cindy Lyman <lymanvi...@frontier.com> wrote:



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[Cindy Lyman]

That is good input, Josh.  I do hope PG&E communicates with all property owners when appropriate.  BTW, Have you received your PG&E bill covering the period from 12/18/22 through 1/18/23? 

Laura, Thank you for your input, too.   Keeping an eye on your bill, especially when others are involved, is extremely important.

Since I was unable to start my generator during those first-mentioned dates, I was able to isolate days with Zero power.  I am interested in having conversations with others whose recent bills show charges within those specific dates.

Cindy Lyman