We hear this question constantly: "My bill is huge. I thought rates were supposed to go down?"
It's a fair question. (Everyone’s favorite regulated monopoly) PG&E did reduce its per-kilowatt-hour rate slightly in 2025, and has signaled more modest rate movement in 2026 compared to the dramatic increases of 2023 and 2024. So why do so many Yolo County homeowners still feel like they are paying more than ever?
Several reasons. Let's explore.
The Decade of Increases Is Baked In
According to the CPUC's Public Advocates Office, average residential electricity rates increased 104% between January 2015 and April 2025 — more than doubling in a decade. A slight reduction from that peak still leaves you paying roughly twice what you paid 10 years ago for the same energy use.
The average combined PG&E gas and electric bill rose from about $179 per month in 2020 to around $300 today, with the biggest single-year jump occurring in 2024. The small decreases since then have not meaningfully offset that climb.
What Is Driving the Cost
Only about 35% of your PG&E bill is for the actual electricity you use. The other 65% is infrastructure, wildfire mitigation, and fixed charges — costs you pay regardless of how much power you consume. Painful but real: Energy efficiency alone can only marginally reduce your bill. You cannot efficiency your way out of costs that don't move with usage.
Distribution and wildfire charges have increased the fastest since 2020. PG&E has spent billions on grid hardening, vegetation management, and undergrounding power lines in wildfire-risk areas — investments that are mandated by law and fully recoverable through customer rates.
The New Fixed Charge (March 2026)
This one caught many homeowners off guard. Starting March 2026, PG&E restructured its bill to add a new line item called the Base Services Charge — a fixed monthly amount — while simultaneously lowering the per-kilowatt-hour usage rate by roughly $0.05. The base charge applies to all PG&E customers: Those with and without solar.
The intent is to shift a portion of costs away from the usage price and into a fixed monthly structure. Your bill impact depends heavily on monthly usage: lower-usage customers will feel the fixed charge more sharply, while medium- and higher-usage customers can offset more of the fixed charge through the lower per-kWh rate.
The practical implication for solar homeowners: because solar reduces your kilowatt-hour consumption from PG&E, you were already benefiting from lower usage charges. The shift to a fixed charge means a portion of PG&E's cost recovery happens regardless of how much — or how little — you consume from the grid.
What You Can Actually Do About It
Unfortunately, there is no amount of conservation or efficiency that eliminates PG&E's fixed charges. The only meaningful way to reduce your total bill is to reduce your dependence on PG&E's electricity — which is exactly what solar and battery storage accomplish.
Most industry analysts project California residential electricity rates to continue rising 5–10% annually over the coming years, as wildfire mitigation costs continue and grid modernization accelerates. That trajectory makes the case for solar stronger with each passing year, not weaker.
We are happy to evaluate, using your actual PG&E bills, what solar would have saved you last year — and what it would save you going forward. No obligation. No pressure. Just the math.
