Editorial: Rate hike has PG&E playing catch-up
Some might be convinced that Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has been foisting inaccurate or otherwise questionable electricity-usage meters on Bakersfield-area customers. Some might feel certain that the recent spike in many customers' bills proves that the public utility is looking out for shareholders at the expense of ratepayers, and that SmartMeters are its instruments of deception.
PG&E's response: Wrong, wrong and wrong. The company says its SmartMeters don't have any significant glitches, and that given the volume (and pitch) of the complaints, company technicians have most assuredly been checking for problems. No, SmartMeters' readings are accurate reflections of customers' usage. The primary culprit here, PG&E says, is the new rate structure, handed down in March by the state Public Utilities Commission -- but only recently felt by customers in the wake of an unusually hot July. The newly effective rates accelerate charges for electricity customers once they start using more than 130 percent of their "baseline" amount.
Who's right? We should get a better idea come Monday, when state Sen. Dean Florez brings ratepayers to the same table as PG&E and PUC representatives. The Oct. 5 public hearing begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Kern County Board of Supervisors' chambers on the first floor of the Kern County Administrative Center, 1115 Truxtun Ave. Firm and final resolution is too much to hope for, of course, but we should expect to gain a better understanding of the issues.
Also potentially helpful: A PG&E "Answer Center" set up at the Bakersfield Marriott through the middle of this coming week, including 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday.
There's been one undeniable failure on PG&E's part, however -- an oversight that, if handled better, might have averted most or all of the controversy that holds back an energy-conservation program that, in theory, seems promising.
PG&E failed to adequately tell us what to expect.
Yes, the San Francisco-based utility issued all of the requisite press releases, and newspapers across the state, including this one, published stories about the rate increase many months ago. PG&E even placed notices inside monthly bills, which the vast majority of ratepayers no doubt tossed without so much as a glance.
But, knowing that changes this profound were on the horizon, PG&E should have launched on all-out informational assault on California -- the sort of informational assault the company is now forced to unleash in a sort of after-the-fact, apology-slash-user's guide-slash-group counseling session.
The oversight might not have been so bad had PG&E not failed in similar ways following previous rate increases in 1978 and 1995.
And PG&E officials wonder why the public seems to have a low level of tolerance for the company, and a cynicism usually reserved strictly for government entities.
It's not too late for PG&E to make a good case for SmartMeters and some of the other changes in store for California ratepayers, but company officials have to do a better job than what we've seen. Proving they can learn from previous mistakes would be a good place to start.
