7 Charges on a California Electric Bill That Have Nothing to Do With Your Electricity Consumption
California’s electric utilities each write their own list of add-on charges, and not all bills carry the same list.
None of it has anything to do with how much power you used.
These are the charges on a California electric bill that have nothing to do with your electricity consumption.
1. PG&E’s Public Purpose Programs Charge
PG&E folds a Public Purpose Programs charge into every residential bill, and it has nothing to do with the electrons running through the wall.
The money funds the California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) discount for low-income households, the Energy Savings Assistance program, and clean-energy research through the Electric Program Investment Charge.
Energy Savings Assistance covers free furnaces, heat pump water heaters, lighting, and even a replacement refrigerator for qualifying homes.
That’s not a power bill.
None of it changes based on how much power a customer pulled that month.
Every PG&E customer pays into it, whether or not they’re the household getting the discount on the other end.
2. PG&E’s Recovery Bond Charge
PG&E also carries a separate Recovery Bond Charge on the bill, currently $0.00467 for every kilowatt-hour under PG&E’s current California Public Utilities Commission tariff filing, a rate regulators set rather than one PG&E prices to compete for customers.
That’s not a market price.
Regulators fixed it to repay bonds PG&E issued for wildfire-catastrophe costs from years past.
No plan switch, solar array, or thermostat setting changes that fixed rate.
A customer can still cut their own generation costs by shopping plans or trimming usage.
The recovery bond assessment rides along at the same rate regardless, whether the wires near their house ever caught fire or not.
3. SCE’s Fixed Recovery Charge
Southern California Edison charges its own version, the Fixed Recovery Charge.
It traces back eight years, to the 2018 Woolsey Fire.
The fire’s long out.
SCE’s charge exists to repay $1.954 billion in bonds tied to that fire.
SEC filings show it adding about 0.7% to a typical residential bill as of mid-2026.
Wall Street investors bought those bonds.
SCE just passes the monthly repayment through to whoever’s holding the meter.
Stack it with SCE’s earlier wildfire recovery bonds, and the total rises closer to 1.8% of the bill.
CARE customers and those enrolled in Family Electric Rate Assistance (FERA) skip it.
Everyone else pays their share of a fire nobody’s fighting anymore.
4. SDG&E’s Wildfire Fund Charge
SDG&E adds a Wildfire Fund charge too.
It exists to cover something that hasn’t happened yet.
The charge, $0.00591 for every kilowatt-hour in 2026, feeds a statewide fund state lawmakers created in 2019 to help cover the cost of California’s next major utility-sparked wildfire.
State regulators set that per-kilowatt-hour rate jointly for PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E, so it isn’t a price any single utility competes on.
A customer can’t conserve or switch plans their way out of it because the rate itself is fixed by regulators rather than by how much power costs to generate that month.
Nobody’s rate went up.
The fund just keeps building, one kilowatt-hour at a time, for as long as the law keeps the charge in place.
5. SDG&E’s Franchise Fee
SDG&E’s franchise fee is another charge that pays cities and counties for the right to run poles and wires down public streets, and it carries two different price tags depending on the address.
Every SDG&E customer pays 1.1% of their bill toward it, according to SDG&E’s own franchise-fee filings.
SDG&E tacks on another 5.78% for customers who live inside San Diego city limits, a separate line called the San Diego Franchise Fee Differential.
Two customers on the same rate plan, same usage, different city limits, different bills.
That’s not a kilowatt of difference.
Psst! How much do you know about California’s power grid and its history? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
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6. LADWP's Utility Users Tax
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) collects a tax it didn't invent and doesn't keep: The City of Los Angeles Electricity Users Tax.
It's 10% of the charges on a residential bill, 12.5% for commercial and industrial accounts, straight out of the city's own municipal code.
LADWP just collects it and hands it over.
City hall sets the rate.
It's not the utility, not a state regulator.
Why LADWP's Charges Skip the CPUC
LADWP answers to its own Board of Water and Power Commissioners, not the California Public Utilities Commission that approves every charge on a PG&E, SCE, or SDG&E bill.
That split is why the electricity users tax exists only inside Los Angeles city limits, and why investor-owned customers a few miles away never see it at all.
Every other public power utility in California writes its own separate list of add-on charges too.
7. LADWP's State Energy Surcharge
LADWP's bill carries one more add-on separate from the city tax: The State Energy Resources Surcharge.
Every electric utility in California, LADWP included, has to collect this surcharge and remit it to the state.
The California Energy Commission resets the rate every November for the year ahead.
It shows up as its own line, separate from the city tax sitting right above it on the same bill.
That's two different governments on one bill.
The surcharge dates back to a 1975 state law.
It survived the entire 2000-2001 energy crisis.
No legislature has ever repealed it.
Sacramento sets the rate once a year.
Every California utility follows along.
Utilities remit what they collect on this surcharge to California's Department of Tax and Fee Administration every quarter, by the end of the month after each calendar quarter closes.
The rate the Energy Commission sets each November takes effect the following January, so the number on a given year's bill is locked in months before it ever reaches a customer.
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