Most San Diego Community Power customers can expect to pay slightly less on their electric bills this year.
Board voted 6-0 last Friday to adopt electricity generation rates that, compared to 2024, will result in an average decrease of 2.8% for Community Power’s base of more than 955,000 customer s in six cities and the unincorporated areas of San Diego County.
The new rates are retroactive to Feb. 1.
“Affordability is big,” said Genevieve Suzuki, who is also a member of the La Mesa City Council. “The average person doesn’t know if they are going to be able to afford their utility bills. We don’t want that, especially in California and San Diego in particular.”
San Diego Community Power is one of 25 community choice aggregation, or CCA, programs that have been established across California in recent years to offer competition to investor-owned utilities such as San Diego Gas & Electric.
Community Power residential customers have three programs to choose from — PowerBase, which delivers an electric generation portfolio made up of 45% renewable energy sources; PowerOn, which promises at least 50% renewable; and Power100, which pencils out to 100% renewable and carbon-free sources.
The overwhelming majority of Community Power customers (96%) are enrolled in the PowerOn program, which is the agency’s default plan.
Under the rate structure approved Friday, the monthly cost of electric generation for customers who have chosen PowerBase will be 5% lower than what SDG&E charges. For those who selected PowerOn, rates will be about 3% lower.
But customers on Power100 will pay about 3% more than SDG&E’s generation rates.
When all three programs are combined, the Community Power generation rate averages out to a 2.8% decrease compared to last year.
But keep in mind that electricity generation is just one part of a customer’s overall monthly bill.
As per California rules, traditional utilities such as SDG&E still provide all the other duties that CCAs do not — such as delivering power via transmission and distribution lines; maintaining poles and wires; and handling customer services, including billing.
So what do the new 2025 generation rates mean for the overall monthly bill for a typical Community Power customer when all is said and done?
It’s estimated that those on the 45% renewable PowerBase plan who use 334 kilowatt-hours of electricity will pay $130.98 on their monthly bill, which is about $2.50 (or 1.9%) lower than SDG&E.
Those on the 50% renewable PowerOn plan will save about $1.50 per month compared to SDG&E.
But those enrolled in the 100% renewable and carbon-free Power100 program will pay almost $2, or 1.36% more, on their monthly bill than a typical SDG&E customer using 334 kilowatt-hours.
In 2023, SDG&E’s energy portfolio is composed of 41.4% from renewable sources, according to its most recent Power Content Label filing.
As per state rules, once a jurisdiction establishes a CCA, customers are automatically enrolled. But if customers want to remain with the incumbent investor-owned utility, they can opt out and have the incumbent utility provide all their services, including electricity generation.
San Diego Community Power provides generation services for the cities of San Diego, Chula Vista, La Mesa, Encinitas, Imperial Beach and National City, plus unincorporated areas of San Diego County.
Created in 2020 and serving customers since 2021, Community Power is the second-largest CCA in the state.
This marks the second straight year the agency has decreased its electricity generation charges.
But there are a number of uncertainties ahead, such as the risks of prolonged heat waves, price fluctuations in already volatile power markets and moves by the Trump istration that may increase the costs of contracts to purchase renewable energy.
Community Power’s financial officials said Friday the agency will be “nimble” and, if events warrant, come back to the board to make potential changes to rates later this year.
“We are all concerned about what is coming out of D.C. and we’re also trying to balance the need to stay competitive,” said board chair Paloma Aguirre, who is also mayor of Imperial Beach.
There’s one other community choice energy program in the San Diego area — the Clean Energy Alliance, with customers based in North County.
Known as CEA for short, it counts 220,000 customer s in Carlsbad, Del Mar, Solana Beach, San Marcos, Oceanside and Vista.
CEA last updated its rates in June. In an email to the Union-Tribune, the group’s chief executive officer said while it may consider adjusting rates to its 100% Green Impact renewable product later this year, “we do not anticipate changing the rates for either our default Clean Impact Plus product (50% renewable/75% carbon-free) or our Clean Impact product (50% renewable).”
About 80% of customers in SDG&E’s overall service territory are enrolled in CCAs — either San Diego Community Power or the Clean Energy Alliance.
For the remaining 20% who use SDG&E to provide all their power needs, the utility says that as of Feb. 1 electric bills will decrease about $1 a month for a typical customer compared to last year.
It’s the second year in a row the SDG&E portion of electricity bills will go down for most residential customers, the utility said.
Among the reasons for the decline: SDG&E applied about $200 million in federal tax credits from battery storage investments to customer bills and some infrastructure investments — including wildfire safety costs — have been paid for and are no longer in rates.
“Our commitment to providing our customers with reliable and affordable energy remains steadfast,” SDG&E spokesperson Anthony Wagner said in an email. “We are actively working to reduce operating expenses, collaborating with policymakers to enhance energy affordability, and work to ensure our customers are well-informed about any changes to energy rates and resources available to help.”
