PG&E true up bill dropped out of CCA

[hwangja]

I've been with SVCE CCA with PG&E on NEM 2.0 for the last two years and never noticed any issues with billing as far as I could tell. I just received my PG&E true up bill for June 2023 and now no longer see that I am part of SVCE CCA anymore. On top of that, it says I'm enrolled in some kind of "percentage of income payment plan" (PIPP) which is supposedly only eligible for low-income households and only supported by a few CCAs, of which, SVCE is not one of them. It bills a fixed monthly charge for electricity and gas based on income. The weird thing is, you had to explicitly apply for this PIPP program, which I never did (and would never qualify for), and it also appears to be incompatible with NEM 2.0 as well. Has anyone had this happen to them? Is this a temporary error on PG&E's part? I guess I'll need to call them to find out. I better not lose my NEM 2.0 and my SVCE excess credits.

Also, it seems like last year on my May 2022 bill, SVCE cashed out my excess credit of ~$90 or so and I received a bill credit for it. In my May 2023 bill, I see I have banked again about ~$90 of credit but there was no cash out. Now on my June 2023 PG&E true up bill, since it appears I'm no longer part of SVCE CCA, I don't see anything about that credit. Did it just go poof?

 

[cwied]

When I got my Powerwalls a few years ago, PG&E dropped me from my CCA without my requesting it. Beware: going back on the CCA triggers a true-up (and changes your true-up month). They billed me more than $500 that I would have been able to make back in the summer when I went back on the CCA.

 

[miimura]

You should go download all your PG&E bills backwards from today until you find the last one when you were on the CCA. It's obvious from the Account Summary in the upper right corner on first page. That should give you a clue as to what event may have triggered the change.

Also, in your situation, I would call the PG&E Solar Customer Service Center at 877-743-4112 and ask them to calculate your bill with proper NEM 2 billing (ignore the CCA for now) without the PIPP program. If you have been charged more by being on a program that you did not intend to enroll, I would ask for retroactive billing correction and file a complaint with the California Energy Commission for "cramming" or enrollment without authorization.

 

[hwangja]

Thanks for all of the replies. My previous May bill was correct and shows the CCA section along with accrued credits. For the June bill where the CCA section is missing, I just noticed that PG&E's section still shows a generation credit and PCIA adjustment, so I believe this means I'm still part of the CCA as of this bill.

I called PG&E and spoke to a rep and after explaining the situation, she put me on hold to research what happened and then the call dropped.... I called back and got a different rep who wasn't able to connect me back to the original one but could see some notes added. On their end, they don't know what happened but just seem to be requesting that I be unenrolled from PIPP and someone from that department is supposed to contact me in a few days (whatever that means). I was trying to stress to them that this was some kind of error on their end and I didn't just want to "unenroll", I want to make sure no changes happened to my account with my CCA or NEM2 as a result, and that if something happened, then for it to all be undone. It seems as of now, so far nothing has changed, but we all know how many billing cycles it takes PG&E for changes to fully reflect, hence my concern still.

I also spoke with a rep with my CCA and as far as they can tell, I'm still with them and they did send an invoice to PG&E this month. The rep mentioned that sometimes PG&E might take an extra bill cycle to apply their invoice, and maybe that is what I'm seeing. I've never had that happen before, but we'll see what happens on the next bill and if the credits get applied then.

I guess just a PSA reminder to check your bill statements. I only noticed this because I happened to be curious what this year's true-up would look like compared to last year's, but I generally don't look that in detail at my statements if nothing looks grossly amiss with the emailed statement charge.

 

[hwangja]

Just a follow-up here and maybe another PSA. I received a voicemail from someone from the PIPP department at PG&E confirming that I actually wasn't enrolled in the program and that it appeared to be a billing system/reporting error only and that they were working with the IT dept to sort it out. She seemed to imply that I wasn't the only one affected, and that those with bills generated after some point in late June might have the issue, so others with PG&E may want to double-check their recent bills. She also said that my account should be essentially untouched and correct (so no conflicts dropping me out of my CCA or NEM2.0, etc) since it was just some kind of reporting issue. Since I missed the call, I wasn't able to ask her if my bill would be regenerated and corrected, but it seems like they are at least aware of the issue now, and I'll keep an eye out on next month's bill to see if any corrections get posted.

 

[jjrandorin]

Just a follow-up here and maybe another PSA. I received a voicemail from someone from the PIPP department at PG&E confirming that I actually wasn't enrolled in the program and that it appeared to be a billing system/reporting error only and that they were working with the IT dept to sort it out. She seemed to imply that I wasn't the only one affected, and that those with bills generated after some point in late June might have the issue, so others with PG&E may want to double-check their recent bills. She also said that my account should be essentially untouched and correct (so no conflicts dropping me out of my CCA or NEM2.0, etc) since it was just some kind of reporting issue. Since I missed the call, I wasn't able to ask her if my bill would be regenerated and corrected, but it seems like they are at least aware of the issue now, and I'll keep an eye out on next month's bill to see if any corrections get posted.

I have been watching this thread wondering what happened (even though I am not impacted as I am in SoCal Edison territory and not on a CCA). That sounds like good news. If I were in your situation I would also be concerned about NEM status, etc.

Its great they told you that but given that I have a bit of what I would call "healthy skepticism" regarding CA Utilities and Billing issues, I would definitely advise watching it closely still. I get the impression that you are likely to do that anyway, though. Will be interesting to hear if you get corrected information on the next bill, or how they correct it for you.

 

[miimura]

I have been watching this thread wondering what happened (even though I am not impacted as I am in SoCal Edison territory and not on a CCA). That sounds like good news. If I were in your situation I would also be concerned about NEM status, etc.

Its great they told you that but given that I have a bit of what I would call "healthy skepticism" regarding CA Utilities and Billing issues, I would definitely advise watching it closely still. I get the impression that you are likely to do that anyway, though. Will be interesting to hear if you get corrected information on the next bill, or how they correct it for you.

I am prone to complain about CA utilities as much as the next guy, but PG&E does eventually bill correctly according to the published tariffs. It just takes them a few months to reverse and recalculate bills when they do make mistakes or are just late to implement changes like what happens at PTO when you change tariffs.