About three dozen people from a collection of environmental and community groups gathered in front of the Rady Shell on Monday, protesting San Diego Gas & Electric’s rates.
“I have witnessed increasing rates for decades,” said Barbara Pinto, a Logan Heights resident and member of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. “It is appalling that San Diego Gas & Electric can continue to make millions of dollars of profit every year off the backs of our communities.”
The demonstration was held outside of DTECH, an annual meeting billed as the largest gathering of utility professionals in the country. This year’s event is being held at the San Diego Convention Center, and SDG&E President Scott Crider was one of the speakers at the meeting’s keynote session at the Rady Shell.
“SDG&E keeps squeezing and squeezing, lobbying for every bit of profit they can eke out of us,” said Lisa Eyler, UC San Diego psychiatry professor and a member of the SanDiego350 environmental organization.
High utility bills have long been a sore spot for SDG&E customers, as well as for ratepayers across California, but complaints have grown louder in recent years.
According to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, average rates for SDG&E, Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison increased between 48% and 67% from 2019 through 2023. A blog post in 2023 by the Haas Energy Institute at UC Berkeley reported SDG&E had the highest electricity rate in California.
“At SDG&E, we work every day to manage our costs and develop programs and tools that help keep energy more affordable and accessible,” the utility said in a statement released after the protest. “We know that any change in energy costs makes a difference to our customers, and we work to keep bills as low as possible while continuing to deliver the safe, reliable energy that families and businesses across Southern California depend upon every day.”
SDG&E earned a $891 million in 2024, according to filings submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the first quarter of 2025 by Sempra, SDG&E’s parent company.
One of the big drivers of high rates in California has been from investor-owned utilities expenses related to helping prevent their equipment from sparking wildfires.
SDG&E has spent roughly $6 billion in ratepayer funds on such efforts since the devastating Witch Creek, Guejito and Rice wildfires in 2007. Since then, the San Diego area has not experienced a similar catastrophic fire.