Most people who search for PG&E rates are looking at a bill that just changed shape. In March 2026 it did change shape, for everyone in the service area, and not in the direction the headlines suggested.
This page is a maintained reference rather than a news post. Every figure below is dated and sourced, and there is a changelog at the bottom. If you are reading this six months from now, check the verified date before you rely on it.
What are PG&E’s residential rates in 2026?
Two numbers, and the difference between them matters.
The average bundled residential rate is 40.6 cents per kWh as of 1 March 2026 (PG&E Advice Letter 7846-E). That is an all-in average — it spreads the fixed monthly charge across average usage.
The volumetric rate on its own is around 36 cents per kWh. That is the part you actually pay per unit of electricity, and it is the part solar displaces.
The gap between the two is the Base Services Charge: roughly $24 a month, introduced in March 2026, charged regardless of how much power you use. It is reduced for CARE and FERA households and for deed-restricted affordable housing.
PG&E’s own published example makes it concrete: 500 kWh in a month costs $203.54. About $24 of that is the base charge; the rest is 500 kWh at the volumetric rate.
Your actual rate depends on your plan. E-TOU-C, E-TOU-D and E-ELEC price peak and off-peak hours very differently, and a household that runs the dishwasher at 8pm pays materially more than one that runs it at 11am. The averages above are useful for planning; they are not what appears on your specific statement.
Is PG&E still California’s most expensive utility?
No. SDG&E is higher in 2026 — roughly 45.7 cents per kWh on average for residential customers, per the CPUC Public Advocates Office. PG&E is below that.
We are a solar company. It would be easier for us if PG&E were still the worst rate in the state, because that is the simplest possible sales argument. It isn’t, so we’re not going to say it is.
Two other things are true and are worth holding alongside that.
First, PG&E is still expensive in absolute terms. Being second in California is not a comfortable position — California residential rates are roughly double the national average, and 36 cents a kilowatt-hour is 36 cents a kilowatt-hour whether or not someone in San Diego pays more.
Second, PG&E’s rate growth has actually been slower than its peers’. Between January 2016 and June 2026, the Public Advocates Office puts the residential increase at about 69% for PG&E, against roughly 101% for SCE and 97% for SDG&E. PG&E started high and rose less steeply.
You will also see different PG&E averages quoted in different places — the Public Advocates Office reports a lower system-wide figure than PG&E’s own bundled residential average, because they measure different baskets of customers. Both put SDG&E above PG&E. That is the comparison that survives the methodology argument, and it is the one we’ll stand behind.
There are older pages on the internet — including, until recently, one on this site — asserting that PG&E had “surpassed” everyone as California’s priciest supplier. That was a January 2024 snapshot, and it did not age well. We took it down rather than update the date on it.
Why did the per-kWh price go down in March 2026?
Because the March 2026 restructure moved money from the variable side of the bill to the fixed side.
PG&E added the ~$24 Base Services Charge and, at the same time, cut volumetric rates by roughly 5 to 7 cents per kWh. It was PG&E’s fifth electric price decrease since early 2024. The Base Services Charge replaced the older monthly Minimum Electric Charge — we cover it on its own in the $24 PG&E Base Services Charge and your solar savings.
Whether that restructure helped or hurt you comes down to one thing: how many kilowatt-hours you buy.
A household using a lot of grid power gets a nickel-plus back on every one of those kilowatt-hours, which easily outweighs $24. A household using very little grid power pays the $24 and doesn’t buy enough kilowatt-hours for the discount to catch up.
That is not an accident of the design — it is the design. Fixed charges shift cost from heavy users toward light users. And solar owners, by definition, are light buyers of grid power. Which brings us to the part that matters most on this page.
What does a rate change do to an existing solar system’s savings?
Three separate effects, and they pull in different directions.
The base charge sets a hard floor under your bill. PG&E’s wording is unambiguous: the Base Services Charge “is not eligible to be offset by monthly generation credits.” Your generation can zero out the volumetric portion. It cannot touch the $24. The arithmetic maximum any system can remove from a bill is therefore `(bill − 24) ÷ bill` — 89% on a $220 bill, 84% on a $150 bill. Nobody actually reaches that ceiling, but no one gets past it either.
A lower volumetric rate makes each self-consumed kilowatt-hour worth slightly less. Solar savings are a function of the retail rate you avoid. When that rate falls 5 to 7 cents, so does the value of every kilowatt-hour your panels cover. For a solar owner specifically, the March 2026 restructure was a net negative: you pay a new fixed charge you can’t offset, and the savings you were already earning got a little thinner.
But the direction of travel over twenty years still favors the panels. Rates have gone up far more than they have gone down over the last decade, and a purchased system fixes most of your cost at the day you bought it.
We say all three of these out loud in consultations, including the middle one. A solar owner who was promised a rising-rate windfall and then watched their per-kWh savings shrink has a legitimate complaint. A solar owner who was told the restructure could cut both ways doesn’t.
If you already have a system and your bill moved in March, that is why. It is not a fault, and it is not a metering problem.
How do MCE and other CCA rates compare in West Contra Costa?
If you’re in Richmond, San Pablo, El Cerrito, Pinole or one of the other MCE communities, your bill has two suppliers on it: MCE buys the generation, PG&E owns the wires and does the billing.
Three consequences that matter more than any headline cents-per-kWh comparison:
1. The delivery portion of your bill is PG&E’s, and so is the Base Services Charge. Being an MCE customer does not exempt you from it.
2. NEM 3.0 still applies. The export tariff belongs to PG&E, not to your CCA. Being on MCE, EBCE or another CCA does not put you back on retail-rate net metering. (Municipal utilities like LADWP and Modesto are a genuinely different story — they set their own export rules — but no part of Contra Costa County is served by one.)
3. Headline generation-rate comparisons are misleading because of the PCIA exit fee, which appears on your PG&E line and changes the real spread.
We deliberately don’t publish a cents-per-kWh MCE-versus-PG&E number, because it moves, it varies by rate plan, and any figure we posted would be wrong within a quarter. MCE publishes its own current rate comparison — use that, and compare your own plan rather than an average.
How often should you re-check your rate plan?
Twice a year is plenty for most households, and after any of these:
- Your usage changes materially. An EV, a heat pump, a pool pump, an ADU, a new baby, someone starting to work from home.
- You get solar installed. The plan that suited you before will usually not be the right one afterwards, and this is the single most commonly missed step after an install.
- PG&E restructures. March 2026 was a real restructure, not a routine adjustment.
- You’ve never checked. Plenty of Contra Costa households are on a plan they were defaulted onto years ago.
PG&E’s rate comparison tool runs your actual twelve months of usage against every plan you’re eligible for and tells you which is cheapest. It’s free, it takes a few minutes, and it is genuinely the highest-return energy decision most people can make in an afternoon.
If you want to understand what your exported kilowatt-hours are worth before you look at plans, we go through that in what PG&E really pays for exported solar under NEM 3.0. If you’re weighing whether to install at all, the full arithmetic is in is solar still worth it in Contra Costa in 2026.
Work out your own number
The fastest way to see what these rates mean for your house is to put your real bill into the savings calculator. It uses the 36-cent volumetric rate and the $24 base charge from this page, it assumes no federal credit, and it will not tell you your bill goes to zero.
If you’d like a second opinion on what it says, book a free consultation. No pressure and no obligation — we’ll read your twelve months of PG&E data and tell you what we actually think, including if the answer is to wait.
Run your numbers · Residential solar · Contact us
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Rates and rules verified 30 August 2026.
Sources: PG&E Advice Letter 7846-E (1 March 2026); PG&E Base Services Charge and Solar Bill pages; PG&E Currents, “PG&E’s restructured electric bill debuts in March 2026”; CPUC Public Advocates Office Q2 2026 Electric Rates Report; CPUC net billing tariff decision.
Changelog
- 30 Aug 2026 — First published. 40.6¢/kWh bundled average and $24 Base Services Charge current as of 1 March 2026. SDG&E confirmed above PG&E.