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Southern California Edison’s residential customers will receive a $59 California Climate Credit on their April and October billing statements. For the first time since the credit’s inception in 2014, most of SCE’s small business customers will receive the credit on their statements as well.
Previously, the twice-a-year credit ranged between $29 and $40 for SCE residential customers. Recent direction from the California Public Utilities Commission led to small business customers of the state’s investor-owned utilities also receiving the credit twice annually. About 500,000 of SCE’s small business accounts are eligible, as well as the company’s 4.3 million residential accounts.
The funding for the California Climate Credit comes from the state’s Greenhouse Gas Cap and Trade Program, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, natural gas distributors and other large industries.
“It’s great to see that this year’s credit is the most generous to date,” said Lisa D. Cagnolatti, SCE’s senior vice president of Customer Service. “With rising consumer prices creating challenges for many Californians, SCE welcomes any opportunity to help customers with their electric bill. That’s why SCE offers customers a range of short-term and longer-term bill assistance options.”
Earlier this year, SCE distributed more than $205 million in debt relief from the California Arrearage Payment Program to help customers with past-due energy bill balances accrued during the first 16 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. About 260,000 eligible SCE residential customers received one-time credits on their February or March electric bills to partially reduce their energy debts.
Other SCE customer assistance options include:
- Monthly bill discounts of 30% (California Alternate Rates for Energy program) or 18% (Family Electric Rate Assistance program), or one-time bill assistance grants of up to $100 (Energy Assistance Fund) for income-qualified residential customers.
- Energy bill debt forgiveness of up to $8,000 in eligible past-due balances (Arrearage Management Plan) for income-qualified residential customers.
- The Medical Baseline Allowance program, which allows for additional daily energy consumption at the lowest-rate available, to offset some of the cost of operating medical and mobility equipment for vulnerable customers.
- Payment arrangements to give residential and small business customers more time to pay their bill, including spreading payments out up to 12 months or extensions of up to 30 days.
- Online tools like Budget Assistant that let residential and small business customers track their energy usage in real time and projects their next monthly bill; and TOU text alerts that notify customers when higher-priced TOU on-peak periods begin and end.
For more information on SCE’s customer assistance options, visit sce.com/findsupport. For more information about the California Climate Credit, please visit this CPUC web page.
