FAQ

San José Clean Energy is the new nonprofit, locally controlled electricity generation service provider for residents and businesses in the City of San José. We will provide residential and commercial electricity customers with clean, carbon-free power options at competitive prices, from sources like solar, wind and hydropower. We source electricity for customers and PG&E delivers it over existing utility lines, and continues to do maintenance, billing and customer service as they always have.

As a city department, any revenues that exceed our costs will be used to benefit the communities we serve.

Until now, PG&E has been the only electricity provider in San José. In 2002, California Assembly Bill 117 established Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), a new way for California communities to provide local residents and businesses with a choice of electricity providers. A city or a group of cities pool (aggregate) the electricity demand from residents and businesses in their area and buy electricity for them. CCAs offer cleaner, carbon-free electricity. SJCE is the new CCA for the City of San José and we’re the largest city in the country to operate a CCA.

No, we are partners in providing your electricity service. SJCE replaces PG&E’s electric generation services with a local, publicly controlled electric generation service. We buy clean, carbon-free electricity for you, which PG&E then distributes to San José homes and businesses. PG&E continues to provide customer and billing services, maintains power lines and fixes outages. It also provides all natural gas services.

Yes, reliability will absolutely stay the same. SJCE provides electric generation services, but PG&E still has responsibility for power transmission, distribution, billing and service, and it continues to maintain the power distribution network as it always has.

As a City department, SJCE is governed by San José City Council, which ensures public transparency. There is also a Community Advisory Commission. The City Council meets weekly and the Community Advisory Commission meets monthly. All meetings are open to the public and your comments are encouraged.

No. SJCE is entirely self-funded by revenues we receive from customers.

No. SJCE is “owned” by the City of San José and is a City department called Community Energy. There are no shareholders so all revenues stay right here. We don’t have to charge extra to generate a profit or pay dividends, which helps keep our prices competitive even though renewable energy is more expensive, and allows us to invest in local clean energy generation projects.

If you have questions about San José Clean Energy you can call us toll free at 833-432-2454. Or email us at customerservice@sanjosecleanenergy.org. If you have questions about PG&E, call PG&E at 1-800-743-5000.

Our energy is from carbon-free sources such as solar, wind and hydro. The exact proportion of each varies, based on demand and availability. We will provide detailed information about our power supply in our annual Power Content Label reporting.

Yes. We report annually to the California Public Utilities Commission and California Energy Commission. They verify the amount of renewable energy procured for our customers. This is the same verification standard used by other California utilities, including PG&E.

We have two clean, green energy products. GreenSource, our standard product, is at least 45% renewable, (from sun and wind) with an additional 35% from carbon-free hydropower (water). Or, you can pay a small premium—about the cost of a cup of coffee— (less than 1¢ per kilowatt hour)—for TotalGreen that's 100% renewable and 100% carbon-free.

All customers will be automatically enrolled in GreenSource, SJCE’s carbon-free, competitively priced, standard electricity service. At least 45% of your electricity will come from renewable sources such as solar and wind farms and 35% from hydroelectric facilities. And costs are 1% below PG&E Service.

You can choose to upgrade to TotalGreen, SJCE’s premium 100% renewable, 100% carbon free electric generation service. Starting this fall, you can upgrade at any time! Just call us at 833-432-2454, with your PG&E account information on hand.

You can upgrade to TotalGreen, whenever you choose. And if it’s not right for you, you can switch back to GreenSource at no charge (effective three months from the next meter read date). With either service, you can decide to remain entirely with PG&E; please see our Terms and Conditions.

If you have questions about San José Clean Energy you can call us toll free at 833-432-2454or email us at customerservice@sanjosecleanenergy.org. If you have questions about PG&E, call PG&E at 1-800-743-5000.

We began serving City-owned accounts in September 2018. We will begin serving San José residents and business in February 2019. You will receive a notice in the mail two months before you service begins. But if you’d like to pre-select our TotalGreen service starting in December, you can do that by filling out an early enrollment form. If you’re interested in TotalGreen, we will record your choice and notify you shortly before your service starts, in late 2018 and early 2019.

State law requires that as we begin to implement our service, we contact our customers in writing a minimum of four times. We will do this starting two months before your service begins and for two months after.

Unfortunately, no. You can only participate if your home or business address is located within the City of San José. But, many other Bay area communities are or will soon be served by a Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) program; check your community’s website.

Historically, PG&E has been the default power provider for most customers in San José. When state legislators passed California’s Community Choice Aggregation law, the default provider status was transferred from PG&E to a local community choice program like SJCE, if a program is in place. This is true throughout the State.

California’s CCA law requires that SJCE is now the default provider of electric generation for customers within our service area, and that we operate as an “opt out” program. Customer choice is very important to us, so we provide four written notices—two before and two after enrollment—so that you can choose where your electricity comes from and how your dollars are spent.

You can opt out beginning January 2019, which is when PG&E provides your account information to allow us to make the switch. If you have received an enrollment notice, you can choose to opt out. While we don’t want to lose you as a customer, you always have the choice to opt out. You can opt out online or by calling 833-432-2454.

There is no charge for opting out of SJCE before your service begins or within the first 60 days of service. Existing PG&E customers will receive notices before your new service begins. After the first 60 days of service, SJCE will charge a one-time administrative fee to switch; please see our Terms and Conditions.

If you opt out before starting SJCE service or within the first 60 days of service you may return at any time, free of charge. Customers who opt out after the first 60 days of service with SJCE are prohibited by California regulation from returning to SJCE for one year.

No. PG&E must provide the same rates for all customers in its service area.

SJCE offers renewable and carbon-free electric generation services that are very cost competitive with traditional sources of energy from PG&E, even though renewable energy tends to be more expensive. We are committed to offering you rates that are stable and affordable, and to keeping costs as low as possible for all of our customers. For detailed rate information, please see our Residential Rates page and our Commercial Rates page.

No. We work together with PG&E so you will get just one bill from PG&E each month. The only difference is you will see San José Clean Energy included as a line item for electricity generation on your PG&E bill. SJCE charges for generating the electricity you use. When you begin receiving electric generation from SJCE, the charges for generation that previously went to PG&E instead go to SJCE. PG&E will continue to charge for transmitting and delivering electricity, along with a variety of other regulatory and program charges at the same rates they always have. There are no duplicate charges for electricity generation.

The San José City Council sets rates according to agreed-upon goals of the program and the cost of its energy contracts during that period. Our top goals include rate stability and affordability, so your rates will always be as competitive with PG&E rates as possible. Rates are developed, discussed, evaluated and approved at public meetings, where the public is welcome to speak and give feedback.

The Board is committed to providing the cleanest electricity at the most competitive prices possible. The price of electricity does fluctuate. As a public agency, SJCE’s mission is to serve and benefit all of the residents and businesses in the City. We do not have shareholders that we need to serve, which helps us keep rates lower. We work for you, our customers. We anticipated that SJCE generation rates established in June 2018 will remain in effect until spring 2020.

Yes. CARE, FERA and Medical Baseline are available to SJCE customers, as well as PG&E customers, and provide the same discount regardless of which service you use. Customers enrolled in SJCE automatically continue to receive their CARE, FERA and Medical Baseline discount within their PG&E delivery charges; there is no need to reapply. New CARE, FERA and Medical Baseline enrollments or renewals must still be done through PG&E's customer service center or website, as usual.

Yes. The California Public Utilities Commission authorizes PG&E to collect fees (called public goods charges) from all customers to fund energy efficiency and renewable energy incentive programs. PG&E will still collect these fees and SJCE customers can receive these incentives and services.

All fee and charges are factored into SJCE’s rate setting process so that, in total, customers will still save money compared to PG&E’s rates. PG&E charges SJCE customers a Power Charge Indifference Adjustment (PCIA) fee, sometimes called an “exit fee” and a Franchise Fee Surcharge. Both are calculated based on the number of kilowatt-hours used each month. The PCIA is intended to ensure that SJCE customers pay the difference between what PG&E paid for power already contracted to serve them before to their switch to SJCE, and the current market value of that power. For most SJCE customers, the PCIA is currently two to three cents per kilowatt-hour, depending on when you switched and whether you are a residential or a commercial customer. PG&E assesses other fees such as non-bypassable charges and taxes exactly the same for customers receiving their electric generation service from SJCE or PG&E.

SJCE only provides electricity generation; we are not involved in metering services. We don’t have any control over whether or not our customers receive Smart Meters from PG&E. If you wish to opt out of a Smart Meter, please contact PG&E directly at 1-800-743-5000.

If you have questions about the San José Clean Energy portion of your bill, you can call us toll free at 833-432-2454 or email us at customerservice@sanjosecleanenergy.org If you have questions about the rest of your PG&E bill, call PG&E at 1-800-743-5000.

SJCE is a central pillar of Climate Smart San José, a people-centered plan for a low-carbon city that drastically increases the community’s energy efficiency and investment in renewable energy, and dramatically reduces car emissions, all while promoting living better today for tomorrow. Part of Climate Smart San José is a goal to make us the first city with 1GW of solar distributed generation.

SJCE will soon have a program for our customers who have rooftop solar installed today or plan to do so in the future; check the website this fall.

If you have questions about San José Clean Energy you can call us toll free at 833-432-2454 or email us at customerservice@sanjosecleanenergy.org. If you have questions about PG&E, call PG&E at 1-800-743-5000.

You can remain on the same rate schedule, including closed rate schedules such as E-6, regardless of a transition to or from service with SJCE. There are only a few rate schedules that are not open to SJCE customers, such as SmartRate and Peak Day Pricing.

Direct Access (DA) customer accounts are not automatically enrolled with SJCE. DA customers in our service area will stay with their current DA provider, unless you choose to change providers and enroll in SJCE’s generation service.

SJCE’s commercial rate schedules “parallel” PG&E rate schedules, and apply to generation-related charges only. For instance, SJCE maintains an equivalent schedule for all current commercial rate schedules (e.g. A-1, A-10, E-19) provided by PG&E. This includes time-of-use and NEM rate schedules.

SJCE rate schedules describe only the generation-related charges. By law, PG&E delivery charges remain the same, whether you receive generation services from SJCE or PG&E.

Yes, but only slightly. Large commercial energy customers are usually on rate schedules that have demand charges. These are complicated, comprising generation, distribution and transmission-related charges. Demand charges are based on peak monthly kilowatt demand for a given interval. The distribution and transmission portion of the demand charge remains with PG&E, because it’s on the current PG&E rate schedule. This represents the majority of the current demand charge. The rate for the smaller generation portion of the demand charge is set by SJCE.

As an SJCE commercial customer, you are no longer eligible for PG&E’s Peak Day Pricing (PDP) program, an opt out program that offers regular rate demand credits in return for peak period energy surcharges on 9-15 event days. However, SJCE plans to have our own Peak Day pricing program ready for rollout in February 2019.