Where I live in Empire Ranch, I have both SMUD and PG&E. For the first four years that I owned my home my SMUD bill was always between $30 and $45, and my PG&E bill rarely went above $15. In the summer SMUD goes up between $100 and $120, but PG&E always stayed the same year-round. In the interest of full disclosure, I own a one bedroom, one bathroom condo that is only 830 square feet. I also rarely (if ever) cook and take all my showers at the gym. The most I do is watch TV or play video games, vacuum the house once a week, wash and dry my clothes/towels/blankets/sheets once a week, and hand-wash all my dishes. I don’t leave lights on when I’m not using them. And so I figured that both bills wouldn’t really change much.

Recently I received an email from PG&E stating that I had a high bill alert- my usage had reached $99 and the billing cycle isn’t even over yet. Earlier this year I got charged something similar for three months straight, but they decided to give me one month completely free-of-charge after those months were over. This still didn’t compensate me for the absurdly high bills/gouging, but I just let it go.

My question is this: do I have any recourse against this recent unjustified hike? I seriously don’t use gas much, if at all. The brunt of my energy usage at home is via electrical appliances I.E. my TV, blender, coffee maker, and fridge. My washer and dryer are both gas-powered, but I seriously doubt that they could be using that much gas.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.