More Help for SCE Customers with Energy Bill Challenges
By Ron Gales

 

Southern California Edison is rolling out more help for  residential customers facing challenges with their energy bills :

• Debt relief:  SCE is distributing $218 million in federal funding to help customers with past-due balances accrued between March 4, 2020, and Dec 31, 2021, in response to economic challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. About 348,000 active SCE residential customers, including those enrolled in  Community Choice Aggregators, will receive one-time credits on their January or February bills to partially reduce their past-due balances. No customer action is required.

• One-time grants:  As of Jan 1, SCE’s  nonprofit Energy Assistance Fund (EAF)  increased its maximum payment amount to $200 and $300 for all-electric homes (up from $100 and $200, respectively). Funded by SCE employee and customer donations, EAF provides one-time monetary assistance for energy bills to qualifying residential customers. EAF applications are available at nonprofit organizations throughout SCE’s service area.

“SCE recognizes the importance of providing as much assistance as possible to the customers and communities struggling with prolonged inflationary pressures,” said Lisa D. Cagnolatti, SCE’s senior vice president of Customer Service. “SCE is here to help with assistance options, including debt relief and bill discounts for qualifying customers, payment arrangements so customers can pay off their past-due balances over time, and other tools and programs that help customers save energy and manage their bills.”

The assistance will help many SCE customers as rising natural gas prices affect utilities and their customers across California and the nation.

SCE purchases more than 80% of the power it delivers to customers from wholesale energy markets, including power from natural gas-fired power plants. When the market price of natural gas increases, so does the price of power generated by those plants. SCE passes these increased costs of purchasing power directly to its customers with no markup.

The debt relief being distributed to customers represents SCE’s 2023 allocation from the  California Arrearage Payment Program (CAPP) , which provides about $1 billion in federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help with past-due energy bills. The program is administered by the state’s  Department of Community Services and Development (CSD) .

Customers receiving a CAPP benefit will get a notification letter from SCE by U.S. mail and a printed message will appear on their billing statement indicating the payment was applied to their account.

SCE customers receiving the CAPP debt relief funds this year have account balances that were accrued fully or partly during the CSD’s designated COVID-19 pandemic bill relief period. Bill credit amounts differed for each recipient and were determined using CSD guidelines.

SCE’s Energy Assistance Fund partners with the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and more than 80 nonprofits throughout SCE’s service area where  customers can receive help applying for assistance . Since it was founded in 1982, EAF has helped more than 300,000 households. Each year, SCE’s parent company, Edison International, matches employee donations up to $2,000.

Visit  sce.com/eaf  and click “How to Apply - Get Assistance.” For more information about CAPP, please visit  csd.ca.gov/Pages/CAPP.aspx .

For more information on SCE’s other payment assistance options, visit  sce.com/billhelp .