March 1, 2026 Rate Roundup: California IOU Natural Gas Rate Increases

Below is a consolidated roundup of the March 1 natural gas rate increases that CRI reported on last week.

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PG&E, SoCalGas and SDG&E have all filed advice letters to implement March 1, 2026 natural gas rate changes. Protests to all three filings are due March 16.

Pacific Gas and Electric

PG&E filed Advice Letter 5184-G, which consolidates adjustments tied to PG&E's 2023 Wildfire Mitigation and Catastrophic Event (WMCE) application, in which PG&E sought recovery of costs incurred primarily in 2022. That authorization occurred last month in D.26-02-004.

• The authorized amount included $14.6 million in gas distribution and $5.4 million in gas transmission revenue requirements (including interest and RF&U).
• Under the proposal, noncore transportation rates would increase by about $3.6 million annually, while concurrent changes to core transportation rates would add roughly $16.4 million, producing an overall gas revenue increase of about $20 million on an annualized basis.

In sum, the filing results in a modest, across-the-board increase, with the entire increase flowing from a single cost recovery driver (last month's WMCE decision).

Who should care?

Noncore industrial and electric generation customers. If you're taking gas at distribution, transmission, or backbone level under rate schedules G-NT or G-EG, your transportation rate is moving, effective March 1. The increases are small but they're real, and if you're running high volumes, the per-therm math adds up. Covered entities should confirm their billing system is properly applying the GHG compliance cost credit to net the increase down.

Illustrative rates are available here.

Southern California Gas Company

SoCalGas filed Advice Letter 6605-G (available here) to recover $35.5 million in costs recorded in its Distribution Integrity Management Program Balancing Account (DIMPBA) for 2019–2023, as authorized by a CPUC decision last month (D.26-02-006).

• The $35.5 million represents a partial authorization of SoCalGas's original motion, which had requested interim recovery of 85% of $59.1 million in under-collected costs, with the final determination of reasonable spending still pending in the underlying application (A.25-08-008).
• The filing also incorporates related rate impacts from SDG&E’s approved non-officer compensation costs under Resolution E-5405 due to system-wide averaging ratemaking between the utilities.
• The interim recovery will be collected over a 12-month period using the Equal Percent of Authorized Margin (EPAM) allocation method, with any over-collection to be refunded with interest if the CPUC later approves a lower amount.

The changes produce modest adjustments across customer classes (primarily increases for core and noncore transportation customers) and update multiple tariff schedules accordingly, with an estimated overall revenue and rate effect of about 0.7%.

The EPAM allocation method and system-wide averaging spread impacts across customer classes and between SoCalGas and SDG&E, softening bill effects for any single group but embedding the costs broadly in transportation rates. Because the recovery is subject to refund if a lower amount is approved later, the advice letter functions as bridge financing for the utility rather than a final determination, though it may create inertia around the interim level.

Who Should Care?

• Large noncore gas customers, electric generators, and marketers moving gas on the SoCalGas system should pay attention to this filing because the interim recovery flows directly through transportation rates, raising delivered fuel costs beginning in March.
• Load-serving entities and procurement teams should also track the filing since system-wide averaging means SDG&E customers are affected as well, and future true-ups could alter cost forecasts.
• Industrial users, liquefied natural gas and biomethane project developers, and counterparties negotiating gas supply or tolling arrangements, will want to incorporate the higher transportation baseline into contracts and hedging assumptions.
• Intervenors in the DIMP proceeding should note that, once interim dollars are flowing, reversing them becomes harder even if portions of the spending are later disallowed.

Illustrative rates are available here. (Related impacts on the company's Sempra peer, SDG&E, are noted below).

San Diego Gas & Electric

SDG&E's parallel filing, AL 3498-G (available here), also implements the interim recovery of $35.5 million in SoCalGas DIMPBA costs from 2019–2023, albeit on SDG&E's side.

The rate changes produce minimal customer bill effects, increasing the typical bundled residential bill per month (by about 0.05%), while raising SDG&E’s overall gas revenue requirement by roughly $783,000 across customer classes.

SDG&E's adjustments also modify related rate components for electric generation, natural-gas vehicle service, and transmission-level service to maintain alignment with SoCalGas's transportation rates.

Ultimately, the filing is a revealing pass-through adjustment that illustrates how upstream SoCalGas cost-recovery decisions propagate across the Sempra gas system, including SDG&E transportation rates.

Who Should Care?

• Large gas users and transportation customers. Core commercial, industrial, electric generation, and noncore transportation customers will see small rate changes, tied to SoCalGas system costs flowing through SDG&E tariffs. But even minor per-therm shifts matter at scale for facilities burning millions of therms annually.
• Pipeline operators, storage stakeholders, and safety-cost watchers. The interim recovery of pipeline integrity spending suggests that safety and compliance costs will continue migrating into rates ahead of final reasonableness findings. Anyone tracking the affordability implications of integrity programs should view this as another incremental step in that trend.
• Energy traders, procurement teams, and load-serving entities. System-wide transportation alignment confirms that SoCalGas revenue requirement changes remain the anchor for Southern California gas economics. Entities exposed to basis risk, fuel costs, or dispatch economics should incorporate the updated transportation components into forward cost assumptions.

Illustrative rates are available here.