Bay Area residents would pay more for conserving under new plan

North Bay residents seethed when water conservation efforts were rewarded with rate hikes.

Get ready. PG&E is planning the same nasty surprise on your utility bill.

Under a plan submitted to the state Public Utilities Commission, rates would be reduced for people who use the most electricity and increased for people who conserve. If they're approved, the new rates would take effect in May 2011.

PG&E's proposal is a good deal if you live in the San Joaquin Valley with its sweltering summers and soaring air conditioning bills. And it's conveniently timed for PG&E's campaign in Kern County, where voters - many of them already angry about the introduction of wireless SmartMeters last year - will decide an advisory measure in November that asks if they want to replace the San Francisco-based utility with a publicly owned utility district.

(PG&E also is sponsoring Proposition 16 on the June 8 ballot, which is intended to block creation of public utility districts. We'll comment on that in a separate editorial.)

If you live in one of California's cooler coastal counties, PG&E's proposed rates are a lousy deal.

PG&E wants to squeeze its five rate tiers into three, with more people falling into the highest tier. For a Sonoma County resident using 550 kilowatt-hours per month, that means paying about $130 more annually. Meanwhile, people using 1,500 kilowatt-hours a month would save about $1,200 a year.

San Joaquin Valley residents complain that they pay too much for electricity, but they don't seem to object that real estate prices and, therefore, property tax bills are significantly lower than they are in coastal counties, where the cooler climate allows people to use less electricity and pay smaller utility bills.

But this more than a parochial issue.

Power plants are among the biggest contributors to global warming, and neither California nor PG&E can afford a policy of discouraging conservation if the state is going to meet the 2020 deadline to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels.

PG&E, to its credit, resigned from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce last year to protest its head-in-the-sand approach to climate change. PG&E should withdraw this wrong-headed approach to electric rates in the same spirit. If it doesn't, the proposal should be summarily rejected by the state PUC.