APPLICABILITY
SJ Cares is an electric generation rate discount program offered by San José Clean Energy (SJCE). The SJ Cares discount on generation rates increased from 5% to 10% in 2023. SJ Cares customers pay the lowest electric generation rates in San José.
Eligibility for SJ Cares is based on your enrollment in the California Public Utilities Commission’s California Alternate Rates for Energy program (CARE) program and Family Electric Rate Assistance program (FERA). Both CARE and FERA are financial assistance programs intended to help reduce customers’ electricity bills. Eligible customers may enroll in either CARE or FERA by contacting Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) directly.
If you are currently enrolled in CARE or FERA, then you do not need to take any action to enroll in SJ Cares. Customers are automatically enrolled in SJ Cares. You can confirm your enrollment in SJ Cares by looking at the SJCE page of your most recent PG&E bill or by calling 833-432-2454.
Your enrollment in SJ Cares is dependent on your enrollment in CARE and FERA with PG&E. If your CARE or FERA status expires, you will receive notice from PG&E to re-enroll in CARE or FERA. SJCE will give SJ Cares customers a 12-week grace period to re-enroll in CARE or FERA with PG&E. SJCE will send you a notice with this information and steps to re-enroll in CARE or FERA with PG&E. If you fail to re-enroll in CARE or FERA with PG&E by the end of the 12-week grace period, then you will be automatically removed from the SJ Cares program to pay the standard electric generation rates for GreenSource. This means your electric generation rates will increase.
Contact PG&E at 1-800-743-5000 for more information about CARE and FERA.
ENROLLMENT
No action is required to enroll in SJ Cares if you are currently enrolled in CARE or FERA. At the time SJ Cares was established, all existing CARE and FERA customers were automatically enrolled in SJ Cares by SJCE. As new customers enroll in CARE or FERA, SJCE will continue to automatically enroll these customers in SJ Cares, with no action required from the customer. It may take up to two billing cycles for a customer’s enrollment in CARE or FERA to be established, depending on how close to the meter read date a customer’s CARE or FERA status is communicated from PG&E to SJCE.
BILLING
Customers enrolled in SJ Cares will not see SJ Cares as a line item on their bill. Instead, there will be text about SJ Cares in the middle of the SJCE page of their bill.
RATES
SJCE’s electric generation rates are managed with the intention of providing clean electricity at competitive rates. Any changes to rates will be adopted at duly noticed public meetings of the San José City Council. PG&E charges SJCE customers, including customers enrolled in SJ Cares, a monthly Power Charge Indifference Adjustment, and PG&E acts as a collection agent for the Franchise Fee Surcharge, which pays for PG&E’s right to use public streets to run electric service to your home or business. Please contact PG&E for more information about these charges. SJCE has already accounted for these additional charges in calculating rates. View SJCE rates online at SanJoseCleanEnergy.org or call 833-432-2454 for more information. These rates and cost comparisons may change over time.
OPT OUT
You may request to opt out of SJCE electric generation service by calling 833-432-2454 or visiting www.sanjosecleanenergy.org/opt-out. Please have your PG&E account information on hand to process your request. There is no fee to opt out. Please be advised that if you do opt out and return to PG&E, you will not have the option to return to SJCE for a full year from the date you elect to opt out, and you will be subject to PG&E’s terms and conditions of service upon starting PG&E service.
PG&E requires that SJCE customers use one of the following options for returning to PG&E generation service:
- Option 1: Return to PG&E generation service at the end of your current billing cycle. This option includes being charged PG&E’s transition rate for a six-month period following your opt out from SJCE service and having standard rates apply thereafter; or
- Option 2: Return to PG&E generation service, after six months’ notice of the date you elect to opt out, on PG&E standard rates.
For more information on PG&E’s terms and conditions visit www.pge.com/cca.
Once you elect to transfer your electric service over to PG&E, your account will be transferred on the day the electric meter is read, i.e., your Meter Read Date. Your account cannot be transferred during the middle of a billing cycle. Requests to opt out received at least five days prior to a customer’s Meter Read Date will be processed for that Meter Read Date.” All other opt out requests will be processed on the subsequent Meter Read Date. Customers who opt out or otherwise stop receiving service from SJCE will be charged for all SJCE electricity used before ending SJCE electric service. There is no fee to restart SJCE service for customers who wish to return to SJCE service after waiting the full year after their election to opt out of SJCE service.
FAILURE TO PAY
SJCE customers that fail to bring their accounts current within 90 days after receiving a delinquent notice may be deemed to have opted out of electricity service provided by SJCE and may be returned to PG&E service. SJCE customers returning to PG&E for electricity service are responsible for payment of all outstanding balances due to SJCE.
CUSTOMER PRIVACY POLICY
Please read San José Clean Energy’s Customer Confidentiality Policy or call us at 833-432-2454.
