PG&E warns 25,000 customers of six-month hookup delays as its CEO predicts a bailout case from the regulator

Hookup warnings as leverage

Connections could run six months late for 25,000 Californians while PG&E, California's largest electric utility, presses Sacramento to move wildfire costs off its books ²¹⁶. The utility, which serves about 16 million people across more than 250 cities and counties, wrote to would-be customers↗ this week that hookups could slip as much as six months while it postpones about $2 billion of planned 2027 spending ²¹⁶. Data centers and more than 60 renewable and battery-storage projects wait in the same queue, some for up to a year ¹².

The chief executive predicted her regulator's report

On Thursday's earnings call, Patti Poppe, PG&E's▼−1.52% — PG&E, down 1.52 percent today chief executive, said two Assembly hearings next week and a November 1 report from the California Public Utilities Commission, the regulator that sets PG&E's allowed profit, "will be another good case in why the status quo is unacceptable," adding that the commission asked "really meaningful questions in their discovery" ³.

Consumer Watchdog, the consumer-advocacy nonprofit that published the transcript↗, calls the campaign "bailout blackmail" ³. A last-minute deal Governor Gavin Newsom pushed at the end of the legislative session drew heavy criticism from assembly members. It was "ultimately not voted on by the Legislature" ². Jamie Court, the group's president, wants the commission policing PG&E, not building its case; the group asked it weeks ago to test whether ratepayers had already funded the deferred work and says no answer came ³.

The stock repriced the risk; the earnings never did

The fight is over who owns wildfire liability when the next fire comes. On August 31, after lawmakers passed a wildfire bill without the $6 billion per-incident cap on wildfire-fund withdrawals↗ the utilities wanted, the listed parent, PG&E Corporation (PCG), fell 18% in a day; Edison International▲+1.21% — Edison International, up 1.21 percent today fell 23%; the sector's ETF slipped 1% ⁴.

The earnings never stopped: net income was positive in every quarter since late 2024, $2.7 billion in 2025, and $749 million of GAAP income available for common shareholders in the quarter reported Thursday, with 2026 guidance reaffirmed at $1.64–$1.66 a share ⁵⁶.

Ratepayers already carry a $9 billion share

Consumer Watchdog counts more than $10 billion of 2025 profit across the state's three big for-profit utilities and more than $3 billion in dividends ³. It also cites a commission-authorized return on equity of 9.98% for PG&E through 2028, which the group says already pays investors to carry exactly this risk ³. Ratepayers carry their own share: wildfire costs inside electric bills ran about $500 million in 2019 and $9 billion in 2024, the largest single piece of the bill, per the Public Advocates Office, the commission's independent consumer arm ⁷.

The utility's case is real, and so are the dates

PG&E's argument has substance: California courts hold utilities liable for fires their equipment starts even when every rule was followed, and the company has agreed to pay at least $11 billion over the 2017 and 2018 fires ². By its own account, wildfire risk has added more than $4 billion in interest costs that customers ultimately pay, and it says it is delaying no safety work, only shielding existing customers from higher rates ²¹.

Newsom, who must leave office in January, ordered the November 1 report↗ on what credit-rating downgrades would cost the utilities ²⁷. The Senate has scheduled nothing ³. If it stays home, shareholders keep the liability; if it convenes, ratepayers take it back. The report lands in ten days, and PG&E names the delayed projects in December ².