SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California regulators on Thursday are likely to change how some power companies calculate their customers’ bills, a decision that would make it less expensive for people to charge electric cars and cool their homes in the summer but would increase prices for those who don’t use as much energy.
The California Public Utilities Commission will vote on whether to let the state’s big investor-owned utilities — including Pacific Gas & Electric — add a fixed charge to people’s power bills each month. For most people, the charge would be $24.15 per month and would pay for such things as installing and maintaining the equipment necessary to transmit electricity to homes. Residents with lower incomes who are enrolled in one of two discount programs would pay less, either $6 or $12 per month.
In exchange for the new charge, the price of electricity would drop by between 5 cents and 7 cents per kilowatt hour. One kilowatt hour is how much power it takes to use a 1,000-watt appliance — a coffee maker or vacuum cleaner, for instance — for one hour…