Understanding Your Rates

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Pioneer Community Energy’s number one priority is offering competitive and stable electricity generation rates for customers’ homes. Since 2018, Pioneer has saved customers $85 million, with an additional $21 million is savings for 2024.

Residential Customers: Pioneer has developed a tool to assist most customers in understanding their monthly and annual savings by choosing Pioneer. All residential customers on an E1 rate will find that this calculator can quickly show their energy savings. This calculator reflects only E1 rates, so customers should contact Pioneer if they can’t find their rate plan or are on a different rate plan.

This calculator is based off vintage year. A customer’s vintage year is what their Power Charge Indifference Adjustment (PCIA), also called an “Exit Fee,” is based on. Customers can verify their vintage year on their bill, and using this calculator can quickly see the difference in savings between PG&E and Pioneer rates. If a customer’s vintage year is different or they cannot find their vintage year, please contact Pioneer for an individualized rate analysis.

Calculating Your Savings Is Easy…

Simply enter your location, then your usage listed on the PG&E bill into the rate calculator below and compare PG&E generation costs versus the Pioneer generation rate PLUS the appropriate PCIA. Customers can also calculate savings by using the Calculate Your Savings Worksheet.
If you have a more nuanced rate structure, call or email Pioneer for assistance instead of using the calculator.

What Might My Pioneer Energy Bill Look Like?

Enter your information in our Rates Comparison Calculator to see how much you could save with Pioneer Community Energy.

kWh Placer County

kWh El Dorado County

kWh Grass Valley County Grass Valley & Nevada City

Estimated PG&E Generation Costs (per month):

Estimated Pioneer Generation Costs (per month):

Costs Difference

Annual Estimated Savings with Pioneer (Percentage)

Annual Estimated Savings with Pioneer (Dollars)

Need Assistance? If you need help understanding where to find any of this data on your bill, please visit the Understanding Your Bill page.

This calculator represents generation costs only – as of July 1, 2024. PG&E’s rates can change, so please check back frequently.

Pioneer Residential Rate Adjustments

Customers should take rate adjustment data into consideration when evaluating energy options and the financial impacts of energy choices.

In July 2024, Pioneer Community Energy’s Board of Directors voted to reduce rates. Pioneer’s new summer rates have been lowered by an average of 5%.

Pioneer has several different rate classes for residential customers. Please review Pioneer’s rate sheets, to learn more.

For information on other rate-related topics, visit:

Power Charge Indifference Adjustment (PCIA) – A PG&E Imposed Exit Fee

PG&E is authorized by the CPUC to recover the difference in value between energy resources already contracted before the shrinking of its customer base due to popular customer adoption of Community Choice Aggregators, like Pioneer Community Energy. This charge, called the Power Charge Indifference Adjustment (PCIA) fee, applies to bundled and unbundled customers, residential and business customers, and is charged on a “per Kilowatt-hour” (kWh) basis. Customers will find the PCIA fee on each month’s bill. PG&E uses what is known as a “Vintage Year” to determine this difference.

What is Vintage Year?

The Vintage Year is typically the year that a community made the decision to join a CCA, like Pioneer and is identified by PG&E. Placer County has Vintage Years that range from 2017 through 2024, depending on the geographic area and start of CCA service. El Dorado County has Vintage Years of 2021 through 2024. Grass Valley and Nevada City have Vintage Years of 2023 and 2024. Future customers may have different Vintage Years.

Specific PCIA Fee Table

Vintage Year	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
PCIA	$0.01103	$0.00958	$0.00751	$0.00717	$(0.00516)	$0.00085	$0.00798	$0.00798

For customers with a different Vintage Year, please visit PG&E’s Rate Tariff Webpage. To determine your applicable PCIA, customers should review their PG&E bill. Need assistance? Do not hesitate to contact Pioneer at 1-844-937-7466.

What is Pioneer Doing About PG&E PCIA Fees?

Pioneer is a community voice and customer advocate. Pioneer is working toward protecting customer rights to choose energy providers, gaining more transparency in PG&E PCIA fees and advancing legislation that benefits our communities at the state level and with PG&E. Pioneer continues to challenge the PG&E PCIA fee methodology by:

Engaging with the Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs) across the state, through the California Community Choice Association, to reduce PG&E PCIA fees.
Requesting that the CPUC make public the data that PG&E uses to create the various PCIA “exit fees.”
Eliminating PG&E Utility-Owned Generation from the PCIA calculations.

Choose Pioneer

Have questions regarding power generation rates, PCIA fees, or electric utility bill? Please contact the Pioneer customer service team by email at info@pioneercommunityenergy.org or over the phone at 1-844-937-7466. The Pioneer team will be happy to help with your power and your choice. For stable and reliable energy rates, enroll in Pioneer