{"id":500192,"date":"2026-10-18T14:42:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T14:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/500192\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T14:42:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T14:42:21","slug":"a-new-gas-line-or-cash-to-electrify-california-lets-households-choose-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/500192\/","title":{"rendered":"A new gas line or cash to electrify? California lets households choose."},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published by Canary Media<\/a>\u00a0and is reproduced here as part of the\u00a0Climate Desk<\/a>\u00a0collaboration.\u200b<\/p>\n

When one of the nation\u2019s biggest investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas and Electric, wanted to replace Merrian Borgeson\u2019s aging gas service line in Berkeley, California, she asked the company not to do\u00a0it.<\/p>\n

Borgeson, who is the California policy director for climate and energy at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, explained that the repair wasn\u2019t necessary: She was in the process of fully electrifying her home and would be replacing her stove \u2014 the only gas appliance left in the house \u2014 with an induction version during an upcoming kitchen remodel. At that point, she planned to request that the gas line be shut\u00a0off.<\/p>\n

But PG&E told her it couldn\u2019t wait. That week, the utility dug up her yard and swapped in a\u00a0new pipe to send gas from the distribution main line to her\u00a0home.<\/p>\n

Borgeson wasn\u2019t charged for the service \u2014 at least not directly. The upgrade, which in PG&E\u2019s service area typically costs $20,000 to $30,000, plus interest and operation and maintenance costs, gets paid for by all gas customers over the life of the infrastructure.<\/p>\n

A few years later, the new pipe sits unused in the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I\u00a0have no gas in my house,\u201d Borgeson said. \u200b\u201cBut the customers all around me are paying for that pipeline for the next 50\u00a0years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon, Californians will have the choice that Borgeson did\u00a0not.<\/p>\n

A new law, the Home Energy Choice Act (Assembly Bill 2313<\/a>), will require utilities to give households scheduled for a\u00a0service line replacement the option of getting the new line or taking a\u00a0financial incentive potentially worth several thousand dollars to get off gas instead. Crucially, the incentive to switch to all-electric equipment, such as a\u00a0heat pump<\/a>, induction range<\/a>, and heat-pump water heater<\/a>, will be less than the cost to replace the line, resulting in savings that will be shared among all gas customers.<\/p>\n

The law \u200b\u201csends a\u00a0very clear message that California is no longer going to invest millions of dollars in gas infrastructure without considering the future,\u201d said Borgeson, who advocated for the bill. \u200b\u201cIt\u2019s this huge signal of where the state is headed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Natural Resources Defense Council has calculated that PG&E\u2019s gas customers could save a\u00a0total of $20 million if the utility gave 1,000 households a $17,500 incentive apiece rather than replacing their service lines. For context, PG&E replaces about 15,000 service lines annually.<\/p>\n

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If similar programs were instituted across the country, the savings could rival Biden-era investments in home electrification<\/a>. Utilities spend upward of $7 billion per year<\/a> on service line replacements, according to clean energy nonprofit RMI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The policy will help push the state closer to its goal of a\u00a0carbon-neutral economy by 2045; however, the version that passed was less ambitious than what was introduced, according to Brandon Garc\u00eda, California director at industry association Advanced Energy United. Revisions included programs being capped at 1% of a\u00a0utility\u2019s customers and the law expiring Jan. 1, 2035, though it could be renewed before then.<\/p>\n

\u201cAB 2313 was a\u00a0very difficult bill to get through the Legislature, so I\u2019m very excited that it will soon give Californians the opportunity to decide what energy is powering their home and provide financial support if they choose to transition away from natural gas,\u201d Assemblymember Marc Berman, who authored the bill, said by email. \u200b\u201cWhen homeowners opt to electrify, the utility avoids additional investments in fossil fuel infrastructure that will eventually become a\u00a0stranded asset, and this saves all ratepayers money long-term.\u201d<\/p>\n

Utilities San Diego Gas and Electric and SoCalGas opposed the bill, arguing that it would result in an unfair cost shift: As some customers stop using gas, those remaining could be left bearing outsized costs to maintain the system. While that is an issue writ large for the transition off of fossil fuels, and one the state needs to address, this law \u200b\u201cis instead about trying to encourage people to leave at the exact time when they are saving money for everyone else by leaving,\u201d said Kiki Velez, equitable gas transition lead at the Natural Resources Defense Council.<\/p>\n

With the new legislation, California becomes the third jurisdiction to authorize the pipeline replacement alternative approach \u2014 and the first to do so statewide. In 2024, New York utility Con Edison launched its initiative, the Energy Exchange Program<\/a>, which offers eligible households up to $20,000 to electrify. Other New York utilities are following suit, Velez said. And in July, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission authorized<\/a> Xcel Energy to create a\u00a0similar program, which she expects could launch within a\u00a0few months.<\/p>\n

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In California, the next step is for the Public Utilities Commission to create a\u00a0detailed framework for utilities to follow, including incentive levels, with larger amounts for customers in disadvantaged communities. Then utilities will have until January 1, 2028, for their individual proposed programs to be approved.<\/p>\n

One yet-to-be-determined detail is how much notice utilities will give residents whose pipes they want to replace. \u200b\u201cI think the worst case is you don\u2019t hear about [the incentive] until the last minute,\u201d Borgeson said. RMI recommends utilities alert residents one to five years ahead \u2014 at the point when it is scheduling the service line replacements.<\/p>\n

Other states are looking to emulate California with bills of their own, Velez said, pointing to Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington. \u200b\u201cFolks are already reaching out a\u00a0lot about how they can bring it to their state,\u201d she\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

In California, the bigger electrification incentives for disadvantaged communities will provide a\u00a0much-needed boost to clean energy equity, Garc\u00eda noted. \u200b\u201cAs someone who grew up in those kinds of neighborhoods as a\u00a0low-income person, I\u00a0want to make sure that everyone has access to [all-electric] technology.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published by Canary Media\u00a0and is reproduced here as part of the\u00a0Climate Desk\u00a0collaboration.\u200b When one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[35573,7,9,8,6774,1011,25640],"class_list":["post-500192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-buildings","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-energy","tag-housing","tag-syndicated"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}