California households to get utility bill relief amid soaring costs — here’s how it works

Californians are catching a break.

Households across the struggling Golden State are receiving some relief from their sky-high utility bills — with reams of tapped-out ratepayers seeing automatic $75 discounts on their statements during the months of August and September.

The emergency aid — which comes as experts are calling the punishing electricity prices paid in California “alarming” — was announced Tuesday.

The relief covers eligible residential customers of PG&E, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric, and will reportedly save subscribers an estimated $886 million.

The handout is a project of Sacramento’s Cap-and-Invest Program. Managed by the California Air Resources Board, the program requires companies that emit large amounts of pollution to purchase allowances for their emissions. Some of the proceeds from the penalties are then handed back to taxpayers.

“California is making polluters pay and delivering that money back to millions of households when summer utility bills are at their highest,” Governor Newsom said in a statement.

The credit does not require an application, and will simply appear on bills.

The relief comes at a great time for Californians — whose wallets are already being squeezed by record-breaking gas prices, soaring rents, and expensive groceries.

New analysis from The Institute for Energy Research and Always on Energy Research found that Californians pay the highest electricity prices of any U.S. state.

In 2025, California’s average price for electricity was 27.63 cents per kilowatt-hours (kWh), a whopping 103% higher than the national average of 13.63 cents.

“The state’s trajectory is alarming: since 2018, the average retail price of electricity rose 11.05 cents per kWh, the largest absolute increase of any state, and California collapsed from 7th to 2nd-most expensive,” the report read.

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