OAKLAND — PG&E profits hopped higher in 2024 — but drooped in the final three months of the year — although the utility titan predicted 2025 profits are poised to outpace last year’s results, a new report shows.
The electricity and gas services provider reported on Thursday that it posted a profit of just under $2.48 billion in 2024, up 10.4% from the $2.24 billion the company earned in 2023.
During the October-through-December fourth quarter, however, PG&E earned $647 million, which was down 29.6% from the company’s $919 million in profits for the same quarter in 2023.
Calculating only items and operations that are PG&E’s core business, the utility posted a fourth-quarter profit of $658 million, down 34.6% from profits, calculated the same way, of slightly less than $1.01 billion in the year ago fourth quarter.
“In 2024, we continued to progress in ways that matter to both customers and investors,” said PG&E Chief Executive Officer Patricia Poppe. “We delivered energy safely. Our system has never been safer.”
For the second consecutive year, no major wildfires occurred that were caused by PG&E’s equipment, the company stated.
PG&E investors can anticipate profits in 2025 that will top those of 2024.
Oakland-based PG&E posted a profit of $1.15 a share in 2024. For 2025, PG&E predicts that its profits will range from $1.30 to $1.36 a share. The midpoint of that estimate would point to a 16% increase in per-share profits.
PG&E and the state Public Utilities Commission have been under fire from consumer groups and others because of the company’s steadily rising profits and skyrocketing electric and gas monthly bills. The state PUC is in theory supposed to supervise and regulate PG&E, according to state law.
But a respite for PG&E customers appeared with the January billing cycles.
PG&E customers who reckoned with a series of rate increases in 2024 discovered when they opened up their statements that their bills were only a bit higher compared to a year ago, based on PG&E’s estimate of the average bill for the typical customer.
A typical PG&E residential customer who receives both electricity and natural gas services from the investor-owned utility paid an average of $295 a month starting with their January 2025 billing cycle.
This was $1 higher than the $294 a month that typical PG&E residential customers were paying for combined electricity and gas services in January 2024.
It was also a dramatic turnaround from the increases ratepayers had experienced in recent years.
“We stabilized combined gas and electric bills for residential customers,” Poppe said. “And we connected more new customers to our grid than we have in decades.”