Fully financially recovered 18 months after emerging from three years in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Friday filed a $682 million general rate increase request for 2007 with the California Public Utilities Commission. The bulk of the request — $481 million — is for its electric distribution utility operations, with the rest covering its natural gas distribution utility ($114 million) and electric generation ($87 million).

As now structured, the massive rate request covering infrastructure and workforce expenses and a push to upgrade utility customer service for the PG&E Corp. utility would result in an average electric rate increase of 3.9% and an average gas rate increase of 1.7% over the CPUC filed rates that are expected to be in effect next year.

The PG&E utility’s current rate base is $13.62 billion, making it the largest combination investor-owned utility in the nation, serving 5 million electric customers and 4.1 million natural gas customers covering the northern half of California.

The San Francisco-based utility said it expects to make an average of $2.5 billion of capital investments annually in its utility infrastructure over the next five years, and its general rate case seeks to recover the added costs involved in making more than 100 million meter-reads, preparing more than 70 million bills and responding to more than 17 million customer inquiries each year.

PG&E is following the current process for general rate cases outlined by the CPUC, including an August filing of a “notice of intent” (NOI) to file a general rate case with the CPUC’s independent consumer branch, the Office of Ratepayer Advocates (ORA). Following ORA review and recommendations, the utility gained an accepted NOI from the CPUC’s executive director Oct. 3. Under this process, the utility was obligated to make its formal filing within 60 days, which it did Friday.

“The CPUC requires that a general rate case (GRC) — an exhaustive regulatory review of utility operations and costs — be performed typically every three years to establish base revenues,” PG&E’s utility said in announcing its filing. “Base revenues are intended to cover PG&E’s costs of distributing gas and electricity to customers, and maintaining and operating its electric generation facilities. PG&E’s last GRC was for 2003 and covered four years.

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