SAN FRANCISCO – Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) said Tuesday that it expects its system-average bundled electric rate to remain nearly flat into 2011.

The rate decreased by 0.8 percent on January 1 and will increase by 1.5 percent on March 1, resulting in a net increase of 0.7 percent, the company reported.

PG&E’s March 1 rate would be approximately 2 percent below its March 1, 2010 rate.

The rate change primarily reflects electric transmission-related costs approved annually by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Actual bill effects will vary among customer classes and by customer usage.

The March 1 rate change does not include revenue that is covered by PG&E’s 2011-13 General Rate Case.

Based on the proposed and alternate decisions recently issued by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), PG&E anticipates that the final decision will further increase the system-average bundled electric rate by less than 0.1 percent.

Average residential electric bills are expected to show the following changes.

Customer Usage      January 2011      March 2011     Change

550 kWh                   $78.86                  $79.70              1.1%

850 kWh                   $173.67                $178.64            2.9%

1,500 kWh                $427.03                $440.92            3.3%

Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews , on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .