SDG&E reports $296 million in Q1 profits as electricity rates soar

The company posts increased profits amid California affordability crisis

SAN DIEGO – San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) announced Q1 profits of $296 million today, part of its parent company Sempra’s $1 billion haul. The announcement comes weeks after the utility announced $563 million in profits in 2025. Despite soaring rates, Sempra’s CEO, Jeffrey Martin, brought in $22.3 million – making him the 4th highest paid utility company CEO in the country last year.

Two primary drivers of increased costs are paying for wildfire costs and building out expensive infrastructure that drives up the utility’s profit margins. Many advocates highlight the need to examine utility incentives, improve how wildfire-related costs are financed, and prioritize lower-cost alternatives before new infrastructure investments to cut bills and deliver relief to California families.

San Diego Gas and Electric’s soaring profits are largely financed by California families who have seen their bills increase by 98% over the past ten years. As a result, nearly 260,000 SDG&E customers, roughly 19% of all customers are behind on their energy bills.

STATEMENTS:

“Across California, families are struggling to keep the lights on while utilities like SDG&E bring in huge profits, driven in part by a system that shifts wildfire costs onto California residents and incentivizes utilities not to prioritize effective, least-cost solutions,” said Jose Torres, Executive Director of the Affordable Energy Campaign. “This is the result of how we’ve structured utility incentives. California’s leaders can fix it by reining in profits and changing the model that allows utilities to profit from higher levels of capital spending while ratepayers shoulder the costs.”

“The City of San Diego is considering shuttering libraries, laying off its entire bike/pedestrian safety improvement team, eliminating its arts programs among other community improvement projects in order to reduce the city’s deficit of around $120 million. Meanwhile Sempra, the parent company of SDG&E, earns $1 billion in one quarter and SDG&E brings in $296 million,” said Beth Tennyson, volunteer at SanDiego350. “This shows that SDG&E doesn’t support San Diego or its service region, it extracts from us. Nearly one-in-five of Sempra’s customers are in debt and that fuels the large compensation that its executives receive, with Sempra’s CEO earning over $22 million last year. People are suffering and are being forced into tradeoffs between keeping the lights on and other necessary expenses like food and medicine. This needs to change.”

“SDG&E has started the year drawing in record profits, but also ended last year disconnecting almost 40,000 residents from service,” said Meya Saenz Zagar, Energy Justice Campaigner with the Center for Biological Diversity. “In 2023, less than 1% of SDG&E shareholder dividends would have prevented all disconnections in the service territory. We are on track for the California Public Utilities Commission to allow this complete mismatch to happen again this year. The Commission is long overdue to hold these utility companies accountable for prioritizing profits over people.”

“San Diegans are paying the highest utility rates in the continental U.S. and SDG&E is still asking for more. These costs are a double blow: they hit families directly in their monthly bills and indirectly through the rising cost of food, housing, and essentials. We are essentially subsidizing SDG&E’s earnings every time we shop, pay rent, or buy groceries,” said Anthony Dang, Policy and Community Outreach Manager at Climate Action Campaign.

“At San Diego Gas & Electric, it is Profit before People. Electricity is a necessity that too many SDG&E customers can no longer afford. Households are struggling to make ends meet while the CEO makes $22 million” said John Smigelski, Project Director, California Alliance for Community Energy, “The century old utility business model is no longer the best choice for San Diego. It is time to lower energy bills. It is time for Public Power.

“SDG&E ratepayers are funding not only SDG&E’s capital spending, but also SDG&E’s profits on top of that spending. And SDG&E’s parent company, Sempra, just reported over a billion dollars in earnings in a single quarter,” said Malinda Dickenson of The Protect Our Communities Foundation, “Ratepayers are footing the bill. Shareholders are reaping the reward.”

“The California Environmental Justice Alliance represents 10 environmental justice (EJ) organizations throughout the State, and all member organizations have identified the affordability crisis as a critical issue we must address,” said Feby Boediarto, Senior Energy Justice Manager. “EJ communities are one of the most vulnerable populations, redlined next to polluting facilities, while facing the highest electricity rates in the country. At the same time, utility corporations amass millions of dollars. We must hold the Commission and the investor-owned utilities accountable for their wealth hoarding.”

“Members of Communities for a Better Environment are paying with their health and their hard-earned cash while investor-owned utilities (IOUs) like PG&E and SCE to increase their earnings,” said Shana Lazerow, CBE Legal Co-Director. “Even though we have already paid for the renewables and storage that can entirely power our grid every day, gas-fired power plants for PG&E and SCE are running in communities where the air is most dangerous to breathe. Rates have gone up by 100% in a decade, and people cannot afford the power they need to stay alive. Household utility debt is huge and people’s power gets turned off, while IOUs keep increasing payouts to the CEOs and shareholders.”

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For more information, please contact Emily Murray at emily.murray@sunstonestrategies.org