Highest of Year : Next SDG&E; Bill Will Toll the Cost of Winter Heating

San Diego Gas & Electric customers might want to open their next bill sitting down. The next three weeks will see the highest bills of the year, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

Because the coldest period of the year is usually from mid-December to mid-January, and bills are sent out on a 21-day cycle, the highest billing period will be between mid-January and mid-February, spokesman Fred Vaughn said.

In the last month, the company has sent out residential bills ranging from a minimum of $5 to a maximum of about $1,500 to $1,800, with some of the larger bills going to Rancho Sante Fe and La Jolla homes with as much as 14,000 square feet to heat, Vaughn said.

But the highest bills are yet to come, he warned.

The average monthly bill, year-round, is $58.86, the cost of about 400 kilowatt hours of electricity and 40 therms of gas. With the colder holiday season and an increase in the number of people who drop by to visit, the average consumption of gas in December jumped to about 54 therms.

“We get a lot of calls from people who don’t understand why their bills are twice what they normally are,” Vaughn said. The reasons, he said, are television sets that stay on all day, out-of-town house guests using more hot water, and more cooking.

California’s sunny weather makes gas consumption in the state relatively low contrasted with the rest of the nation, but “this certainly is the high billing season,” Vaughn said.