Date Of Issuance: December 4, 2020

PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

ENERGY DIVISION RESOLUTION G-3575 December 3, 2020

RESOLUTION

Resolution G-3575. Approving Southern California Gas Company’s Advice Letter 5607-G certifying that its customer service activities are in compliance with Ordering Paragraph 19 of Decision 19-09-051.

PROPOSED OUTCOME:  Approves Southern California Gas Company’s Advice Letter 5607-G.

SAFETY CONSIDERATIONS:  Reducing customer wait times for gas service reconnection orders is critical to ensuring health and comfort, and providing timely responses to safety-related concerns raised by customers is critical to addressing potential leaks and other threats to customers, property, and pipeline integrity.

ESTIMATED COST:  None. Additional funding of $0.859 million has already been authorized.

By Advice Letter 5607-G, Filed on March 24, 2020. ______

SUMMARY

This Resolution addresses Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) Advice Letter (AL) 5607-G, filed on March 24, 2020, which provides a report mandated by Ordering Paragraph (OP) 19 of Decision (D.) 19-09-051, to certify with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC or Commission) that it is dedicating $0.859 million toward improving service reconnection times and ensuring that wait times for safety concerns and service requests are reasonable.

353502695 1 Resolution G-3575 December 3, 2020 Southern California Gas Company AL 5607-G

BACKGROUND

SoCalGas filed its General Rate Case Application (A.) 17-10-008 on October 6, 2017 requesting authority to establish its revenue requirement and to update base rates for its natural gas service for the period from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2022. Pursuant to OP 19 of D.19-09-051, SoCalGas must report on its efforts related to customer reconnections within 180 days from the effective date of this decision by filing a Tier 3 AL certifying that it is dedicating additional funding of $0.859 million for Customer Services Field & Meter Reading to improve its reconnection rates, and explain, with specificity, what steps it is taking to ensure that reconnection times stay within that 36-hour period. The AL must demonstrate that SoCalGas is complying with the 36-hour reconnection period without underfunding or understaffing other work. SoCalGas is also required to provide information about customer wait times for safety concerns and service requests, and show that wait times are reasonable for all customers.

NOTICE

Notice of AL 5607-G was made by publication in the Commission’s Daily Calendar. SoCalGas states that a copy of the AL was mailed and distributed in accordance with Section 4 of General Order 96-B.

PROTESTS

AL 5607-G was not protested.

DISCUSSION

The Commission reviewed AL 5607-G and finds that SoCalGas met the requirements ordered in OP 19 of D.19-09-015:

• SoCalGas made meaningful changes to improve gas service reconnection times and plans to further improve those reconnection times. • In December 2019, SoCalGas implemented additional adjustments to its scheduling of Service Reconnect for Non-Payment orders to further

2 Resolution G-3575 December 3, 2020 Southern California Gas Company AL 5607-G

increase the number of reconnection appointments completed within 36 hours. In most cases, when a customer requests a service reconnection before 6:00 a.m. they are offered a same day reconnection appointment; when they call after 6:00 a.m., they are offered an appointment for the next day.

Percentage of Reconnections Completed Within 36 Hours Year Reconnections Total Percent Completed Reconnections Completed Within Requested Within 36 Hours 36 Hours 2017 24,255 111,373 22% 2018 77,014 106,937 72% 2019 70,744 95,527 74% 2020 (through 12,819 13,852 93% February)

• Improvements made to SoCalGas’s service reconnection program have also had a positive impact on the level of customer satisfaction related to reconnection wait times as shown by the decrease in the number of service restoration complaints received by the CPUC Consumer Affairs Branch (CAB). • CAB forwarded 36 complaints regarding service reconnection times in 2018, 31 similar complaints in 2019, and three similar complaints as of February 2020:

CPUC Complaints about Reconnection Schedule Year Number of CPUC Complaints as a Complaints Percentage of Orders 2017 273 0.0245% 2018 36 0.034% 2019 31 0.032% 2020 (through 3 0.022% February)

3 Resolution G-3575 December 3, 2020 Southern California Gas Company AL 5607-G

• SoCalGas prioritizes emergency orders ahead of all other field service orders. This policy will not change because of the enhancements made to scheduling reconnection orders. From the beginning of 2017 through February 2020, SoCalGas responded to over 91% of emergency orders within 30 minutes during regular hours (Monday – Saturday, 7:00 a.m. – 5:00 a.m.) and within 45 minutes at other times. • Although many factors influence the volume of customer-initiated orders, including weather conditions, SoCalGas was able to offer a 36-hour reconnection appointment in most instances without a resultant increase in the average time to complete other non-emergency customer requests. • Examples of non-emergency orders included in the average response time for customer-initiated non-emergency orders shown below are Back-On (after repairs, fumigation, etc.), Customer Service (inoperative appliance, appliance adjustment/check, etc.), Seasonal Pilot Light, High Bill Investigation, and Fielded Turn-on orders. • Non-emergency customer requests do not include Service Reconnect for Non-Payment orders.

Average Response Time for Customer-Initiated Non-Emergency Orders Year Average Response Time in Days (Jan - Dec) 2017 5.9 2018 5.7 2019 5.7 2020 (through 5.1 February)

• All SoCalGas customers are offered the same order schedule regardless of their language. The SoCalGas Customer Contact Centers provide customer service in six languages: English, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin, and Vietnamese. • SoCalGas also provides customer service in other languages through a third-party language line and provides services for the hearing impaired.

4 Resolution G-3575 December 3, 2020 Southern California Gas Company AL 5607-G

• All Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) access the same field order schedule and follow the same procedures for scheduling orders. • SoCalGas planned to increase scheduling capacity in August 2020 by scheduling reconnection orders for Sundays and holidays. However, on March 17, 2020, at the direction of the CPUC, and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, SoCalGas ceased collection activities and customer disconnections.1 • On March 19, 2020, SoCalGas began to voluntarily schedule reconnections for customers disconnected for non-payment since January 1, 2020 regardless of payment status and waived reconnection fees for all customer reconnections. • SoCalGas will reassess its scheduling capacity requirements when collections activities resume at the end of the Commission’s moratorium on electric and gas service disconnections for nonpayment. • SoCalGas’s goal is to reconnect service within 24 hours of payment and customer’s request to restore service, as required by OP 49 in the recent Disconnections Decision (D.20-06-003).2

COMMENTS

Public Utilities Code Section 311(g)(1) provides that this resolution must be served on all parties and subject to at least 30 days public review. Please note that comments are due 20 days from the mailing date of this resolution. Section 311(g)(2) provides that this 30-day review period and 20-day comment period may be reduced or waived upon the stipulation of all parties in the proceeding.

The 30-day review and 20-day comment period for the draft of this resolution was neither waived nor reduced. Accordingly, this draft resolution was mailed

1 CPUC Resolution M-4842, “Emergency Authorization and Order Directing Utilities to Implement Emergency Customer Protections to Support California Customers During the COVID-19 Pandemic” https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUCWebsite/Content/News_Room/NewsUpdates/2020/Final%20Resolutio n%20M-4842.pdf 2 D.20-06-003, "Phase 1 Decision Adopting Rules and Policy Changes to Reduce Residential Customer Disconnections for the Larger California-Jurisdictional Energy Utilities” https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M340/K648/340648092.PDF

5 Resolution G-3575 December 3, 2020 Southern California Gas Company AL 5607-G to parties for comments on October 29, 2020. The Commission did not receive any comments on the draft resolution.

FINDINGS

1. In D.19-09-051, the Commission found that the funding level for SoCalGas’s Customer Services Field (CS-F) Operations should not be below 2016 recorded costs of $112.435 million to ensure that SoCalGas has the necessary funding to provide adequate levels of customer service. 2. CS-F Operations consists of both labor and non-labor expenses for field technicians who provide services at customer premises, and includes both customer- and company-generated work orders. 3. SoCalGas’s total forecast for CS-F Operations was less than recorded costs for 2016 due to reduced activities, reduced costs, and some savings from efficiencies. 4. On December 28, 2017, then-Executive Director Timothy Sullivan sent a letter to Dan Skopec, Sempra Energy’s Vice President for Regulatory Affairs, explaining that CAB had heard from many SoCalGas customers angry about long delays in reconnecting service following disconnections for non- payment, and that the number of complaints dramatically exceeded those lodged against other investor-owned utilities (IOUs) during the same time period. 5. Executive Director Sullivan noted that extended service shut-offs present a direct risk to health and human safety, and therefore urged SoCalGas to commit to restoring service to customers within 36 hours of receiving payment, which is in line with the practices of other IOUs. 6. To ensure that SoCalGas has sufficient funding for program improvements necessary to restore service within 36 hours to customers that have been disconnected for non-payment and are eligible for reconnection, SoCalGas was ordered to file a Tier 3 AL within 180 days from the effective date of adoption of D.19-09-051 certifying that it is dedicating the $0.859 million difference between 2016 recorded costs and its test year (TY) 2019 forecast to the necessary program improvements. 7. On March 24, 2020, SoCalGas filed AL 5607-G certifying that it complied with the requirements ordered in OP 19 of D.19-09-051 by improving customer

6 Resolution G-3575 December 3, 2020 Southern California Gas Company AL 5607-G

reconnection times in order to lower the level of customer complaints related to reconnections scheduling. 8. SoCalGas also improved customer wait times related to safety concerns and service requests, and provided equally reasonable wait times for customers seeking assistance across all languages. 9. AL 5607-G complies with D.19-09-051

THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED THAT:

1. The requirement that SoCalGas update the Commission on its activities related to customer service reconnections and other customer wait times, as ordered in OP 19 of D.19-09-051 and as submitted in AL 5607-G, is fulfilled.

This Resolution is effective today.

I certify that the foregoing resolution was duly introduced, passed and adopted at a conference of the Public Utilities Commission of the State of California held on December 3, 2020; the following Commissioners voting favorably thereon:

/s/ Rachel Peterson RACHEL A. PETERSON Acting Executive Director

MARYBEL BATJER President LIANE M. RANDOLPH MARTHA GUZMAN ACEVES CLIFFORD RECHTSCHAFFEN GENEVIEVE SHIROMA Commissioners

7