Accelerated large load growth has helped PG&E cut electric rates for the fourth time in two years, but wildfire costs continue to drag down affordability measures, PG&E Corporation CEO Patti Poppe said Thursday during a fourth-quarter earnings call.
The company's total large load pipeline declined from 9.6 GW in September 2025 to 7.3 GW at the end of the year, but more projects are entering final engineering phases. PG&E maintains that it can reduce customers’ electric bills by about 1% for each gigawatt of new load on the system.
Beyond data centers, Poppe said rapid EV adoption is driving demand for electricity in the PG&E service territory, and that the company also expects to see some growth from California’s manufacturing sector.
“You do not think about California when you think about manufacturing, but let me remind everyone on this call that California manufactures more products than any other state in the nation,” she said. “I expect that those companies intend to grow, and so we are working to make sure that we can supply their growth as well, whether it is robotics or silicon manufacturing equipment and chip manufacturing equipment. That all lives here.”
Carolyn Burke, PG&E Corporation’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said the company did not plan to update its $73 billion capital plan at this time despite its view that there could be an additional $5 billion in growth opportunities on the horizon. The company's current valuation would not support expanding the plan, she said, so the company plans to focus on affordability and prioritizing capital associated with new load growth that would help lower electric rates.
The company does not plan to issue any new equity under its current five-year plan, but will issue up to $4.6 billion in debt in 2026 as it focuses on achieving investment-grade credit ratings, Burke said. Although Fitch Ratings upgraded PG&E's credit ratings last September, other credit rating agencies have declined to do so pending California wildfire policy reforms, Poppe said.
The California Earthquake Authority, which oversees the state's Wildfire Fund that reimburses utilities for wildfire-related legal claims, is expected to issue a report with recommendations for reforms on April 1. That report is expected to trigger a legislative process to reform the fund that Poppe said she hopes will result in new legislation before the end of the session.
While Poppe said she wasn’t ready to take a position on specific reforms, she said she agreed with a Jan. 30 report by the California Public Utilities Commission that the current structure of the fund is “regressive” and unfairly burdens ratepayers.
“It is hard for people to believe and see that you can raise profits and lower rates all at the same time. That is why our performance is so important and why our mantra that performance is power really holds true at this time as we work to educate all of the legislators...that we can, in fact, invest in long-term infrastructure, make the system safe, make the system resilient and lower costs,” Poppe said.
If the legislative process does not yield effective reforms, Poppe said all aspects of the company's current plans would be subject to re-evaluation to ensure progress toward investment-grade credit ratings.
“The current valuation is absolutely not sustainable,” she said “And we are ringing that bell in every corner of California that we can find and in every conversation to make sure that people understand the value of the investor-owned utility model and how important attracting low-cost, high quality investment is.”
