Fact Brief: Do Santa Clara residents pay a fraction of what San Jose residents pay for electricity?

Yes.

Santa Clara residents get their electricity from Silicon Valley Power, a city-owned utility, and spend significantly less on power than PG&E customers in San Jose.

According to Silicon Valley Power, the average rate for a residential user is $0.182 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), meaning a customer consuming 411 kWh a month would be billed about $75. A PG&E customer with the same energy usage enrolled in a time-of-use plan at peak hours — as of December 2025 — would pay about $201 a month at the company’s rate of $0.48974 kWh — more than double the cost of Silicon Valley Power.

San Jose has explored creating its own municipal electric utility, but a 2025 partnership between the city and PG&E to attract data centers to Silicon Valley has halted that pursuit.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

San José Spotlight partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Sources

• Silicon Valley Power Rates and Fees
• PG&E Energy Statement
• KQED San José and PG&E Strike Deal to Attract Data Centers to South Bay