WILDFIRE-RELATED CONTINGENCIES (2017 Northern California Wildfires Background) (Details) - Pacific Gas & Electric Co - 2017 Northern California wildfires a in Thousands, $ in Thousands	3 Months Ended
	Jun. 30, 2018 wildfire	Dec. 31, 2018 USD ($) wildfire incident_report	Oct. 30, 2017 a wildfire fatality structure
Loss Contingencies [Line Items]
Number of wildfires (wildfire)			21
Number of acres burned (acre) | a			245
Number of structures destroyed (structure) | structure			8,900
Number of fatalities (fatality) | fatality			44
Number of fires in which determination has been reported on (wildfire)	16	19
Number of fires cause by trees contact with power lines (wildfire)	4
Number of fires caused by electric power and distribution lines, conductors and the failure of power poles (wildfire)	12
Number of electric incident reports submitted (incident report) | incident_report		23
Property damage coverage per incident | $		$ 50