Chastened yet, Public Utilities Commission?

"These regulated monopolies [investor owned utilities] enjoy the same protection given to the telephone system prior to the 1970s, when rotary-dial phones came only in black, were owned by the monopoly and were rented to consumers who had no other option. Utilities hold a similar and largely unchallenged control over electricity. . ." This quote is from An Electric Revolution by the Galvin Electricity Initiative, which was founded by former Motorola CEO Robert Galvin. We don't have a choice in San Diego. We have a monopoly that won't relinquish its 19th century centralized power distribution model and wants us to live in the past with them. This is why the City of San Diego is overseeing a feasibility study of Community Choice Energy (aka Aggregation). With Community Choice here is what you get: 1) More renewables at competitive rates. Community Choice providers, such as the two already at work in California, offer their customers much more clean energy than the monopoly. In Sonoma County (www.sonomacleanpower.org) customers can choose 33% or 100% clean energy plans. In Marin County (www.mcecleanenergy.com) customers can choose 50% or 100% plans. In both places the rates for residential and business customers are either beating PG&E outright or are highly competitive. 2) Local control. With Community Choice a board of directors from our participating local governments would set rates for customers in public meetings using a process that encourages public participation and values transparency. 3) Local reinvestment. Millions of dollars leave San Diego County each year to pay for electric generation. Not with Community Choice. Over time, a Community Choice provider would buy increasing amounts of power from local sources, such as rooftop solar, while serving as a catalyst for local job creation. SDG&E fears Community Choice so much that they recently backed a bill (AB 2145) that would have prevented us from launching it here had it not died in the state senate. If you want more fossil fuel power plants, like the ones SDG&E wants to build in Otay Mesa and Carlsbad at a cost of over $4 billion to electricity customers, more greenhouse gases, and more air pollution, keep living in the past with SDG&E. It you would like to have the control over our energy destiny that Community Choice delivers please join Friends of San Diego Clean Energy, a partnership of Sierra Club, SD350.org, and the California Solar Energy Industries Association (the wonderful businesses putting solar on our rooftops). You can reach me at [email protected].
— September 17, 2014 9:36 a.m.

California Public Utilities commissioner Ferron resigns

Here are the full paragraphs of Commissioner Ferron's comments related to the investor owned utility companies like SDG&E: "We are fortunate to have utilities in California that are orders of magnitude more enlightened than their brethren in the coal-loving states, although I suspect that they would still dearly like to strangle rooftop solar if they could. Modern utilities are subject to a rapidly evolving business environment, and I wonder whether some top managers at our utilities have the ability or the will to understand and control the far-flung and complex organizations they oversee. And I am very worried about our utilities’ commitment to their side of the regulatory compact. We at the Commission need to watch our utilities’ management and their legal and compliance advisors very, very carefully: it is clear to me that the legalistic, confrontational approach to regulation is alive and well. Their strategy is often: “we will give the Commission only what they explicitly order us to give them”. This is cat and mouse, not partnership, so we have to be one smart and aggressive cat." "Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, with the passage of AB327, the thorny issue of Net Energy Metering and rate design has been given over to the CPUC. But recognize that this is a poisoned chalice: the Commission will come under intense pressure to use this authority to protect the interest of the utilities over those of consumers and potential self-generators, all in the name of addressing exaggerated concerns about grid stability, cost and fairness. You – my fellow Commissioners - all must be bold and forthright in defending and strengthening our state’s commitment to clean and distributed energy generation." His words of caution and advice are especially timely as the CPUC gets ready to issue decisions on whether or not our region gets saddled for decades with new fossil fuel power plants like the proposed Pio Pico gas plant in Otay Mesa and others that SDG&E wants to build around the region. SDG&E's power plant scheme is to charge electricity customers billions of dollars for power plants that we don't need while they "strangle rooftop solar" in the state legislature and at the CPUC.
— January 17, 2014 9:53 p.m.

Rooftop solar users worry SDG&E will raise rates

FixMyEnergyBill should be honest and tell everyone who they really are: Sempra/SDG&E. Matt Potter reported today on the Independent Voter PAC, which is the only identification on the FixMyEnergyBill website. He explained how Sempra recently dropped $65,000 on the PAC which immediately turned around and created the FixMyEnergyBill social media campaign to give the false appearance of objectivity and concern for electricity customers as they push AB 327 to stick it to us. Morgan Lee at the UT did a story on this sham in today's business section. AB 327 is nothing more than an attack on all the economic and environmental progress we have made through the local rooftop solar and energy efficiency industries. Local permanent jobs, immense savings for electricity customers, and less demand on the grid--which has helped prevent blackouts--are the benefits of these industries. Instead, SDG&E would rather build more and more 20th century dirty natural gas plants, such as the proposed $1.6 billion Pio Pico plant in Otay Mesa, that are paid for by electricity customers. Pio Pico would provide less than twenty permanent jobs, add to our poor air quality, and ramp up greenhouse gas emissions. Sempra/SDG&E should have the decency to not hide behind a PAC that insults our intelligence with the words "independent voter" in its name.
— August 21, 2013 12:32 a.m.

Peace gets a chance with Sempra-bankrolled web design

The $65,000 Sempra dumped into the Independent Voter PAC bought them a social media campaign called Fix My Energy Bill that tries to pass itself off as an objective, electricity customer friendly voice. They are using it to post comments on articles, including those in the Reader and UT. Their website says paid for by Independent Voter PAC with no mention of Sempra/SDG&E, the real money behind it. The UT ran a story in their business section today exposing this sham. SDG&E is seeking a fixed charge on all residential customers that will diminish the appeal to go solar and do energy efficiency upgrades because, with the fixed charge, you are stuck paying it no matter how much energy you conserve or generate yourself with solar. AB 327 is bad for our local solar industry, bad for electricity customers, and bad for the fight against climate change. SDG&E is in full attack mode on rooftop solar. They would rather build more fossil fuel gas plants, like the proposed $1.6 billion Pio Pico plant in Otay Mesa, and charge electricity customers for them.
— August 21, 2013 12:14 a.m.