Latest news with #PublicUtilitiesCommission
Politico
2 days ago
- Business
- Politico
Gridlock on the Western grid
With help from Noah Baustin, Alex Nieves and Saqib Rahim POWER PLAYS: California wants to lead the West into a unified electricity market. The problem? California. Lawmakers have just over a month to salvage legislation that could reshape the Western power grid. Forming an independent West-wide grid operator to manage electricity trading a day ahead of time, as Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers are proposing, would expand on the real-time trading market already run by California's grid operator. The promised benefits include more easily exporting the state's surplus solar during the daytime and tapping the Pacific Northwest's steady hydropower during the evening, when solar goes down and power demand spikes. The catch: California wants to drive the transition, and the rest of the West won't get in the car unless it lets go of the wheel. Former Public Utilities Commission President Loretta Lynch, one of the foremost opponents, warned lawmakers this spring that the new regional grid would 'give up control of the pilot seat' and expose Californians to higher costs and out-of-state fossil fuels. Ratepayer advocates and some environmental groups have echoed the concerns — pushing for tighter legal safeguards in case legal challengers or the Trump administration try to use a new regional grid to undercut California's leading renewable energy laws. (Meanwhile, East Coast Democrats have been bashing their own regional grid operator for rising power costs.) Backers, both inside and outside California, say the fears are overblown. They're also running out of time. A rival regional market based in Arkansas is gaining traction, winning commitments from Arizona and Washington utilities that once considered teaming with California. They cited a more palatable governance structure even if costs might be lower in California. (Still up for grabs: energy providers in states like Colorado, New Mexico and Idaho.) 'If we don't do this, then we could lose all of our neighbors to the market out of Arkansas,' said Sen. Josh Becker, author of the bill, SB 540, that would pave the way for California to set up the regional grid. 'It can't look like, and it can't actually be, a California-dominated market.' But amendments Becker took in May to get through the Senate Appropriations Committee — which added a California oversight council made up of lawmakers with power to pull out of the new market — have spooked backers. Environmental groups that once co-sponsored the bill have pulled their support, warning that the new structure is too California-centric to attract other states. Utilities central to California's plan, including Pacific Gas & Electric and PacifiCorp, told lawmakers that the new bill could drive trading partners to sign on to the rival market instead, which would drive up the cost of getting energy in moments of grid stress. Becker said he's gotten an earful across state lines. At last month's National Caucus of Environmental Legislators meeting, Oregon lawmakers pulled him aside during dinner to press for an update. 'They really want this to happen,' he said. He's also heard from curious (but largely agnostic) Utah and Washington legislators, he said. The effort still has momentum. The bill passed the Senate unanimously in June, with strong backing from Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire. This month, both Newsom and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas publicly pledged to stand up the regional grid, with Newsom calling it 'our best shot at lowering energy costs' in a year dominated by affordability concerns. They stopped short of endorsing the current version of SB 540, however. Becker said the bill is 'untenable' as written but that he expects to amend the bill once lawmakers return from summer recess on Aug. 18. Even if it passes, the deal isn't done. Kathleen Staks, executive director of Western Freedom, an organization representing large industrial and commercial power customers who want a regional grid, and a key leader of the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative, said her main focus right now was keeping the coalition together — a broad group that includes utilities who've already committed to California's regional grid like PacifiCorp, companies like Amazon and Rivian, and former skeptics like labor unions, who were worried about ceding control over California's energy but were mollified by backers promising that wouldn't happen. 'When you're talking about that kind of an investment, you need some certainty — and creating that certainty from California is really critical,' Staks said. 'Being able to build trust that has been lost, and maybe in some places was never even there, is going to be what we have to work on next.' — CvK Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here! CUTTING THE LINE: California is on its way to establishing 30 experimental gas-free communities. On Thursday, scores of people eagerly urged the California Public Utilities Commission not to choose their town. 'I really like my gas appliances. I don't want to get rid of them,' said one Costa Mesa caller during the agency's public forum on designating 'neighborhood decarbonization zones.' A similar sentiment was shared by many commenters, perhaps a sign that a Southern California Gas Co. email blast encouraging customers to weigh in at the forum hit home. But the opposition was far from unanimous. A City of Santa Barbara staffer called in expressing the municipality's interest in participating in the program. The controversy stems from the 2024 passage of SB 1221, which instructed the CPUC to set up pilot project zones in which utilities would be relieved of their obligation to provide natural gas in the area to help customers instead transition to zero-emission alternatives. In July, California's utilities submitted maps showing where they planned to replace pipelines in coming years. But Denise Grab, energy law and policy project director for the UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, worries that the maps highlight such a wide swath of locations that it could overwhelm the CPUC, slowing the program's progress. 'When everything is a priority (neighborhood decarbonization zone), nothing is a priority,' Grab wrote in a post on Legal Planet. Pacific Gas & Electric, SoCalGas and San Diego Gas & Electric didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. The agency has until Jan. 1, 2026, to choose its priority neighborhoods, and another six months to set up the pilot programs. Energy customers in the chosen zones will get a chance to vote on whether they want to participate, and a community will need at least 67 percent of customers' ayes to set up a pilot. — NB RETURN OF THE SUN: The California Supreme Court gave rooftop solar advocates a small win Thursday. The state's highest court ruled that a lower court had deferred too much to state utility regulators when it upheld the California Public Utilities Commission' 2022 decision to slash incentives to new rooftop solar customers. The case now goes back to the court of appeals, where a judge will have to consider the arguments for and against with fresh eyes. The decision means the fight over the payments rooftop solar customers get from selling energy back to the grid through a process called 'net metering' will continue on. But it also has broader implications for the CPUC, which is now on the back foot in other legal disputes over its various decisions. 'This is the highest court in the state saying, 'Look, you have to follow the law closely,'' said Roger Lin, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs alongside the Environmental Working Group and the Protect Our Communities Foundation. Terrie Prosper, a CPUC spokesperson, said the agency appreciates 'the Court's careful attention to the appropriate standard of deference for reviewing CPUC decisions.' 'We are pleased that the CPUC's decision will remain in effect as an important part of controlling electricity bills,' she said. — CvK SMOG SETTLEMENT: U.S. EPA officials have agreed to issue a decision by next month on whether the Central Valley is out of compliance with federal standards for smog-forming ozone. The agency agreed in a proposed lawsuit settlement released Thursday to issue a final rule by Sept. 15 on whether the San Joaquin Valley meets the 1997 federal ozone standard of 80 parts per billion, Sean Reilly reports for POLITICO's E&E News. If a judge approves the deal between EPA and groups, including the Committee for a Better Arvin and the Sierra Club, federal officials would also face a January deadline to decide on a 'contingency measure' to cut vehicle tailpipe pollution in the region. The Central Valley and Southern California consistently rank among the smoggiest regions in the U.S, and are both in 'extreme' nonattainment for ozone, the lowest ranking on EPA's scale. Ozone is the main component of smog, which increases the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. — AN, SR DISASTER DRAMA: The insurance industry is pushing back on Sen. Adam Schiff's attempt to create a federal backstop to stabilize state insurance markets. Congressional Democrats are proposing a federal reinsurance program that would cap the amount insurers pay in claims after large disasters. The program, funded by premiums, would pay out the remainder of the claim after the cap is reached. The American Property Casualty Insurance Association and National Association of Mutual Insurance Cos. warn that the proposal would create incentives for people to live in high-risk areas and artificially suppress rates, as Saqib Rahim reports for POLITICO's E&E News. Schiff's bill is an attempt to lower the cost of reinsurance, essentially insurance for insurance companies, which providers buy to pay a portion of claims after a catastrophic event — like the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year. Schiff introduced a similar bill in 2024 while serving in the House. That effort died in committee. — AN, SR — New research finds that ropeless fishing gear can avoid whale entanglements while also preserving yield for commercial Dungeness crab fishermen. — A new giant solar-plus-storage power plant in the Mojave Desert will power seven percent of the city of Los Angeles. — Venture capital funding for solar companies fell significantly in the first half of this year — but project acquisitions and mergers picked up.
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
California Supreme Court sides with environmental groups in rooftop solar case
The California Supreme Court sided with environmental groups in a Thursday ruling, saying that state lawyers were wrong in their claim that the Public Utilities Commission's decision to slash rooftop solar incentives could not be challenged. The unanimous decision sends the case brought by the three groups back to the appeals court. The groups argue the utilities commission violated state law in 2022 when it cut the value of the credits that panel owners receive for sending their unused power to the electric grid by as much as 80%. The rules apply to Californians installing the panels after April 14, 2023. The Supreme Court justices said the appeals court erred in Jan. 2024 when it ruled against the environmental groups. In that decision, the appeals court said that courts must defer to how the commission interpreted the law because it had more expertise in utility matters. 'This deferential standard of review leaves no basis for faulting the Commission's work,' the appeals court had concluded then in its opinion. The environmental groups argued the appeals court ignored a 1998 law that said the commission's decisions should be held to the same standard of court review as those by other state agencies. 'The California Supreme Court has ruled in our favor that the CPUC is not above the law,' said Bernadette Del Chiaro, senior vice president at the Environmental Working Group, after Thursday's decision was published. The other groups filing the case are the Center for Biological Diversity and The Protect Our Communities Foundation. The utilities commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the ruling. More than 2 million solar systems sit on the roofs of homes, businesses and schools in California — more than any other state. Environmentalists say that number must increase if the state is to meet its goal, set by a 2018 law, of using only carbon-free energy by 2045. The utilities commission has said that the credits given to the rooftop panel owners on their electric bill have become so valuable that they were resulting in 'a cost shift' of billions of dollars to those who do not own the panels. This has raised electric bills, especially hurting low-income electric customers, the commission says. The credits for energy sent by the rooftop systems to the grid had been valued at the retail rate for electricity, which has risen fast as the commission has voted in recent years to approve rate increases the utilities have requested. The state's three big for-profit electric utilities — Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric — have sided with commission in the case. The utilities have long complained that electric bills have been rising because owners of the rooftop solar panels are not paying their fair share of the fixed costs required to maintain the electric grid. For decades, the utilities have worked to reduce the energy credits aimed at incentivizing Californians to invest in the solar panel systems. The rooftop systems have cut into the utilities' sale of electricity.
Los Angeles Times
01-08-2025
- General
- Los Angeles Times
‘This fire could have been prevented': How utilities fought removal of old power lines
The abandoned power line suspected of igniting the Eaton fire could have been removed years ago under a rule proposed by state Public Utilities Commission staffers, but the regulation was weakened amid opposition from Southern California Edison and other utilities, according to records and interviews. State regulators have long known that old transmission lines could set off wildfires, and in 2001 they proposed a safety rule that would have forced Edison and other electric companies to remove abandoned lines unless they could prove they would use them in the future. Amid opposition from the utility companies, the Public Utilities Commission studied the proposal for several years, ultimately watering it down to allow the old lines to remain up until executives decided they were 'permanently abandoned,' records show. One of those old transmission lines, Edison's Mesa-Sylmar line that last saw service during the Vietnam War, is at the center of dozens of lawsuits claiming it ignited the devastating Eaton fire on Jan. 7. The inferno roared through Altadena, killing 19 people and destroying 9,400 homes and other structures. Edison has said a leading theory of the fire's cause is that the century-old line somehow briefly re-energized, creating an arc that sparked the wildfire. The investigation is continuing. Raffy Stepanian, an electrical engineer who was part of the commission's safety team that proposed the 2001 rule to take down abandoned lines, said commission members dialed back the regulation under fierce lobbying by the state's utilities. 'There was a lot of pressure on us to agree with utilities on everything,' Stepanian said, adding that the utilities 'pretty much wrote those rules.' Now retired from the commission, Stepanian lives in Altadena. His house survived the Eaton fire, but homes adjoining his property were destroyed. 'This fire could have been prevented,' he said. Edison, responding to questions from The Times, said the company kept the Mesa-Sylmar transmission line in place because it thought it might need the line in the future. It last transported electricity in 1971. 'We have these inactive lines still available because there is a reasonable chance we're going to use them in the future,' said Shinjini Menon, Edison's senior vice president of system planning and engineering. Menon said the company inspects and maintains the dormant lines to ensure their safety. Loretta Lynch, the commission's president in 2001 when the changes were proposed, said she remembers the safety staff coming to her and explaining why the rules needed to be strengthened. But the effort met with resistance from utility executives, she said. Ultimately, the commission allowed the utilities to debate the rules at dozens of workshops over two years. The weakened proposal was approved in 2005, less than two weeks after Lynch's term had expired. Lynch's departure left just three people on the five-member commission, which was chaired by Michael Peevey, the former president of Edison International, Southern California Edison's parent company. 'The folks who were trying to improve safety got pulled into a back room with a bunch of industry participants and what happened was a final decision that rolled back safety regulations,' Lynch said. In an interview this week, Peevey acknowledged that in the hindsight of 20 years, a time when utilities have repeatedly sparked some of the biggest wildfires in the state, the commission might have acted differently. 'If we knew then what we know now, perhaps we would have come to a different conclusion,' he said. The other commissioners who approved the rule were Susan Kennedy, who was chief of staff for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Geoffrey Brown, an attorney and cousin of former Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown said he couldn't recall the details of the vote. Kennedy had no immediate comment. In the years since the commission's 2005 decision, abandoned power lines have continued to pose a threat, with hundreds of miles of the unused transmission lines running like spider webs through California. In 2019, investigators traced the Kincade fire in Sonoma County, which destroyed 374 homes and other structures, to an abandoned line owned by Pacific Gas & Electric. After the Eaton fire, PUC executive director Rachel Peterson was called before the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee to address how the agency monitors abandoned power lines. 'If we wanted to know where all of the inactive lines are, is there a place where we can get that information?' asked Assemblywoman Rhodesia Ransom (D-Tracy). 'Not as of today, Assemblymember,' Peterson replied. 'And I would, I guess, I'd say in part because the service territories are so large and the pieces of equipment are so numerous that a registry of a specific element may or may not exist. However, we'll take that back and look at it.' 'Is there a timeline requirement for them to remove abandoned lines?' asked Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo (D-Santa Clarita). 'There's no timeline,' Peterson responded. Terrie Prosper, a commission spokeswoman, wrote in an email that the commission expects the companies to inspect and safely maintain the dormant lines just as it does for those that are energized. 'Requiring utilities to remove power lines prematurely … would be shortsighted and could significantly raise bills for utility customers,' Prosper wrote. She declined to make officials available for interviews. Edison said earlier this year that the unused transmission line in Eaton Canyon may have become energized through induction, a process where magnetic fields created by nearby live lines cause the dormant line to electrify. The company built two transmission lines that run parallel to the dormant Mesa-Sylmar line. They were energized when videos captured the Eaton fire igniting under one of the Mesa-Sylmar transmission towers. After the 2019 Kincade fire, PG&E said it had agreed with the commission to remove 262 miles of lines that had no future use. The company said it would prioritize the removal of those where the risk of induction was high. 'At the right conditions, failing idle facilities can pose significant wildfire and safety risks,' PG&E wrote in its plan to remove the lines. Edison says it has 465 miles of idle transmission lines in its territory. Kathleen Dunleavy, an Edison spokeswoman, said the company could not release the locations of those lines because it was 'considered confidential.' How to define 'abandoned' State utility rules have long stated that 'permanently abandoned' lines must be removed so they 'shall not become a public nuisance or a hazard to life or property.' But utilities and commission safety staff sometimes disagreed on what lines had been abandoned. In 2001, when the commission and its staff proposed strengthening the rule, Edison was challenging the agency's finding that it had violated it by failing to remove an electric line at a Lancaster home that had been demolished. A man who Edison said was attempting to steal equipment had climbed the pole and been electrocuted, according to commission documents. Edison told the safety staff that it had a pending order for service to be re-installed to the property, arguing it was not abandoned. Staff later discovered there was no such work order, according to the commission's investigation into the death. To strengthen the rule, the commission said in a January 2001 order that it would define permanently abandoned lines as any line out of service 'unless the owner can demonstrate with appropriate documentation' how it would be used in the future. Edison and other utilities objected to that proposal and a dozen other rule changes the commission had proposed, asking for the plan to be debated at a workshop, documents show. Ultimately, an administrative law judge at the commission allowed 50 days of workshops over the course of two years. The judge also allowed Edison and other utilities to pay $180,000 to choose and hire a consultant to facilitate the workshops, according to commission documents. The goal of the workshops, according to a commission document, was 'to gather parties' views and attempt to narrow disagreement.' At the workshops, one or two of the commission's safety staff defended the proposal while listening to comments from dozens of employees from the electric utilities and the telecommunications companies, according to an utility industry website that kept executives apprised of the developments. The companies did not just want to debate the commission's proposed rule changes. Documents show the companies suggested 50 other changes to the safety rules, including some that would significantly weaken them. Lynch, the former commission president, called the workshops 'the worst way to go about fact-finding on what is needed to ensure safety' and said the utility-paid facilitator had 'unheard of' powers in drafting the workshop notes, which were incorporated into the commission's final decision. In the final wording, gone from the proposal was any requirement for utilities to document how they planned to use dormant lines in the future. Instead the language revised the rule to define permanently abandoned lines as those 'that are determined by their owner to have no foreseeable future use.' With that definition, utilities could keep their old unused lines up indefinitely if executives believed they might be used in the future. The commission's vote 'perverted the entire intent' of the proposal meant to strengthen the rules, Lynch said. Instead the commission's final decision reduced safety requirements. 'It's very Orwellian,' she said. 'Up is down.' In an interview in July, Connor Flanigan, Edison's managing director of state regulatory operations, pointed out that commission staff had been given the power to block a company proposal at the workshops, which were open to the public. 'When the commission holds these proceedings, they try to be very transparent,' he said. The document outlining the commission's final decision includes quotes from Edison executives praising the workshop process. 'Like most parties, SCE achieved some, but not all, of the rule changes it sought,' the executives said.
Yahoo
29-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Pretty crazy;' Family sees electric bill nearly double, AES Ohio asking for rate increase
A local family said their AES Ohio bill has nearly doubled. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] Amanda Collins, who lives in a two-bedroom house, reported that her electricity bill rose from just under $200 to nearly $400. 'That was pretty crazy for us,' Collins said. TRENDING STORIES: Local BBQ restaurant struck by lightning New surveys rank Dayton as one of the worst bed bug-infested cities in the U.S. Local YMCA branch to permanently close She mentioned that her grandmother turned off her air conditioning to cope with the high electric bills, choosing to endure the heat instead. Mary-Ann Kabel, a spokesperson for AES Ohio, explained that increased air conditioning usage during hotter months contributes to higher bills. AES Ohio has requested a rate increase, which could lead to higher costs depending on individual usage. Kabel suggested using high electricity devices like dryers, ovens, and dishwashers at night to help reduce costs. Collins found a solution by using third-party companies to negotiate her electricity rates, which helped cut her bill in half. 'It's usually about every three months I'm going on there and changing, like the third-party provider on their rates,' Collins said. On Aug. 7 and Aug. 14, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has scheduled public hearings regarding AES Ohio's application to increase electric rates. [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] Solve the daily Crossword
CTV News
16-07-2025
- General
- CTV News
Non-emergency calls flood 911, CKPS reminds of proper channels
The Chatham-Kent Police Service is reminding the public to only use 911 for emergencies, as many concerns about a homeless encampment have been called into the emergency line. CKPS said it is aware of the encampment on Grand Avenue East on the Public Utilities Commission, however said that those experiencing homelessness are allowed to stay there under existing guidelines of Chatham-Kent's Encampment Protocol. You are reminded to only use 911 for emergencies. If you have questions or concerns regarding homeless encampments, you are asked to call 311 or the non-emergency line at 519-436-6600.
