Russians hack Ukraine’s electricity network, turning lights off and on at will, rendering the country’s best tech hands helpless to intervene. North Korea takes over the controls of a South Korean nuclear power plant. Snipers with high-velocity rifles unleash a fusillade on a transmission station near San Jose, inflicting $15 million in damage. It’s not […]
PG&E rates are already among the highest in the country and have increased by 40% over the last decade compared to 15% nationwide. But the reality is that rates would be far higher if PG&E had spent more on insulating equipment, clearing overgrown vegetation and taking other precautionary measures to reduce wildfire hazards. The PUC […]
Closing perfectly good nuclear power plants decades ahead of schedule is a bad idea if you care about the environment, especially if you care about carbon emissions. That’s because nuclear is the best source of low-carbon energy and actually produces most of our low-carbon electricity, over 800 billion kWhs – twice as much as all […]
Climate change helped fuel the deadly fires that prompted California’s largest power company to announce Monday that it would file for bankruptcy in the face of $30 billion in potential liabilities. In a grim twist, the bankruptcy of PG&E Corp. could now slow California’s efforts to fight climate change. The Golden State has dramatically reduced […]
PG&E Corp.’s plan to file for bankruptcy protection has enormous repercussions for everyone from the homeowners suing the utility for California wildfire damages to the companies that furnish it with green energy. California’s largest utility said Monday it was preparing to file for Chapter 11 protection before the end of the month as it faces […]
With California’s grid going through dramatic changes, San Diego Gas & Electric has approached the Legislature in Sacramento with a proposal that, at least at first blush, sounds pretty radical — it wants to get out of the business of buying and selling electricity. Instead, the company is calling on the state to create a […]
Overwhelmed by billions of dollars in claims from the Camp Fire and the 2017 wildfires of Northern California, PG&E said Monday it plans to file for bankruptcy, but insisted it will not go out of business. The embattled utility gave 15-day notice of its intent to file for protection under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy […]
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. asked regulators Thursday for permission to raise nearly $2 billion in new revenue from ratepayers over three years, starting in 2020, with more than half the proceeds going to cover wildfire prevention work. If it is approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, the proposal would increase an average residential […]
Beginning with a misbegotten and misnamed “deregulation” of the utilities 22 years ago – which drove PG&E into bankruptcy – the state has been, by legislation and regulatory decrees, increasingly micromanaging how they generate, distribute and price electric power. They have slowly evolved into quasi-governmental entities while maintaining the façade of private ownership, but without […]
Already paying some of the highest electricity prices in the country, customers of California’s largest utility, PG&E Corp. could soon face large rate increases due to the state’s catastrophic wildfires. PG&E asked state regulators on Thursday to approve a plan to sharply increase revenues it seeks from customers over a three-year period, with a hike […]
How much of wildfire costs not covered by insurance should be paid by California’s giant investor-owner utilities has been a significant issue since at least 2007. That’s when wildfires ravaged northern and eastern San Diego County, killing two people and destroying more than 1,300 homes. San Diego Gas & Electric argued that it should be […]
A California regulator said late Thursday that it was expanding a probe of PG&E Corp.’s P safety practices to explore the way the company is managed and run, including whether it should be broken up. “I will open a new phase examining the corporate governance, structure, and operation of PG&E, including in light of the […]
SMUD officials say the new system is revenue neutral, meaning that ratepayers overall should end up paying the same annually as they do under the current system because of lower winter rates. But, as the chart below shows, many ratepayers will be hit with price shock during summer months, including a price spike in July […]
A year-over-year review by the Union-Tribune of electricity rate charges by the three investor-owned utilities shows SDG&E’s rates are not only higher than their cohorts but they have also been rising faster. Residential baseline rates during the summer months from June 1 through Oct. 1 have gone up 80.7 percent since January 2014. . . […]
California’s biggest electric utility wants the U.S. government to keep its current auto emission standards, which it says is critical to advance the adoption of electric cars. PG&E Corp. plans to invest $360 million to support electric car charging infrastructure and “we want a stable environment for our investors and customers,” Anna Brooks, senior manager […]