How Strange! Electricity Prices In California Substantially Higher From Investor-Owned Utilites Than From Public Ones! [View all]

Electricity rates are on the rise across the country, but nowhere has the increase been more precipitous than in California, where average residential rates surged 47 percent from 2019 to 2023, and are now twice as high as the national average. Experts point to increased utility spending on wildfire safety and recovery measures, distribution infrastructure and to a lesser degree, clean energy programs, as some of the reasons for skyrocketing power prices in the state.

But recent analyses also show another trend—a growing gap between the rates charged by investor-owned utilities and those of publicly owned electricity providers. That’s happening in many regions of the country, but especially in California, where average rates for the investor-owned utilities Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) rose between 48 and 67 percent during that same four year period. Their rates are over 50 percent higher than average rates for municipal utilities like the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.

Frustrated with their investor-owned utilities, a number of communities across the country have pushed for municipal takeovers in recent years. Initiatives to buy out private electric companies failed at the ballot in Maine and San Diego in 2023 and 2024, but Ann Arbor, Michigan, is building its own utility to operate alongside its private provider with the hope that public ownership will lead to more efficient service, a faster transition to renewable energy and lower bills.

In California, while the days of Gov. Gavin Newsom and powerful state lawmakers calling openly for a state takeover of Pacific Gas and Electric may be over, calls for public buyouts continue. In Ventura County, supervisors voted in January to look into creating a not-for-profit municipal utility to replace Southern California Edison, citing repeated power outages and a lack of communication. And Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted to set the ground rules for an independent assessment of what it would cost for San Francisco to take over a portion of PG&E’s grid, a vision city officials have continued to pursue since the company rejected their $2.5 billion offer in 2019.

EDIT

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05112025/california-investor-owned-utilities-vs-public-utilities/