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However, I do recall back when there were grid problems in Texas a few years ago someone justifying the high prices California paid as due to their high grid reliability and solid regulatory framework (California pay 2x as much IIRC). I'm too far away to really get into the details but it'd be much more interesting to have a comparison on the reliability of the Californian grid compared to other US states and even countries. When it comes to high availability the diminishing returns to spending set in pretty quick and I get the impression there is a slow return to economic reality happening as voters are forcing governments to start paying attention to energy again, environmentalists or otherwise.
The PNW has a more challenging environment with respect to trees pulling down lines than suburban California; I expect two nines of utility power availability here; some years will get three nines. When I was in California, many years had no outages and I don't remember any years where I had less than 99.9% availability. Even when I did eventually decide to get a UPS, it was just because one day there were several brief interruptions.
Obviously, local conditions vary, and I managed to avoid the two recent periods of larger scale grid instability, but at least in my bubble, nobody talked about grid reliability, because it was just there. Plenty of complaints about rates and how long it would take to get service changes.
marketing is marketing
all electricity economics in california is highly manipulated via regulatory capture.
PG&E pays 3-4 cents/kwh wholesale and marks it up 10x because...
it can.
however marketing has "reasons" for this... like "building hte infrastructure for electric vehicles" or "adding reliability that prevents forest fires" or ...
none of that justifies the cost.
seriously, people charging their EVs are paying for the power. Shouldn't this be how PG&E makes money, instead of some exponentially increasing rate table?
it is interesting how people pay reasonable rates in Santa Clara or Palo Alto, which have non-pg&e power companies.
California's rates were rationalized, in part, because California is taking steps to increase reliability. It's been decades seen we've seen rolling blackouts at the hands of Enron. Long-term plans to increase intra-state transmission capacity are in place and are currently being executed (you're welcome to dig them up on the ISO's site). The weather related preemptive power cuts have been pared back dramatically since their introduction. We're talking hundreds of thousands of people without power for days versus hundreds or thousands for hours.
Let's not forget that the "grid problems" you're referring to cost some ratepayers tens of thousands of dollars because that's the sort of retail electric plan that was legal in Texas.
But also please don't lump all Californians one group. PG&E rate payers are extorted for some of the highest electric rates in the nation (as are SDG&E and most IOU rate payers). Folks with access to municipal power in California pay far less.
Ukraine bombs a power station in Russia, hundreds of thousands are left without electricity.
Peaceful winter weather, no major storm, hurricane, earthquake, heat, frost, catastrophic rainfall in SF. 130k people are left without electricity.
In the former two cases, the cause is that something terribly wrong is happening for years. In the latter case, likely, too.
I think there is something to be said for a semi-reliable grid encouraging resilience over time. You can't have it too unreliable, but it seems like there is a sweet spot that encourages high quality contingencies to develop.
It's a shame that, during the sunniest part of the day, grid supply is supplemented by burning fossil fuels, rather than just using the energy from that sun.
A concerning miss in proofreading or am I learning about a new fire-fighting technology today?
Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams https://missionlocal.org/2025/12/sf-waymo-halts-service-blac...
Edit: For non-Americans, landline telephones were highly regulated up until '82 with AT&T having a government sanctioned monopoly.
EDIT: *language, think of the children.
Not that it will necessarily make for fewer blackouts, but a ~50% rate discount would be nice. That's what users in Santa Clara pay IIRC, and SF even owns the hydro generator at O'Shaughnessy Dam.
They own the dam, but the Federal government still owns Hetch Hetchy water and land. Permission to use Hetch Hetchy is governed by the Raker Act, which stipulates[1] that SF can only resell the electricity and water through public municipal districts, not to private utilities:
> Sec. 6. That the grantee is prohibited from ever selling or letting to any corporation or individual, except a municipality or a municipal water district or irrigation district, the right to sell or sublet the water or the electric energy sold or given to it or him by the said grantee:
> Provided, That the rights hereby granted shall not be sold, assigned, or transferred to any private person, corporation, or association, and in case of any attempt to so sell, assign, transfer, or convey, this grant shall revert to the Government of the United States.
The original plan was that SF would build both aqueducts and transmission lines to SF, branches of which could serve other municipal districts. But they only ended up building the aqueducts, and contracted with PG&E to transmit the electricity. The question is, is SF violating the Raker Act? Previous administrations have said no or demurred requests to answer the question; typically the people raising the issue want the dam removed. SF claims PG&E is acting as their agent and everything is above board. But, above board or not, I've read some old articles that suggest there's a 50+ year-old understanding or gentlemen's agreement between SF and PG&E, that PG&E would give the City of SF (if not its residents) sweetheart pricing on transmission, etc, and defend the status quo in DC so long as SF didn't attempt to buildout it's own transmission lines or otherwise cut PG&E out of the loop. But if SF did do that, PG&E would lobby DC to terminate the grants under the Raker Act. From the beginning, many cities in California, and even politicians outside California, have resented the Federal grant to San Francisco, so presumably with the right trigger a very large lobby could quickly arise and demand the Raker Act be replaced with a new deal that gave other municipalities in California a direct stake in Hetch Hetchy. It's even possible PG&E comes out on top, because who's going to transmit the electricity?
Of course, that story leaves alot of unanswered questions. But it sounds plausible to me. With CEQA, etc, there's zero chance SF could ever build out its own transmission lines today; it would take untold billions and, more importantly, decades--far longer than the Raker Act would likely survive. Currently the City of SF basically pays nothing to power its public buildings (schools, etc), MUNI buses and trains, and possibly SFO (which SF owns and operates). The budgetary and logistical upheaval that would happen if the Raker Act grant was rescinded (which, again, almost every other municipality in the state would support) is mind boggling. Even if we assume every mayor has earnestly wanted to cut PG&E out of the loop and do right by SF residents' individual power bills, what sane, term-limited administrator would invite that chaos? Plenty of mayors have broached the subject, but invariably such suggestions silently stop, so presumably it's just a negotiating tactic with PG&E that both sides are very careful not to let get out-of-hand.
[1] https://sfmuseum.org/hetch/hetchy10.html
Then there's the state-wide need to increase transmission capacity because of the switch to renewables, the future politics of which are kinda unpredictable. It's hard to imagine SF getting singled out and left out in the cold, considering the state already has many large municipal utilities getting better deals for their residents.
[0] https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/residents/rates-and-fees
It's also worth noting that PG&E's got a history of astroturfing. Back in the 00s there was a local blogger, Greg Dewar, who ran a blog called the N Judah Chronicles. Ostensibly it was a blog about Muni and transit issues, but when muni power in SF came up for a vote boy was he hopping mad. It wasn't until someone else called him out for being on the PG&E payroll that he owned up to being paid to astroturf.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvu6oBAeJ6E
2. Their dividend yield was 0.8% in 2025, the average for utilities was 3% to 5%. Alaska's APTL was 2.4% to 3.4%
3. Their state lobbying for 2024 to 2025 was less than $4 million. Federal was $60k (both insignificant)
4. California AB 1054 means that almost all of their largest liabilities will be reimbursed via the state wildfire fund. They also have insurance for anything that is not covered. While this won't cover it all the amount actually owned is likely to be low.
I also checked executive bonuses and while the CEOs pay is on the higher end it's not extreme. Not sure how much other executive bonuses could really add up enough to stand on its own as a reason for high electric rates, especially since all your other main arguments seem to be incorrect or exaggerated.
Regarding "back maintenance" this is a standard expense for a utility. Do you have some evidence that it's particularly high for PG&E, taking into account the size of the state?
Why would you make the assumption that the reasons PG&E is expensive(which I haven't even checked) are mostly due to corruption, excess pay or benefits to stock holders, or that the utility has a high liability debt? Most of the reasons you gave are ones that look bad for the leadership of the utility and maybe even the state. Is it possible that due to political propaganda over the long term you default to the assumption that anything a California connected entity does is bad so much so you don't even bother gathering evidence?
Also Hawaii has much higher electric rates than CA.
(Sources for any claims I made are available if requested)
https://www.hawaiianelectric.com/documents/billing_and_payme...
https://www.pge.com/assets/pge/docs/account/rate-plans/resid...
HE is claiming a residential customer will pay around $0.45/kWh which is absolutely on par with PG&E. Keep in mind that HE currently charges fixed fees for electric service, PG&E doesn't yet but will add a fixed fee of $24/mo beginning next year. It shouldn't even be close. Practical Engineering covers it but Hawaiian Electric has some of the biggest challenges of all POCOs.
Pass whatever rules you want. It isn’t going to change the fundamental nature of the org, which is a reflection of the voters. This is a government problem, through and through
That's hilarious. The CPUC is regularory-captured like nobody's business, and our governor has been in the pocket of the utility for as long as I can remember. I guess in some sick way that's "at the behest of the government", but it sure as hell isn't at the behest of voters.
Unfortunately, we rarely have choices in every aspect of political candidates in order to change this state of affairs.
This incentive structure perfectly aligns with most of the dysfunction of PG&E.
So no, it isn't really comparable with a truly government owned public utility.
Monopolies work to enrich themselves, not to provide social benefit.
This is a luxury belief and not borne out by any sort of reality. People have been deciding where they live for millennia and it’s never been easier than today.
It's a beautiful state. There's literal mountains of opportunity here. It's lately all too easy to become irrationally angry at these con artists and their ruinous agendas.
Or is your point that the total lack of checks and balances afforded by the Assembly presents us no additional problems over Willie Brown's current employment?
California has been dealing with the idiocies caused by that ever since.