By Jay Powell
Hold on to your wallets, you are about to get walloped. International energy giant Sempra Energy, owners of SDG&E, have set up a front group called “Fix My Energy Bill” to promote a whopping $120 per year fixed charge on every residential electric customer bill in the State of California. It is pending in the State Senate in the waning days of this legislative session.
What started out as a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Perea from Fresno to ostensibly help poor elderly folks sweltering in the Central Valley heat be able to afford air conditioning, AB 327 has morphed into a full blown attack on working families ability to control their energy bills and to make homeowner investments in energy efficiency devices and improvements including roof top solar much more difficult.
The Sierra Club and local and state solar industry representatives are trying to blunt this latest proposal by the three huge investor owned utilities Pacific Gas and Electric, SoCal Edison and SDG&E to perpetuate their antiquated business plans that depends on them building more and more power plants and huge transmission lines.
NEWS FLASH: Run with the Sun will be joining California Solar Energy Industry Association representatives and Supervisor Diane Jacob at a news conference Wednesday, August 28 at 11 am at the steps of SEMPRA, 101 Ash Street to address the problems with this attempt to “fix “your energy bill in Sacramento.
Earlier this year the state Public Utilities Commission denied SDG&Es request to purchase power from two new power plants proposed for San Diego, including the Quail Brush plant on designated open space across the road from Mission Trails park, finding that there was not a need. But they did grant SDG&E a huge 12% increase in rates.
Why all the squawking from Sempra pals, when they just got a rate increase? Well, if that rate increase is hitched to a system that rewards lower energy using customers with a lower rate and more of your customers are choosing to invest in ways to use less energy, you are going to run out of people to foot the bill for what could well be an over built system, let alone one that adds more power plants.
But wait! San Onofre Nuclear Generating Stations (with the delightful acronym, “SONGS”) has been shut down permanently. That means the 440 Megawatt (MW) share of power going to SDG&E vanished. Actually it vanished 20 months ago when they discovered the damaged steam generators. And we have been doing quite well without it.
At a joint task force workshop with all the leaders of the California Energy Commission and PUC and Independent System Operator and Air Resources Board and Water Resources Board there was a lot of hand wringing over what to do about the SONGS shutdown.
SDG&E, part owner of SONGS lost no time upon the announcement in reapplying to the PUC for authorization to buy 300 MWs of power from the proposed Pio Pico power plant in east Otay Mesa. In case you missed it in the 10 point type note in your power bill a couple of months ago, this will cost SDG&E customers another $1.6 Billion over the next couple of decades.
But data provided by local energy consultant Bill Powers on behalf of the Sierra Club to that task force record has shown that there is already a glut of new gas-fired power coming on line in Southern California.
In addition, Powers has cited national data that shows that utilities nationwide are facing a very serious prospect of not being able to build more power plants and derive their guaranteed rate of return profits from those facilities because home and business owners have done an incredible job of reducing their net energy consumption. Appliances and buildings are much more efficient and many are putting solar energy on their roofs to the extent that they are net energy producers!
In San Diego County alone there is a conservative estimate of 7,000 MWs roof top and parking lot cover solar generation possible. That is over three times what SONGs was putting out. And it doesn’t take 2.3 Billlion Gallons of seawater a day to cool it. Nor does it release more Greenhouse gases or require more expensive power lines. It just puts the juice in the existing lines to run down the block to your neighboring homes and businesses.
The benefits to everyone are manifold. Cleaner air, more well paying jobs, energy independence. But it doesn’t work for Sempra. And they don’t want to try to help us all make the transition to the promise such a community-based, local clean energy future represents.
Instead, Sempra is paying for lobbyists and websites and public relations folks to push this latest special interest bill through the state legislature. The genesis of the Fix My Energy Bill front group was touched on in a U-T San Diego August 21 article by reporter Morgan Lee.
The funding by Sempra for the website and other work in support of AB 327 was funneled through the “Independent Voter PAC” , a part of a network of organizations that include principals Steve Peace and Peace’s former chief of staff David Takashima. The work was done by “IVC, LLC” headed by Peace’s son, Chad Peace. You might remember that Peace and Takashima were the principal architects of the energy deregulation without oversight that led to the Enron debacle of 2000-2001.
Pete Hasapopoulos, Organizer with the local Sierra Club San Diego and Imperial Counties Chapter “Run with the Sun” program notes that the Fix My Energy Bill group is set up to respond to on line and print media comments by any bill opponents (Editor forewarned).
Run with the Sun and the affiliated statewide My Generation campaign is working with local and statewide groups such as the Environmental Health Coalition and California Environmental Justice Alliance to counter the misinformation put out by Sempra and their front group promoting AB 327. They have a website and links to communicate with your state representative and the Governor. Key State Senators in San Diego include Marty Block (North, Central and Coast), Ben Hueso (South Bay and Imperial Counties) and Joel Anderson (East County and Temecula).
You might want to send them a message this week. Only 17 more shopping days left in Sacramento.
www.runwithsun.org, Run With The Sun FaceBook
Find your state senator by typing your address in this link
Editor’s Update Aug 29, 2013:
MoveOn petition Opposing AB327
Edison Hates Rooftop Solar
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Jay Powell is sometime commentator to the San Diego Free Press. He worked with the Community Energy Action Network in the late seventies an early eighties to promote soft energy path alternatives and currently serves on the Run with the Sun steering committee.
Jay Powell
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It seems reasonable – if we’re not using as much energy and therefore not paying as much, they need to raise the cost to us – so Sempra can make the same amount of money. Those stockholders count more then we consumers do. (She shakes her head in amazement…)
Thanks, Jay, for this information.
I keep meaning to look into this but something else always comes up. Like the SDG&E bill.
In our case, we are two households living on a single meter. Because we cannot get a separate meter for a small dwelling that sits in the back yard, where my daughter’s family live, we pay top tier dollar for the electricity we use, because we are allotted the same amount of electricity as the elderly woman who lives in the small duplex next door. After we go above the baseline it costs more and more. Consequently we end up paying more to live together than we would if we were apart.
If we lived at 2 different addresses and both used the baseline we would pay $0.05 per kilowatt hour. Since we live at the same address and use twice the baseline we pay $0.17 per kilowatt hour, and if we go over that the amount jumps to $0.29 per KW hour. We have no air conditioning and usually can’t afford to run the heat in the winter. But we pay the same top tier rates as the affluent couple that live in the McMansion up the street in their 365 day-a-year climate-controlled paradise.
It’s pretty much the same way for the water bill. We have showers, laundry and dishes to do for six people but pay the same rates for basic living as those same McMansions who let their sprinkles run all night.
The baseline is set according to where you live. It doesn’t take into consideration how many people live there. With more and more generations living together during this economic mess it’s one more way they stick it to us.
Patty: First, the rate structure is set on top of a climate adjustment so if you live inland far enough, you might ought to be getting a bigger break in the lower tiers — including the baseline-than the coastal folks. This was the first distortion they ran with claiming that coastal folks got a better deal than inlanders. Divide and conquer. We used to have a great consumer group, UCAN that could go to bat on this issue and answer your question about meters more directly. They are currently rebuilding. To get a separate bill you would probably have to put in a separate meter. Not sure why they won’t let you do that and the up front cost for that would be considerable. Also, if this bill passes, the PUC could impose the fixed charge on both of those meters. They might provide a discount from the fixed fee to a “custo-meter” if that customer family qualifies for the CARE program due to income. The latest version of the bill reduces the maximum fixed charge for lower income households to $60 per year. The fixed charge is assessed regardless of what amount of energy you use. So if you try to conserve, and buy the really energy efficient light bulbs and appliances, you still get hit. By the way, it was pointed out to me that I did not specify up front that this special interest bill only applies to every “residential” customer in the state. It changes nearly every day and last I heard was up to 37 pages long. Very convoluted. As the old saw goes, two things you don’t want to see: how they make bacon and how they make the laws. But every once in a while somebody like the utilities try to get out and play like its for the people’s own good, until you start looking at who is paying the bill to fix the bill to fix your bill. They profit, we pay.
The link to take action:
“Run with the Sun and the affiliated statewide My Generation campaign is working with local and statewide groups such as the Environmental Health Coalition and California Environmental Justice Alliance to counter the misinformation put out by Sempra and their front group promoting AB 327. They have a website and links to communicate with your state representative and the Governor. Key State Senators in San Diego include Marty Block (North, Central and Coast), Ben Hueso (South Bay and Imperial Counties) and Joel Anderson (East County and Temecula).
You might want to send them a message this week. Only 17 more shopping days left in Sacramento.”
Downtown BY 11 am, Wed., 8/28! Details/map here:
“Join County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, Oceanside Mayor Jim Wood, Sierra Club’s Lori Saldana, SD350, local solar businesses and others to oppose Assembly Bill (AB) 327 and to support energy conservation and clean energy in California!
SDG&E is trying to make backroom deals that would result in:
· A permanent new charge of up to $120 a year on working families
· Penalize San Diegans who have worked to conserve energy
· Encourage greater electricity consumption, increasing GHG emissions
· Harm the solar industry, including small business that employ thousands in SD
Don’t let SDG&E get away with this! Please share widely.”
There is also a MoveOn.org petition to urge state lawmakers to vote against AB 327
Stop the rip-off and sign at both links BY FRIDAY 8/30TH, day of the vote!
Great piece, Jay. It is a question of political will, and getting the utilities, always quasi-public/private to change their business model. Germany did and because of solar on rooftops, they just beat their own record as the largest solar power creator in the globe. And they have cloud cover! Or take Copenhagen. Or Iceland.
What do they have that we do not? Political will and dirty energy money out of the game. Solar homeowners and office space owners create good solar jobs through demand. Energy efficiency, likewise. These US utilities are just immoral, as the future of our culture, civilization and biosphere are at stake.This is a scientific fact. We will stop their excessive profiteering, footdragging,and recall their elected enablers. They can change and still be around to deliver services, or be replaced by those who create the truly clean and safe energy we want in San Diego and California. These legislative games are so infuriating. We do not have more time to waste. We just passed 400PPM.