March 19, 2026 CPUC Voting Preview: Transmission-Level Planning Problems Take Center Stage

Below is the lineup of items the CPUC is scheduled to consider on March 19. The dominant story is the buildout of physical and regulatory infrastructure for a mass electrification future. Three recurring threads are:

• How the influx of data centers is becoming a transmission-level planning problem. California's San Jose cluster alone features STACK's 90 MW, Menlo Equities' 49 MW, LS Power's two transmission CPCNs (one at $1.6 billion, one at $813 million), plus a load forecast doubling from 2,100 to 4,200 MW. These developments show Silicon Valley load growth outpacing the existing grid so dramatically that the CPUC is approving billions in new transmission on compressed timelines. SCE's Alberhill project in Riverside extends the same logic to Southern California's heat-vulnerable load pockets. The situation is no longer incremental; the Commission is authorizing the kind of capital deployment that reshapes utility balance sheets for a generation.
• Attempts at accountability are intensifying. A pending ICA remediation item is the clearest example (turning hosting capacity maps from informational tools into compliance-grade tools) but similar themes show up in the Climate Credit PD, SDG&E's ERRA compliance review, a denial of SDG&E's POLR memorandum account, and the closure of PG&E's RAMP. Capital deployment's mass acceleration in the electrification age will reveal much about costs, oversight, and regulatory problem-solving.
• The machines of electrification keep getting money, while legacy infrastructure recedes. A tripling of the DG Statistics platform, ORCHARD's EV charging layer, a Flex Alert media extension, an SGIP methane-quality standard holdover...none of these are big-ticket items, but they demonstrate where all major movement is headed. Meanwhile, moves at Shell and Crimson Pipeline tell an equally clear narrative, albeit from the standpoint of departure.

Last, two Consent Agenda items (a SoCalGas GCIM reward and SCE's debt authorization) offer a microcosm of utility finances. One utility gets rewarded for efficient natural gas procurement, another gets funding to finance capital expenditures and address wildfire-related liabilities.