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MONDAY NEWS CODEX: Wind Farm Project Denied; PG&E Restoration Efforts; Public Purpose Program

  • A Path to Fast, Cheap Home Solar and Batteries – Go Through the Meter: "One of the most effective such tools is called the meter socket adapter — and major home-electrification companies are increasingly making use of it. Over the past few years, companies including Tesla, ConnectDER, and Enphase have won approval from a growing number of utilities to use these devices to circumvent complex electrical work that can add days of labor and thousands of dollars in costs to installations. Recent regulatory momentum in California, the largest home solar market, is also boosting the tech, which takes the form of a metal ring that’s inserted between utility meters and the meter boxes that connect homes to the grid." CANARY MEDIA
  • A Wildfire is Coming for Electricity Bills: "California offers a cautionary tale — both about what happens when you don’t prepare for fire, and how high those costs can get. Since 2018, the state has spent tens of billions to pay for the aftermath of those blazes that utilities did start and remake its grid for a new era of fire. Yet it took years for those costs to pass through to customers." HEATMAP
  • California's Gas Market May No Longer Need to be an Energy Island: "The proposed Western Gateway Pipeline, which would be the world’s largest fuel conduit, would not only transport gasoline, but also jet fuel and diesel. According to Bloomberg, the pipeline network would cross from Illinois through Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada to California and adjacent markets, with connectivity to Las Vegas, Nevada. Much of the pipeline would be built along or utilize existing Kinder Morgan conduits, with a new section across New Mexico. The section of the pipeline that would cross near Mescalero Apache land in New Mexico has received buy-in from local tribes, but past endeavors at building pipelines have often been caught up in lawsuits and protests." INSTITUTE for ENERGY RESEARCH
  • California PUC Lowers Utilities' Return on Equity by 0.3 Percentage Points: "PG&E’s ROE is now 9.98%, down from 10.28%, San Diego Gas & Electric’s is now 9.93%, down from 10.23%, Southern California Gas is down to 9.78% from 10.08%, and Southern California Edison’s is now 10.03%, down from 10.33%. California has some of the highest rates in the country, second only to Hawaii." UTILITY DIVE
  • California Utilities Will Keep Almost All Profits as Regulators Ease Up – They're Still Upset: "The shareholder profits are a percentage of a utility’s 'rate base' – the total value of its assets that it can earn a return on. This includes things such as power plants. While a utility’s approved shareholder returns fluctuate, the rate bases for California’s three utilities steadily rise. Each utility’s rate base is billions of dollars, earning hundreds of millions for shareholders even if a utility doesn’t reach its full shareholder return. In 2023, for example, Edison had a rate base of $29.7 billion, and it was allowed to earn $198 million for shareholders that year. If its approved return was one percentage point lower, it would still have been allowed to earn $178 million for shareholders. Though it came in far short of this that year, it still brought shareholders $91 million from ratepayers." CAL MATTERS
  • Contentious Wind Farm Project in Shasta Denied by California Panel: "The California Energy Commission on Friday denied the approval of the Fountain Wind project, ending a years-long battle by Shasta County to stop the controversial project from moving forward. At its business meeting in Sacramento, the CEC adopted the recommendation of its executive director not approve the project." RECORD SEARCHLIGHT
  • Kinder Morgan, Phillips 66 Advance Western Gateway Pipeline to California Markets: "Supply for the system would originate from refined products connected at Borger, as well as volumes already tied into the SFPP system in El Paso, Texas. In addition, the Phillips 66-operated Gold Pipeline, which currently moves products from Borger to St. Louis, would be reversed to direct Midcontinent refinery supply toward Borger for delivery into the Western Gateway system." PIPELINE & GAS JOURNAL
  • PG&E Continues Restoration Efforts Following Substation Fire Impacting 130,000 Customers: "The cause of the substation fire has not been released, as there will most likely be an investigation and report. As our industry knows, substation fires are most often triggered by equipment failures, such as overheating, insulation breakdown or loose connections. These can lead to arcing or overloading. Oil-filled power transformers pose the largest fire risk in any substation, according to a 2019 report from David Petersile of Burns & McDonnell and Bill Mackay of Advanced Safety Systems." T&D WORLD
  • Power Brokers – What's Really Behind Your Soaring Utility Bills: "Even the most troubled utilities seem untouchable. Pacific Gas and Electric Company serves central and northern California, where its malfunctioning infrastructure bore primary responsibility for several enormously destructive wildfires, including the 2018 Camp Fire, which caused billions of dollars in damage and killed eighty-­five people. Massive liabilities forced the company into bankruptcy, and its credit rating was downgraded to 'junk,' well below the benchmark for investment-­grade stocks. Despite all this, ­PG&E seems to be getting by. In 2024, the utility reported $2.5 billion in profit, an all-time high." HARPERS
  • "The Biggest Transformation in a Century" – How California Remade Itself as a Clean Energy Powerhouse: "'You’re going to see California fiercely litigating every single effort of the federal government to undo the fight against climate change and the fight against clean energy,' said Noah Perch-Ahern, an environmental attorney. 'I think that’s going to continue for years.'" THE GUARDIAN
  • The Public Purpose Program – California's Hidden Tax Driving Up Utility Bills: "There are a multitude of remedies for this problem, many of which do not require the cancellation of the various PPP-funded programs. The legislature could choose to fund these programs through the general fund, financed primarily by direct income and sales tax, instead of utility bills. Furthermore, lawmakers could require clearer labeling of all taxes and surcharges on bills, known as 'truth in billing,' which would increase transparency for utility companies passing costs onto consumers. This solution would solve the 'hidden' problem, but would not reduce the ultimately redistributive outcome of the program itself. Whatever the remedy might be, families deserve to know what they’re actually paying for, and who decided to impose those charges." CALIFORNIA POLICY CENTER
  • Why Energizing EV Chargers Takes So Long – and What We've Learned About Fixing It: "California is the first state to pilot regulatory mechanisms to improve energization timelines, prompted by legislation that directs regulators to address growing request backlogs and slow energization processes. Building on this precedent, other states, including Colorado and Illinois, have enacted or are in the process of enacting legislation that requires regulators to adopt energization timelines. While California’s actions are a good first step, it is unclear if these targets will result in short enough timelines to keep pace with EVSE demand because they are based on historic energization timeframes, which have already resulted in backlogs. To ensure the established timelines are effective, regulators should establish mechanisms to evaluate their performance. This includes setting an appropriate reporting cadence and defining what data must be tracked and reported. Data tracking and mandated timelines work together, and both must be carefully designed to support accountability for energization timelines. " RENEWABLE ENERGY WORLD

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