Should San Diegans have our own municipal utility that would replace SDG&E?
The Power San Diego Campaign believes so. They’ve launched a signature drive to get the question on the November ballot. On their website, the group claims SDG&E has the highest rates in the nation (although just recently, this has changed), that SDG&E profits are $1 million dollars a day from San Diego City alone, and that 25% of SDGE’s customer are behind on their bills.
They state, “San Diegans are facing exploitation by a relentless for-profit monopoly utility company driven by profit motives. Change is essential as our current situation is unsustainable.” Their Mission: “Our mission is simple; provide electric service at a fair, reasonable, and affordable rates while maximizing economic benefit to the people of San Diego.”
Dorrie Bruggemann, campaign manager of Power San Diego, was quoted in a U-T article a week ago, said:
“We need to move forward now to give San Diegans lower rates, with something that we know will work for them.”
Volunteers with the group will be collecting signatures today, Wed., Feb. 21 at OB’s Farmers Market from 05:00 pm to 06:30 pm.
U-T reporter Rob Nikolewski summarized the different sides to the debate in his Feb. 13 piece.
Under the Power San Diego proposal, the municipal utility would handle the electricity distribution responsibilities for customers within the city limits of San Diego only. The campaign needs to collect about 80,000 valid signatures from registered city of San Diego voters to put its petition on the ballot this fall. The group said Tuesday [Feb. 13] it has gathered about 10,000 signatures so far.
Power San Diego estimates it would cost city taxpayers $3.5 billion to create a public utility and buy out SDGE’s electricity distribution assets — plus associated metering and startup costs. The group says the price tag can be paid through a municipal revenue bond that would be amortized over 30 years and pledges to support union workers.
Backers say making the switch will result in San Diego customers seeing about a 20 percent reduction in their electricity bills, citing how municipal utilities such as the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power offer customers lower rates than California’s investor-owned utilities — SDG&E, Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison.
In the opposite corner in this match-up stands Responsible Energy San Diego — a political action committee opposed to creating a municipal utility. Nikolewski reported that two of its officers “are Scott Crider, SDG&E’s senior vice president of external and operations support, and Brittney Applestein Syz, SDG&E’s director of regional public affairs.”
John Mattes, a volunteer for Power San Diego, said, “This reveals that this is totally a front group for SDG&E.” Mattes has also been involved in the group Indivisible.
Back to Nikolewski:
According to the city’s campaign finance disclosure portal, Responsible Energy San Diego has raised $300,000 since its founding last year.
Responsible Energy group has some co-chairs worthy of note: one is the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, a second is the the San Diego & Imperial Counties Labor Council and a third is the Asian Business Association. But as the reporter notes, “according to city filings, all contributions so far have come from SDG&E shareholder funds.”
In contrast, the citizens’ groups has raised $156,670 since last year and Power San Diego supporters held a rally in Civic Center Plaza last week.
Close to them was a counter-demonstration by a dozen members of IBEW Local 465 who represents roughly 1,500 SDG&E employees. BEW Local 465 business manager Nate Fairman said:
“It’s absolutely reckless. It’s going to stick the city or this municipal entity with hundreds of millions of dollars of liability, it’s a gamble that puts my union contract in the cross-hairs and damages my members’ ability to provide for their families.”
Well-known city gadfly Matt Awbrey is a spokesperson for Responsible Energy San Diego. He defended SDG&E’s involvement with the group.
“This proposal that’s being discussed is a forced government takeover of the utility. So that’s the reason there are many organizations joining in this effort because they’re concerned that this forced government takeover is going to leave us in a situation where you turn on the lights and they’re not working, at some point in the future.”
Awbrey claimed his group has the support of the County of San Diego Black Chamber of Commerce, the San Diego County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the San Diego Working Waterfront, which represents industry on port tidelands.
Awbrey has had a political consulting firm and was a “long-time [former mayor] Faulconer PR operative,” as the Reader’s Matt Potter described him. Awbrey was also involved in Faulconer’s failed quest to have a redevelopment firm take over the Sports Arena development in involved in the campaign committee favoring Measure E.
The San Diego chapter of 350 has endorsed Power San Diego about a month ago and made this statement:
Replacing SDG&E, a corporation, with a not-for-profit, would first eliminate profit margins from our bills. If the Power San Diego initiative is passed, we’d see electricity rates drop by up to 20% on the first day of the new utility’s operations. Under SDG&E, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) projects our rates will continue to increase to the tune of roughly 10% a year for the foreseeable future.
In addition to profit and rate rises rubber-stamped by the CPUC, SDG&E is fighting rooftop solar. They see panels on homes as a threat to their bottom line. This is because local electricity generation means consumers don’t need the huge transmission lines that make SDG&E rich. They’ve pushed regulations (that don’t apply to public utilities!) which make solar less economically viable- in fact, San Diegans will soon need to pay $350 to a whopping $1400 per year more to go solar.
The reformed utility would increase staff and services. It would protect and maintain the union workforce, while keeping rates down and refocusing on promoting rooftop solar, renewable energy, and local energy generation and storage. Plus, not for profit municipal utilities tend to be more reliable than for profit utilities. 40 million Americans get their electricity from a municipal utility, including our neighbors in Anaheim, Long Beach, and Los Angeles.
Power San Diego is doing something revolutionary. Not only are we going against an oil and gas powered monopoly- we’re doing it with people power. SanDiego350 has joined a coalition of volunteers working to collect at least 80,000 signatures from Registered City of San Diego Voters by late April.
Nikolewski reports:
The city has hired Colorado-based NewGen Strategies & Solutions to study the feasibility of creating a municipal utility. The consultant will take a deeper dive into the numbers when it comes before the San Diego City Council with Phase 2 of the study in the summer of 2025.
Power San Diego chair Bill Powers believes the study is flawed and on Tuesday announced he has filed a lawsuit in Superior Court, charging that the city has not produced public documents regarding details of the study.
“We can’t wait until 2025, we’re ready to go now,” Powers said. “If we can get local control by municipalizing the electrical grid, then we can implement some smart, efficient policies.”
The city responded with a statement that said in part that the feasibility study “is an extremely complex undertaking” and the city “has been committed to transparency in this process, including the intent to conduct the study in phases.”
Last September, all four members of the City Council’s Environment Committee listened to a presentation by Powers but declined to endorse his proposal to put it before voters. “We must get much more detailed data in terms of costs, expenses, liability (and) revenue projections,” said Councilmember Jennifer Campbell, adding that “it is way too premature” for the 2024 ballot.
The Power San Diego Campaign touts that about 20 not-for-profit electric utilities have been formed across the country in the last 20 years.
While it’s understandable that SDG&E would fund such a group as the Responsible Energy, it’s troubling for progressives to see union opposition to such an effort to form a citizens’ utility. We get it. IBEW wants to protect its union members from losing their jobs and benefits. This same alignment of forces occurred when San Diego voters had a chance to vote in municipalization of the city’s utilities a few years back. IBEW and the entire labor council opposed it — and it lost.
Taking a profit-making monopoly out of the equation dealing with our public utilities seems always a good thing. It’s too bad we all can’t agree on this concept.
Replacing SDG&E a good idea? Yes, but……..
The question marks? 1) Municipalities in LA or Sacramento have lower rates than what Power is proposing despite a proposed 20% reduction. What is the guarantee the 20% doesn’t goes away, when the city just raised water rates 20% over two years (with part of the cost attributed to imported water), while the dam releases at Lake Hodges go on. What is the guarantee when the city can’t protect basic infrastructure like channels?
2) What is the effect through Power, on residential solar produced, that SDG&E keeps whittling away, to make systems less cost effective in their tiered structure system, unless more additional investment is purchased into battery systems? When is innovation to use solar, in our climate changing environment supposed to help everyone and not be controlled for higher profits?
The mission statement sounds great, but questions remain Power should address. SDG&E cost is bad, but you know it works.
Puwer San Diego could certainly cut a deal with the union workers who would otherwise be displaced. These workers may not end up with as good a deal as their union jobs, but they would have jobs. They know the infrastructure, they know the system, they have great value.
I used to be a union rep for a school and am a fierce union supporter in most instances. Here, these workers may need to bow to the inevitable, as those of us paying the bills are being squeezed to the max..
I don’t believe you’re going to, just cut a deal. They are union labor at the same basic prevailing rates as all the other trades. Be careful what you wish for and MTS is tied to this union also.
The City of SD mayor and city council, haven’t demonstrated they can manage their way out of a wet paper bag, so please don’t vote for them to ruin more of the City of SD by voting for this. They don’t have a winning track record at all.
Agree with Gail. Why in the world would we give this corrupt, mismanaged city who can’t even maintain the streets properly control over our electricity?? No thanks.
Anaheim Public Utilities (if you think it’s a fair comparison)- https://www.anaheim.net/DocumentCenter/View/1256/Domestic-Service-PDF?bidId=
Here- https://findenergy.com/ca/
If you scroll down to Residential Electricity Providers in California you will see Anaheim Public Utilities on the 4th page at $16.31 and SDG&E (on page 1 of course) at $45.15 (measured as cents per kilowatt hour)
The city can’t even read our water meters or keep our street lights on. If they run our power grid it’ll be as reliable as Pyongyang. They were already taking a year to respond to street light outages before Covid and then ran off half their electricians with their vaccine mandates. Finally last year the union agreed to allow private contractors to help catch up on the massive backlog probably because the city is paying out as much in injury lawsuits as repairs (like their sidewalks).
Meanwhile the rates are so high and the solar incentives are going away. This is making it financially unsound to move away from natural gas and gasoline. I did the math on an electric vehicle and it’s only a 40 mpg equivalent even at the off-peak rate overnight.
What is the lesser of two evils here…
Lesser evils, eh? Sure is a lot of that going around. Maybe if there were conscientious politicians running the city, eh? At least it takes the PROFIT motive out of so-called ‘public utilities’ where the money made is invested in the upkeep and workers. That’s sounds like a much better idea don’t you agree?
And your whine about running off workers because of Covid mandates, you do know that 1 out of every 335 people in the US died of Covid in the first 3 years, yes? Those flu shots (NOT vaccines) kept a lot of people alive though many still did catch it. How many did the mandate save vs expected deaths? Many I’m sure. My list is 22 friends/family dead of Covid, but many more have various Sequelae Long Covid symptoms, but zero deaths from the shots. Not a single person I know.
Oh, and ‘officially’ only 85,000 +/- died of Covid between 1/2023 and 1/2024 which is tens of thousands more than the worst seasonal flu death toll ever in this country. The biggest victim cohort? Those that didn’t get the shots, and that group is still the biggest in new infections.
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Two from Grist on this subject:
8 states move to ban utilities from using customer money for lobbying
Utilities have come under fire for lobbying to stall climate policies and keep fossil fuel plants running
https://grist.org/politics/8-states-move-to-ban-utilities-from-using-customer-money-for-lobbying/
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The Communities Trying To Take Over Their Local Electric Utility
https://grist.org/politics/meet-the-communities-trying-to-take-over-their-local-electric-utility/
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sealintheSelkirks
Good comment.
I plan to inquire about volunteering with the group in some capacity
or other. The cause is just – Power San Diego, if it can win, will be
a godsend for many people who cannot pay their SDG And E bills.
For one thing SDG&E could save countless dollars if it cut down on all the pieces of paper that comprise the bill I get every month. That’s just one obvious cost reduction and I’m sure there are many more.
Vaccines saves lives. But there’s a big difference between vaccines and vaccine mandates. How many got a vaccine due to a mandate that wouldn’t have otherwise? Hard to say. In a perfect world, everyone would get vaccinated for their best interests and those around them. But to choose a mandate over maintaining minimum staffing levels for the city to function, like police staffing, it’s just not worth it. Employees for many of these jobs could have been accommodated. I really don’t care if they cough on a street light.
Even the mayor figured this out finally, and backtracked on the mandate at the 11th hour, but the damage was already done, employees had already left.
Craig Rose from the Power San Diego campaign contacted the rag to ensure our readers knew this: “Those of us involved in the campaign believe it’s always important to note that the initiative GUARANTEES all union rights for a minimum of ten years.
“Let’s be clear: Power San Diego supports unions and the new utility would leave all salaries & benefits won by union members in place.
“Moreover, campaigning for lower rates and an ally – not an opponent – in the fight against the climate crisis is in the interest of all, particularly hard-pressed union members struggling to pay SDGE’s rates.”
Excellent news! Good idea to roll up the sleeves and work with Power San Diego…
I just got my SDG&E report….that I’ve used more gas than the “average”
household, while my electricity usage is lower than average. The saving on electricity – I was taught to always turn off the light when I leave a room –
a lesson from my Great Depression-era family.
I do wish Power SD was more clear.
1)Power says 20% short term savings. Meaning what and/or how long, and then what? We do not need another city mismanaged monstrosity like the water department.
2) 20% of the $.48 kWh example they give is .096, so say a reduction to .38 kWh. While other public utilities given in their example run .17-.28 kWh. Why the disparity?
3) Power’s initiative focus is on the city first. What happens to the cost when they want to expand to the county?
4) In regards to solar, outside of fixed charges, what happens in the trade off where Power says “Power San Diego wants to work with you to help power our grid”? To existing and future solar owners?
As much as I want to kick SDG&E to the road, Power would help themselves with clarity and reduce the generalized statements on their website.
https://wearepowersandiego.com/
I can share their answers, should Power answer my questions I put to them.
I can answer why the cost per kWh will only be a bit less than SDG&E now charges. It’s because many of the public utilities were established many years ago (LA & Sacramento back in the 1920s) when it was cheaper to start with. Most of the others in California are for far smaller cities in California. Here’s a link to a lengthy list of publicly owned power utilities in California: https://www.publicpower.org/public-power-california
If voters approve the Power San Diego measure, the city will be required to establish a public/municipal utility which will buy the SDG&E transmission lines within the City of San Diego via a revenue bond issued by the city.
Rates for electricity from the public utility will include paying back the revenue bond as well as for transmission and maintenance of the power lines. The actual electricity will continue to be purchased by San Diego Community Power (SDCP), the non-profit formed a number of years ago to replace SDG&E purchase of electricity; emphasis is on buying energy from renewable sources though not yet reached 100%. SDCP is an automatic “opt in” so anyone who prefers to continue paying SDG&E for buying electricity has to opt out.
What ratepayers will no long be paying for is dividends to SDG&E stockholders, high salaries for SDG&E management and profit being sent to Sempra Energy to invest in LNG ports in Baja and Texas.
I plan to opt out (of SDG&E) now that I understand. Thanks for
the explanation
Yep. Me, too, Tessa. My granny always unplugged everything having raised a family during the Republican’s Great Depression on a farm in Iowa when electricity was barely making inroads there. The habit stayed with her when she managed apartment buildings in OB in the 60s & 70s since I always had to plug stuff in when visiting. My dad picked up that habit as a kid of course, and then it passed to me.
But I’ve gone one better than Granny K; everything that would usually be plugged in are all on surge protectors. House lamps, the computer, etc and are always switched off when not in use. I live darkness here, lit by a brilliantly bright starfields rotating above my head, and rarely use the extremely bright ‘security’ light. That’s only when I’m out working in the shop at night. Best to have light when I step out the door as I live with bears, moose, elk, cougars, wildcats, wolf, porcupine, etc etc, ya know? Even a startled white tail can knock you down and stomp on ya when it’s scared because you turned a corner without knowing it was there…
But most appliances are built to constantly suck electricity 24/7 and a lot of people don’t realize that. When I flip on the breaker to the movie screen and DVD & VHS, I let them warm up for a few minutes. And I went with separate strip for the stereo/turntable/cassette deck/cd player. The refrigerator is also on a strip and is turned off at night when it won’t be opened. The freezer outside is always on, though.
But what is rarely used is just left unplugged. Sure, it takes a little more effort as in I have to bend down to flip them on or plug stuff in!
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As for the new comments that have popped up since 26Feb, I’m all in favor of starting this process immediately. Stop making the wealthy richer, get lower rates, have better maintained equipment funded by the ratepayers, and listen to the little greedy piggies squeal. Going to take some work, some committed individuals with knowledge of how, but the rewards will be worth it.
sealintheSelkirks
Thanks for that. Hence one of my questions with the 20% and comparing kWh rates. Is the 20% due to fixed cost reduction only and the kWh comparison just a misleading chart to show high SDG&E rates against lower, older public utilities. kWh rates may not come down if that’s the case.
This is funny. The takeover can not even start until 2031 because the city already signed a deal with SDGE to provide utilities to the city. After that there is an option for extending it 10 more years. The city can opt out of that extension but nothing will happen on this for at least 6 more years.
Also, SDGE will still be supplying power to the rest of the county so a large percentage of their workers will not be available to work for the city.
So best case scenario is that the city takes over IN SIX YEARS. That is assuming the city can get all the bureaucracy in place and figure out how to run a utility. Oh and let’s not forget the service on the 3-6 billion dollar bond that will be required to purchase the electrical lines.
Good luck on this but…
It may or may not take that long to get the non-profit public utility up and running, and purchasing transmission lines within the City of San Diego, but if we don’t start the process now, it will take far longer and cost everyone far more both through paying SDG&E transmission of electricity and the cost of buying the transmission lines farther into the ever-more expensive future.
Interesting, there are 5 seats in the oversight committee representing different disciplines, where 3 people for each seat are qualified by the mayor before sending to the council and the Power SD staff become city employees. The oversight seats are unpaid positions.
https://wearepowersandiego.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ThePowerSanDiegoBallotInitiative.pdf
“People ask how the not-for-profit utility can save so much money for consumers,” wrote Bill Powers, chairman of the campaign in a press release. “It’s simple: The non-profit will do what it says – eliminate profit.”
https://voiceofsandiego.org/2024/03/01/san-diego-gas-and-electric-posts-record-profits-again/#comment-25874