by Anthony Dang / Times of San Diego / May 12, 2026
We posted a video last week recapping a recent protest against Sempra’s latest earnings report, and one comment captured exactly how many San Diegans currently feel: “big personal beef with SDG&E.”
Isn’t that the truth? How many conversations with friends and family eventually spiral into frustrations about skyrocketing energy bills? As summer approaches, many of us are preparing to do what we do every year: ration electricity, avoid turning on the A/C during heat waves, and hope we can stay afloat in one of the most expensive cities in the country.
Meanwhile, Sempra called its latest earnings a “great start” to the year. Of course it was. Last week, Sempra reported more than $1 billion in profits in just the first few months of 2026. Its CEO earned more than $22 million the year prior. For executives and shareholders, this system is working exactly as designed.
But for the rest of us — the ones paying some of the highest energy bills in California to fund these profits — it’s a horrible reality.
The line between public service and corporate profit has become increasingly nonexistent, yet we’re expected to absorb every rate increase without question. Which raises the important question: If SDG&E is supposed to provide a public service, why does its business model work against the public interest?
The answer lies in how corporate utilities like SDG&E make money.
SDG&E operates under a “spend-more, make-more” system. The more it builds, like poles and wires, the more profit it is allowed to collect. That means the utility is financially rewarded for pursuing expensive, gold-plated projects, because ratepayers are forced to cover the cost of construction and a guaranteed 10% profit margin.
The higher the spending, the higher the profits. And we pay for it time and time again.
These costs show up directly on our monthly energy bill. They also show up on bills from the grocery store, restaurants and local businesses, which raise prices to cover their own rising energy costs. Instead of being reinvested back into our neighborhoods, that money is extracted from us to pad the pockets of a corporate utility already making billions.
SDG&E has proven itself incapable of operating in its customers’ best interest. San Diegans deserve both immediate relief and a long-term alternative to the broken monopoly utility model that got us here in the first place.
Right now, a slate of bills is moving through Sacramento aimed directly at the utility profit structure that has allowed companies like SDG&E to rake in billions while Californians fall behind on payments. These proposals would curb excessive profit-taking, create stronger accountability measures to lower energy bills, and accelerate the development of affordable clean energy projects.
Those reforms deserve the full support of local leaders across San Diego County. We need these bills to cross the finish line. Our elected officials should be doing everything possible to support statewide efforts to lower costs for working families and hold corporate utilities accountable.
While these reforms provide necessary short-term relief, they are not enough on their own. The only long-term solution for lasting rate relief is to fire SDG&E and replace it with a nonprofit alternative: public power.
Despite what opponents often claim, public power is neither radical nor unrealistic. In fact, SDG&E’s model is outdated. More than 40 communities across California already operate public power utilities with, on average, half the rates of SDG&E. A recent city-commissioned analysis found that transitioning to public power is both technically and financially feasible, and could save San Diegans over $600 million.
Transitioning to public power will take time, but that is not an excuse to allow SDG&E to continue business as usual while families struggle right now. We need immediate state reforms to protect ratepayers today and a local, long-term transition that permanently puts our energy system back in public hands.
For San Diegans who have a personal beef with SDG&E, there are real solutions on the table.
For too long, our energy system has prioritized SDG&E’s profits over the people forced to pay them. It’s time for our leaders to decide whose side they are on.
Anthony Dang is the policy and community outreach manager form the San Diego-based Climate Action Campaign.
Isn’t our choice the SDG&E or the City of San Diego? Let’s think twice.
It’s even worse than that. We’d have to pay Sempra for all that expensive infrastructure that Sempra has constructed. I cannot imagine that Sempra would relinquish it without compensation, nor can I imagine that the courts would allow it. If we went into debt (bonds) we’d have to service them with the profits from selling electricity that currently does not generate any profit, at least that’s what it lookd like to me. So from my simple minded perspective, we’d have to significantly raise the rates. Kind of backfiring on the idea that it would lower bills.
I realize that the whole issue is way more complicated than this. The laws and processes regarding the Public Utilities Commission are mindbogglingly complex. I got involved in the both the commissioning and decommissioning of two electric generation stations, and even though I made my career interpreting and applying state and federal laws regarding the environment, I was absolutely and completely lost.
So I freely admit that I am more than likely out of my depth on this issue, but I can’t see a path from here to there that actually works and saves money for the consumer.
Are our elctric bills too high? Certainly. Maybe we should start by lowering the return on equity that Sempra is guaranteed. I’d sure like to have investment that GUARANTEED a return on equity of around 10% no or little risk, other than opportunity costs. I was offered a deal like that once from a San Diego company – J. David Dominelli. We know how that turned out. You youngsters can look that up if you were too young to have lived through it.
Paul Webb – please check out the Public Power San Diego website to learn about how the transition would function. Yes, SDG&E’s infrastructure would have to be acquired but that’s an accounted-for part of the process. It has worked in other California municipalities as well as in other parts of the U.S. https://www.publicpowersd.org/
To address another issue that is not well understood because of assumptions being made, a San Diego municipal power company would retain the same union employees now employed by SDG&E. https://www.publicpowersd.org/faq/#jobs
No, the choice is between SDG&E and a publicly-owned, municipal power entity for the City of San Diego. Once established, the City of San Diego would have no control over this municipal utility, a type of publicly-owned utility which functions effectively in a number of California cities as well as in other states.
Please check out this website for a locally-controlled electricity power company: https://www.publicpowersd.org/
This website lists the many publicly-owned municipal power agencies in California. It’s pretty lengthy; San Diego is way behind the curve. https://www.publicpower.org/public-power-california
Also, this website also provides info about municipally-owned power companies in other parts of the U.S.: https://www.publicpower.org/public-power
Right now, a slate of bills is moving through Sacramento aimed directly at the utility profit structure that has allowed companies like SDG&E to rake in billions. What happens when they walk like the oil companies?
Sacramento and the PUC have been abject failures, and yet, the solution we’re told, again, is public power. We’ve done this dance before and the numbers do not pan out. Bond obligations, acquisition costs, management bureauocracy. Bringing power into what would be an energy island. Our city is incapable to run a trash division. And yet a climate action person is lobbying for public power? Another sus. We all have a beef with SDGE, but the state should have been on the forefront creating a state grid before squeezing out oil refineries, before a bullet train, leaving us exposed when Dumpy upended things with his war. And Newsome just rides out his term.
There’s a long list of municipalities in California which have successfully transition from investor-owned companies like SDG&E and PG&E. The City of Escondido is among them. See https://www.publicpower.org/public-power-california
San Diego County imports up to 60% of its electricity, with the region heavily reliant on power transmitted from outside the county. Buy all the equipment you want. Think adding to the pension system transferring employees will be cheap? Then you’re paying for that infrastructure in the billions and still importing power with transmission costs. We don’t generate enough. And then those who put solar in after 2.0 will have to be dealt with. No more freebies to the grid there. San Diego having no control is IMO wrong. No to San Diego owning a utility when they can’t balance a budget. The fine print with PowerSD said that.
Municipal utility companies are overseen by local government entities rather than state regulatory commissions. Because these utilities are publicly owned, governance typically falls to an elected board of directors or a commission appointed by the mayor and city council.
J. David! Remembered well. I asked an easy compare question to AI. Got this-
Anaheim Public Utilities offers significantly cheaper electricity than San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E). Anaheim residents typically pay between \(\$0.14\) and \(\$0.21\) per kilowatt-hour (kWh), while SDG&E customers face some of the highest rates in the state, often ranging from \(\$0.33\) to over \(\$0.63\) per kWh during peak hours.
The rest-
Key Differences:
Public vs. Private: As a municipally owned utility, Anaheim Public Utilities is non-profit and doesn’t pay dividends to shareholders, allowing for lower localized rates. SDG&E is an investor-owned utility whose rates cover extensive infrastructure maintenance, wildfire mitigation costs, and shareholder profits.
Time-Of-Use (TOU) Penalties: SDG&E relies heavily on TOU structures where on-peak usage (4 p.m. to 9 p.m.) can surge past \(\$0.60\) per kWh. Anaheim has historically relied more on straightforward tiered pricing based strictly on total consumption, providing insulation from steep time-of-day premiums.
Monthly Averages: The average monthly electric bill in SDG&E territory is frequently over \(\$250-\$300\), whereas Anaheim residents generally see bills averaging closer to \(\$90\) to \(\$180\), even when running air conditioning heavily during the summer
Frank J, I don’t disagree with anything you have said. I grew up in LA Department of Water and Power territory, and it is/was quite a bit cheaper than investor owned utilities (although I will say that customer service was often less than desirable). I would probably be less that honest if some of that cheaper electricity didn’t com from the DWP’s pillaging of the Owns Valley.
Clearly, power from investor owned utilities is more expensive than publicly owned owned utilities. There’s that profit motive thing. The problem I have is that I don’t see a viable path from here to there – enormous regulatory hurdles, the need for public investment in the distribution facilities/equipment, etc. If someone can show me how the numbers can work in a way that actually is cheaper I’ll change my tune.
Oh and don’t forget that the geniuses that cannot accurately forecast the trash fee will be the ones running the electric system. Nothing to worry about there, is there?
Of course it would be less expensive. Um, they’ve had a little time to develop.
Anaheim Public Utilities traces its roots to 1894, when residents voted to establish the first municipal electric utility in Southern California. Operations and energy services officially commenced in 1895.The city’s municipal water services were established even earlier, in 1879, before both departments were unified to provide city-owned water and power.
Think this city is doing anything like this? In Midway Rising? No, we have idiots running our town.
Anaheim Public Utilities owns one of the largest municipal solar photovoltaic (PV) system on top of a convention center in the North America. At 2.4 megawatts and consisting of 7,908 panels, the system produces 3.5 million kWh’s annually, which is enough to power 600 homes in Anaheim.
You just can’t compare electric rates. There’s infrastructure history.