SAN FRANCISCO – A draft plan released last week claims California will need to spend more than $30 billion on additional transmission infrastructure for Pacific Gas & Electric and other investor-owned utilities to achieve the state’s clean energy goals by 2040.
But EWG warned that the 20-year transmission outlook, written by the California Independent System Operator, or CAISO, lacks a robust assessment of customer solar, battery storage and energy efficiency investment potential.
CAISO oversees the operation and expansion of California’s transmission system and wholesale power transactions.
“California has a clear choice: Either continue to accommodate PG&E and its utility cohorts or properly serve the citizens of the state with an electric system and future that is safe, secure and affordable, and that bolsters local economies – not the profits of the power companies,” said EWG President and Co-founder Ken Cook.
The CAISO proposal is supported by the California Public Utilities Commission, which is considering a separate plan backed by PG&E, San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison. That plan would effectively end the state’s rooftop solar program by adding a hefty solar tax to customers’ monthly bills.
The effort to gut the popular rooftop solar program follows the state’s continued bailout of monopolies like PG&E for the extensive damages from wildfires they cause, mostly by prioritizing a centralized power system with poorly planned and maintained transmission power lines.
A cleaner energy future that embracing a customer-friendly decentralized grid and boosts renewables would save ratepayers money and fight the climate crisis.
“With CAISO’s plan and California failing to stop PG&E’s ongoing mismanagement, we see a state government all but dismissing the affordability and system resiliency needs of its 14 million residential electric ratepayers,” added Cook.
“If CAISO’s plan is finalized at the expense of advancing the decentralized electric grid concept, customers once again could be saddled with excessively costly and unneeded energy investments,” he said.
“Utilities must stop prioritizing a highly costly and risky centralized electric grid over a more affordable, cleaner, far less risky and more resilient decentralized system,” Cook said. “The utility plot to kill rooftop solar in California needs to be taken off the table.
“But it has had a huge potential upside: It has been a dramatic wakeup call for California consumers, environmentalists and social justice organizations about the urgent need to completely rewire our state’s energy future,” Cook added. “And we start by dramatically downsizing the influence of gas and electric companies and their puppet public utility commission.”
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The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action. Visit www.ewg.org for more information.
