TEMPLE CITY – More than 30 Antelope Valley residents organized a trip to the San Gabriel Valley last week to fight Southern California Edison’s pending rate increase that will adversely affect High Desert ratepayers.
Johnathon Ervin, president of the newly-formed Antelope Valley Community Alliance, partnered with The Utility Reform Network (TURN) to help local residents participate in the California Public Utilities Commission hearing in Temple City.
The group’s message to CPUC was to deny SCE’s pending rate-hike request, $1.6 billion a year beginning 2015, because Antelope Valley ratepayers would be unable to keep up with the increases.
“We had some great testimony on how this rate increase personally affects people of the Antelope Valley,” Ervin told The AV Times.
Ervin said he was among the Antelope Valley representatives who spoke at the public hearing.
“I told Administrative Law Judge Kevin Dudney [that] when I was stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in 2002 as an active duty E-5 in the Air Force, I purchased a home in California City. I ran the air conditioning during that summer and I received a bill for almost 1,000 dollars. I couldn’t believe it, but I had to have a garage sale and sold my game system to pay the bill!” Ervin told The AV Times, in recalling his testimony at the meeting.
Ervin said more than 20 of the Antelope Valley representatives spoke at the public hearing, explaining how many residents live on fixed incomes and how electricity consumption is much higher in hotter areas of Southern California, such as the High Desert.
Mark Toney, executive director of TURN, said in a statement prior to the public meeting that his organization is “demanding that the CPUC reject Edison’s greed in demanding a $1.6 billion rate hike.”
Toney’s organization, a San Francisco-based consumer advocate, has organized other rallies to protest SCE’s request for a rate increase.
According to TURN, the SCE is asking for a 16.6 percent increase per kilowatt-hour for residential use, which translates into an increase of 20.06 cents a kWh. Households using 600 kWh a month will likely see an $18.81 increase, according to the utility, which TURN says amounts to $1.6 billion a year for SCE.
Utilities like SCE are justifying the rate hikes, saying there is a rising demand for an energy source that is shrinking in supply, as well as the increasing need to invest in new equipment and infrastructure improvements.
Ervin believes Antelope Valley participants at the meeting effectively made their case to CPUC officials, saying the commissioner was “very receptive” to their testimony.
“I thought it couldn’t have gone better,” he said. “But what we’re hoping for now, now that we’re on the Public Utility Commission’s mind, is that we get some action from them. We want a rate freeze, and we also want a hearing held here (in the Antelope Valley).”
Ervin explained the purpose behind the Community Alliance is to bring together residents who are committed to improving the quality of life for Lancaster, Palmdale and the surrounding communities.
“After the Lancaster City election, I decided that we don’t have to have partisan politics controlling us,” he said, noting that Thursday’s public hearing was the group’s first action. “This alliance is to allow us to do things together, come together under one goal, regardless of color, creed or religion.”
Remaining public meetings to address SCE’s proposed rate increase will take place June 3 at 1:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. at Residence Inn by Marriott in Oxnard; and June 4 at 3 p.m. at the Tulare City Council Chambers in Tulare.
“We will continue to fight the increases; we aren’t done fighting and we hope to get a hearing here in the Antelope Valley,” Ervin stated.
More information is available at http://turn.org.
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William says
I had an ‘absurd energy efficiency’ moment the other day. I bought a couple of LED light bulbs at Lowe’s that were at a great discount. Fine, so far.
Then, when I got home to install them somewhere, I realized that I was replacing a CFL with years left on it with a new LED bulb. WTF?
I have a cupboard full of partially used and unused incandescent and CLFs as I’ve tried to keep up. Now, I’m wondering if, after I’m all LED in the house and good for 20 years, they’ll come out with something even better in the next 5 years.
Nikolas says
As if there wasn’t incentive enough to have a solar PV system installed on the roof of your house.
As the installation and per kW cost of solar PV continues to decrease + the continued increase in rates at SCE = break even on your solar system cost even sooner.
I was going to wait until I purchased the next generation Tesla, but now I may just install solar well before that.
Funny says
And all that extra electricity you generate once you break even or “zero out” your meter they get from you for free. Any access electricity you generate SoCal Edison gets from you for free.
Thomas says
This is not a true statement. There is NEM billing. or net energy metering. Which you will be paid at a rate of 8 cents KWH for the generation you give to the grid. At the end of the billing year you can request a payment from SCE for the excess power you produced. SCE does and will regulate the power your Solar system can create. They will not let you produce more power then you consumed in the prior year. That way they do not have to pay you.
Joe says
Wrong, I have solar panels on my roof. I currently have a $500 negative balance on my Edison bill because the panels produce more than I use. That money goes to pay higher bills in the summer time or is disbursed to me when I disconnect my service.
PowerPlant says
Well, we could see how they like not getting electricity from the grid of windmills and solar panels set up throughout the Antelope Valley.
rlmiller says
No one likes a rate increase, including me, and I’m no fan of SCE. But the fact is, SCE is a profit oriented investor owned business that attracts investors by offering a decent rate of return. So before jumping on SCE, the ratepayers need to know if the expense side of the ledger that includes operating expenses and depreciation of a significant capital investment, is reasonable. And to what extent is SCE loading the cost of decommissioning San Onofre on the ratepayers. If you doubt this is a complicated process, look at the number of line items on your SCE bill.
Then we need to know if the return on investment and equity appropriate. Given that SCE is a monopoly, or near monopoly, we can only depend on the Public Utilities Commission to assess the financial aspects of the company. The PUC is not an impressive body so we can only guess as to what extent they look after the ratepayers vs. the utilities.
Then we could talk to our legislators that have legislated that Californians can only use high cost electricity by denying the use of imported lower cost coal produced electricity, thus relegating us to other more expensive electricity, no matter where produced. I’ve heard California imports hydro electric power from British Columbia, thus adding to our cost. Then since BC must supplement the hydro produced electricity sent to California, they purchase much less expensive coal produced electricity from a U.S. producer. Since the entire west is on an Intertie grid, all this is nothing more than a shuffling of the books, for which we are the victim. If someone knows this to be true, or not, let me know.
And don’t forget, our president promised us that our electrical rates would go up as coal fired power plants are forced to shut down and coal produced electricity becomes less available. Apparently that’s one thing he hasn’t lied about or misrepresented.
Personally I don’t care what SCE does since I installed a grid tied solar system two years ago that supplies ALL my electrical power needs. But I recognize that as the cost of power increases, so does the cost of everything else.