The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to hold San Bernadino rate design forum.
San Bernardino — The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) will hold a community forum in San Bernardino to discuss and answer questions about the CPUC’s July 2015 decision to significantly change residential electricity rates, including the requirement that starting in 2019 all residential customers will be offered time of use rates as a default.
WHAT: CPUC San Bernardino Rate Design Forum
WHEN: Tuesday, May 31, 2016, 6 p.m.
WHERE: San Bernardino City Hall, 300 North D St., San Bernardino, CA 92418
WHY: To discuss and answer questions about the CPUC’s July 2015 decision that transitioned the state’s residential electricity rates to a more effective and cost-based structure, empowering consumers with more opportunities to conserve, and promoting resource optimization and grid reliability.
As part of its process to implement Assembly Bill 327 (Perea, 2013), the CPUC unanimously approved a proposal put forth by Administrative Law Judges and CPUC President Michael Picker. Today’s decision establishes customer default time of use rates on January 1, 2019, moves rates from four to two tiers, postpones a monthly fixed charge, and requires the utilities to create a special outreach program to educate lower tier customers on no-cost and low-cost conservation measures.
“Rate reform is necessary to move us into a future where consumers have the tools they need to manage their own energy use, and can install new, clean technologies such as storage and renewables,” said President Picker. “The world has changed since 2001, when rates were frozen by the Legislature. Over time, with the lower tier rates being frozen, the five-tiered rate structure departed increasingly from any cost basis and imposed ever greater inequities on large-family households that were pushed into higher tiers in hot climate zones. Our decision helps align rates with the actual cost of service. It also builds a more nimble rate structure to allow us to add more and more renewables to the grid, and to encourage customers to use energy when we have excess renewables and to cut back during peak periods.”
At this public forum, the CPUC will discuss time of use rates, the transition from four to two rate tiers, the economic and environmental benefits of these new rates, and the CPUC’s plans to work closely with utilities and communities throughout California to ensure that consumers are ready for these changes. For more information, please visit www.cpuc.ca.gov/RateDesignForums.
For more information on the CPUC’s rate design decision, please see our July 3, 2015, press release at http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M153/K072/153072586.PDF.
For more information on the CPUC, please visit www.cpuc.ca.gov.