On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved rate increases for Southern California Edison (SCE) customers to provide safe and reliable service. Average residential customers’ bills will increase 8.9%, or approximately $12.41 per month.
Notably, the CPUC approved spending $3.29 billion on SCE’s approved Wildfire Mitigation Plan. Over 90% of SCE’s wildfire mitigation expenditures center on system hardening efforts through the replacement of bare overhead wire with insulated covered conductors designed to withstand incidental contact with vegetation or other foreign objects in order to reduce the risk of wildfire ignitions. The CPUC conditioned future expansion of costly covered conductor installation on a reasonableness review, placing a burden on SCE to prove this multi-billion dollar mitigation activity has measurable, cost-effective outcomes such as reducing de-energization events. More information on SCE’s General Rate Case can be viewed here.