On October 30th, Governor Newsom signed an Executive Order to address rising electricity costs, acknowledging escalating customer bills in pursuit of the state’s carbon neutrality goals. The Executive Order identifies the legacy net energy metering (NEM) program as well as utility wildfire risk reduction efforts as major cost drivers to ratepayer increases. The Executive Order directs the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and California Air Resources Board (CARB) to improve efficiency by reallocating unused program funds back to customers and enhancing the California Climate Credit, funded by the state’s Cap-and-Trade program. On a related note, CARB recently issued a notice that a formal rulemaking and stakeholder process will commence to develop updates to the Cap-and-Trade program. Finally, the Executive Order also aims to reduce long-term costs through greater scrutiny of utility wildfire safety spending and regulatory expenses, desiring more cost-effective wildfire mitigation measures and potentially impacting utility undergrounding ambitions, which can be 3 to 7 times more expensive per mile to install than other system hardening upgrades such as covered conductors. In the upcoming legislative session, state lawmakers are expected to consider additional actions to support affordability.
On a similar note, RCRC recently provided extensive comments to the California Energy Commission on the non-energy benefits associated with biomass energy facilities. RCRC strongly encouraged the CEC, the CPUC, and electrical utilities to consider the ways in which biomass facilities help facilitate achievement of the state's wildfire risk reduction, forest health improvement, solid waste diversion, and air quality goals. RCRC's letter to the CEC can be found here.