Re “Another increase to your SDG&E bill is coming” (Jan. 15): Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory recently found that the biggest factors behind rising electric rates were the cost of poles, wires, other electrical equipment and the cost of safeguarding that infrastructure against future disasters.
Building that infrastructure is more or less guaranteed a 10% rate of return whether or not it’s actually needed.
The article states that bills will go up an average of $5 a month after the CPUC OK’d wildfire spending.
According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, average rates for California’s three investor-owned utility monopolies increased an average of 10% to 13% annually from 2019 to 2023.
We are being billed based on an obsolete business model that privatizes the profits and socializes the costs. It makes more sustainable sense to build local solar projects with battery storage over our rooftops and parking lots, thus reducing the perceived need to build new transmission infrastructure and mitigate for wildfires.
— Don Christiansen, Carlsbad