{"id":402183,"date":"2026-07-17T12:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T12:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/402183\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T12:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T12:23:12","slug":"california-expands-utility-shutoff-protections-during-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/402183\/","title":{"rendered":"California expands utility shutoff protections during heat"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alejandro Lazo<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\""The\"
\n\t\t\t\tThe sun sets behind a row of transmission towers as temperatures rise to a scorching 114 degrees in Fresno County on Sept. 6, 2022. Photo by Larry Valenzuela, CalMatters\/CatchLight Local<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

California bars utilities from cutting off power to customers who fall behind on their bills when it\u2019s dangerously hot outside \u2013 a basic safety protection. Losing power in some rural areas can also mean losing water, and in cities, having no way to cool down can be dangerous, even deadly, when hot weather spans several days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

California regulators concluded more than a year ago<\/a> that rules protecting delinquent customers from power shutoffs during heat waves weren\u2019t strong enough. They ordered the state\u2019s largest utilities to come up with better safeguards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the utilities unveiled their plan in December, their proposals barely changed anything, the commission concluded on Thursday<\/a>, finding their proposal \u201cdoes not offer sufficient health protections for ratepayers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commission had set a May 1 deadline for the new rules. Utilities missed it, and consumer advocates filed emergency motions<\/a> to force action.<\/p>\n

As another stretch of dangerous heat gripped the state<\/a>, the California Public Utilities Commission wrote stronger rules itself. In a 4-0 vote, the commission lowered<\/a> the temperature at which utilities must stop shutting off power to delinquent customers, from 100 to 90 degrees, and ordered utilities to adopt a more protective, region-specific heat standard within six months.<\/p>\n

A battle to define extreme heat\u00a0<\/p>\n

During a record heat wave two years ago \u2014 the hottest July in California history <\/a>\u00a0\u2014 The Utility Reform Network, a consumer group, asked the utilities commission to revisit its definition<\/a> of extreme heat. The group\u2019s emergency request<\/a> argued that \u201cheat kills more people directly than any other weather-related hazard.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The rules already barred<\/a> electric utilities from disconnecting residential customers for nonpayment if forecasted temperatures soared above 100 degrees within 72 hours.<\/p>\n

But a single statewide threshold, the group argued, didn\u2019t account for how differently Californians experience heat depending on where they live.<\/p>\n

Regulators declined to treat the request as an emergency, but ordered the utilities<\/a> to come up with a plan for changing the 100-degree threshold by working with advocates and others.<\/p>\n

The utilities proposed using CalHeatScore<\/a>, a newly created state tool that scores heat by ZIP code \u2013 from Level 0\u00a0 to 4 \u2013\u00a0 using local health data and historical impacts, taking into account data on nearby cooling centers, as well as the number of children and seniors, who can be more susceptible to extreme heat.<\/p>\n

The problem: the utilities proposed setting the cutoff threshold at Level 3 \u2013 a higher bar than advocates wanted \u2013 and keeping 100 degrees<\/a> as the backstop when the index wasn\u2019t available.<\/p>\n

Advocates filed protests<\/a> seeking a wider safety net, arguing for a lower Level 2 index score and a 90-degree backup threshold.<\/p>\n

Utilities said they could not meet the deadline because CalHeatScore\u2019s own data system, run by the state\u2019s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, was not yet ready to support them. Advocates countered that the utilities offered little evidence for sticking with the higher 100-degree threshold.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By May, with utilities still behind schedule, The Utility Reform Network joined with the San Diego-based Utility Consumers\u2019 Action Network, the National Consumer Law Center and the Center for Accessible Technology, asking the commission<\/a> to intervene.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The commission sides with advocates<\/p>\n

This week the commission rejected the utilities\u2019 proposal, siding with advocates. The path the utilities were proposing would be \u201cno different\u201d than prior practice. The resolution noted the extreme heat threshold is already below 100 degrees in 41 of California\u2019s 58 counties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A 90-degree day might be routine in dry, inland cities such as Bakersfield or Fresno, but such temperatures could be atypically dangerous in coastal or mountainous communities where fewer homes have air conditioning and people are less acclimated to the heat.<\/p>\n

San Francisco, for instance, defines heat as extreme when temperatures climb above 85 degrees. In the far northwest county of Del Norte, extreme heat means anything above 76.8 degrees, the commission said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA single threshold temperature level needs to be more protective of residents in areas of the state that are not accustomed to high temperatures,\u201d the commission wrote in its resolution.<\/p>\n

Utilities move to comply\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the utilities had wanted a narrower safety net for customers, they are now stressing they will comply with the more protective standard.<\/p>\n

Last December, the major investor-owned utilities had together argued<\/a> that extending protections to consumers at lower heat scores would halt disconnections too often, deepen unpaid balances, and add costs without a comparable health benefit. In a January filing, according to a PG&E spokesperson, the utilities argued that the 90-degree threshold was \u201coverbroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The protections would apply only to shutoffs for unpaid bills. They would not prevent outages caused by equipment failures, wildfire-prevention shutoffs, or other emergencies. Nevertheless, advocates say the changes are important.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen electricity is shut off to a home, it can have a sort of a cascading effect of problems on tenants,\u201d said Jason Zeller, an attorney with the Utility Consumers Action Network. \u201cIf tenants don’t have electric service, they can be subject to eviction; if they have children, they can lose child custody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reached ahead of the vote, all three utilities said they were prepared to comply with the commission\u2019s new rules. Edison said the resolution would strengthen protections during extreme heat and that it was ready to change its disconnection policies. SDG&E said it supported the added safeguards and would implement the commission\u2019s final requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisconnection is a last resort at PG&E, only after multiple attempts to contact customers and offer payment plans and assistance programs,\u201d said PG&E spokesperson Adrienne Moore. The region-specific standard is expected to be implemented within six months.<\/p>\n

The commission\u2019s independent Public Advocates Office had pressed for stronger protections throughout the process, formally opposing the utilities\u2019 plan. Director Linda Serizawa the vote would provide consumers with \u201cprotection that takes effect when they need it most.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters The sun sets behind a row of transmission towers as temperatures rise to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8436,7,9,8,14047,443],"class_list":["post-402183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-utilities","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-california-public-utilities-commission","tag-climate-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}