Stop the Utility Profit Grab

The Energy Show

Copyright 2021 The Energy Show, Barry Cinnamon 6/30/21 News Story: “PG&E just asked regulators for a $3.6b rate hike to reduce fires from their own power lines” Another “in your face” profit grab from a utility that blames rooftop solar for high electric rates. This rate increase works out to $36 per month for every homeowner in California! Do they think we’re stupid? The biggest threat to rooftop solar and storage is not political. It’s not tariffs. Or product shortages. The biggest threat is from aggressive lobbying (which we pay via our electric bills) and outright lies from monopoly utilities. It’s pretty simple: utilities are trying to prevent businesses and homeowners from installing their own solar and battery systems so they maximize their profits. They lie about rooftop solar and storage. Adding insult to injury, they are also trying to increase fees for customers who already have these systems. It’s an outright, blatant, anti-competitive profit grab that will harm all current and future solar + storage customers — while at the same time increasing monopoly utility profits. And our regulators have historically gone along with these profit grabs. Utilities invented their Big Lie to convince the public that they are the good guys, only trying to protect ratepayers. BS. Did your electric rates go up because of rooftop solar? No — they went up because of high transmission costs and ridiculous utility executive salaries. Are our wildfires caused by rooftop solar? No — the deadliest fires have been caused by inadequate transmission line maintenance. Will paying utilities more money solve your home and business blackout problems any time soon? No — the fastest and cheapest way for you to get reliable power is with your own backup system. Check out this short video for a more realistic perspective: We Can’t Trust Them - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9TVsgUvtlI It is inconceivable to me that the California Public Utilities commission is considering another economic shift from homeowners, schools and businesses to a twice-bankrupt and criminal utility (PG&E) who already has a guaranteed 10% rate of return, who just raised electric rates by 11% this year — and is now asking for another $3.6 billion rate increase. Specifically, California’s three monopoly utilities want to: * Add monthly fixed charges to solar customer bills, * Reduce solar reimbursement rates, * Eliminate annual net metering, and * Change net metering grandfathering for existing solar customers. The only way to stop this utility profit grab is for homeowners and businesses to call out this Big LieL * Tell Governor Newsom that increasing solar costs is absolutely the wrong way to solving our electricity problems. * Tell the California Public Utilities Commission that paying PG&E even more money is unfair to all ratepayers. * Tell them both that we need more local solar and storage, not more expensive long-distance transmission lines that cause wildfires and perpetually high maintenance costs. Take action now: * Contact the Solar Rights Alliance at https://solarrights.org * Contact the California Solar and Storage Association at https://calssa.org For more about this Utility Lie, please listen up to this week’s Energy Show https://cinnamon.energy/the-energy-show/. We’ll go through the specific changes monopoly utilities want, the falsehoods behind their Big Lie, and steps we all need to take before the utility profit grab goes into effect.