Funding Diablo Canyon Will Cost Edison and San Diego Ratepayers, Too

Over the past few months, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has approved rate hikes for PG&E customers related to wildfires, beleaguered corporate finances, and undergrounding that may add $20-$40 per month to utility bills. However, there is still one more hike coming — if the CPUC votes on Thursday, December 14, to approve the five-year extension of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, enabled last year with the passage of SB 846.

In that CPUC case (R 23-01-007), PG&E’s own calculations show it will cost ratepayers $8.1 billion over the five-year extension. TURN has calculated that PG&E is underestimating by at least another $2 billion. In fact, early in the case, PG&E estimated only $5.6 billion and then due to TURN’s inquiries, raised their own estimate to the current $8.1 billion figure — which should be a red flag.

The key difference here is the language in SB 846 that spreads this cost over all Investor Owned Utility (IOU) ratepayers under CPUC jurisdiction, meaning that Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDGE) customers will also be paying for the Diablo extension — that means folks in Santa Barbara and Ventura.

These calculations derive the impact of this pending CPUC decision:
PGE:  5.4 Million customers/metered entities
SCE:  4.8 Million customers/metered entities
SDGE:  1.3 Million customers/metered entities
TOTAL INVESTOR OWNED UTILITY CUSTOMERS:  11.5 Million

Over the five-year extension for Diablo Canyon, that $8.1 billion comes to $1.62 billion per year. Divide that into the number of customers, and ratepayers will each pay $141 more per year, or roughly $11.75 per month, on top of all the other rate increases. That extra $11.75 impacts all IOU customers.

To make matters even more opaque, the Proposed Decision in the CPUC case hides this extra cost from ratepayers. This is truly ironic because all three IOUs agreed they wanted this charge to be listed as a Diablo-specific item on people’s electrical bills. The CPUC disagrees and instead buries the roughly $12 in the generic “Public Purposes Programs” line item, declaring, “…is not clear how a separate, stand-alone DCPP extended operations charge on customer bills would improve customer understanding of this charge…”

Given the CPUC’s ongoing largess with PG&E (and disregard for consumers) perhaps what is “clear” is the CPUC fearing further public backlash and trying to hide yet another PG&E rate hike — or in this case, an SCE hike for Santa Barbara customers.

The CPUC voting meeting is Thursday at 11 a.m. The CPUC  web link is: https://www.adminmonitor.com/ca/cpuc/voting_meeting/20231214/

David Weisman is legislative director for the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility Legal Fund.