In California, the major utility provider was found guilty in relation to wildfires, and fined.
Guess what happened to electricity rates...
That's an argument for making utilities publicly-owned again more than anything else.
It can be both
Publicly-owned like the school district?
At least in the Bay Area, there's a few cities that have municipal utilities (owned and ran by the city). Usually this is because they installed power lines before PG&E existed.
In those areas, the electricity rates are less than 1/3 of PG&E's rates. Residential electricity is around $0.16/kWh in Palo Alto and Santa Clara (city, not county), compared to something like $0.55-0.60/kWh in summer peak with PG&E.
One of the things with PG&E is that customers in city areas subsidise customers in rural areas, since it's quite a bit more expensive to service customers in rural areas. Most of the price difference is greed, though. PG&E have record profits every year. The municipal electricity providers are non-profits and have an incentive to keep prices low.
The thing that confuses me is that California bailed out PG&E when they declared bankruptcy, yet PG&E are still operating as a for-profit company? They essentially just got free money from the government. Why didn't the government take over the company?
In California, the major utility provider was found guilty in relation to wildfires, and fined.
Guess what happened to electricity rates...
That's an argument for making utilities publicly-owned again more than anything else.
It can be both
Publicly-owned like the school district?
At least in the Bay Area, there's a few cities that have municipal utilities (owned and ran by the city). Usually this is because they installed power lines before PG&E existed.
In those areas, the electricity rates are less than 1/3 of PG&E's rates. Residential electricity is around $0.16/kWh in Palo Alto and Santa Clara (city, not county), compared to something like $0.55-0.60/kWh in summer peak with PG&E.
One of the things with PG&E is that customers in city areas subsidise customers in rural areas, since it's quite a bit more expensive to service customers in rural areas. Most of the price difference is greed, though. PG&E have record profits every year. The municipal electricity providers are non-profits and have an incentive to keep prices low.
The thing that confuses me is that California bailed out PG&E when they declared bankruptcy, yet PG&E are still operating as a for-profit company? They essentially just got free money from the government. Why didn't the government take over the company?