SACRAMENTO, California — The California Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday proposed a flat monthly fee for electric bills of $24.15 in its closely watched proceeding on restructuring electricity rates to try to make bills fairer and boost the state’s clean energy transition.
The CPUC, under heavy pressure from customer advocates, legislators and members of Congress to make energy more affordable, selected the same fee for investor-owned utilities that the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District charges its customers.
The fee is less than half what the major utilities wanted, but CPUC President Alice Reynolds said it’s enough to accomplish what lawmakers mandated two years ago: to reduce bills for low-income people and to cut costs for everyone to transition to electric homes and cars.
“We think that it’s a step in the right direction, especially for accelerating our progress toward our climate change goals,” she said in an interview Wednesday.
