The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) is out with details regarding something we all know from paying PG&E every month. Costs are up, up, up. Specifically:
California’s electricity rates are among the highest in the country,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported. On average, residential electricity rates in California are close to double those in the rest of the nation. Average residential electricity rates in California have grown faster than inflation in recent years, rising by about 47% over the four-year period from 2019 through 2023 compared to overall growth in prices of about 18%,” according to the report. Only Hawaii has higher electricity rates than California, the report determined.
The LAO pins this on:
- Increasing stringency of greenhouse gas emission reduction laws for the electricity grid.
- Accommodating more electricity demand from electrification.
- Growing demand for funding to support state climate policies.
- Wildfire-related costs.
One of the preeminent energy economists in the world, Bjorn Lomborg, who we profiled here is also back with an update in the WSJ titled "Green energy costs a bundle" that notes a study of 70 countries' costs shows:
In a country with little or no solar and wind, the average electricity cost is about 12 cents a kilowatt-hour (in today’s money). For every 10% increase in solar and wind share, the electricity cost increases by more than 5 cents a kilowatt-hour. This isn’t an outlier; these results are substantially similar to 2019, before the effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Germany has installed so much solar and wind that, on sunny and windy days, renewable energy satisfies close to 70% of Germany’s needs—a fact the press eagerly reports. But the press hardly mentions dark and still days, when these renewables deliver almost nothing. Twice in the past two months, when it was cloudy and nearly windless, solar and wind delivered less than 4% of the daily power Germany needed. Current battery technology is insufficient. Germany’s entire battery storage runs out in about 20 minutes.
The SF Chronicle looked at the other side of the story last week as new buy-back rates from PG&E et al take a bite out of green ambitions in California:
In late 2022, state regulators voted to slash the level of that payment by around 75% to bring it closer to market prices. With the electricity they produce worth far less, rooftop panels suddenly didn’t make as much financial sense.
Beyond the impact on customers’ pocketbooks, the change devastated California’s solar industry when it went into effect in April 2023, prompting a huge drop in home and business panel installations, wiping out thousands of jobs, and forcing local installers to shrink or close up shop altogether.
That would be 17,000 vaporized jobs to be more specific. Competing studies assert that non-solar customers are subsidizing solar customers--or vice versa. What is undeniable is that a bunch of people who would have plunked down tens of thousands of dollars of their own money to contribute to green energy generation have changed their minds. I would attribute it to the Law of Unintended Consequences, but it was so obvious that it has to be intentional. Does anyone in Sacramento care to listen to the LAO?
Get rid of Broadway station. I bet the cost is cut in half immediately.
The station serves no real purpose with Millbrae being one of the best station in the Bay Area and Burlingame Ave less than a mile away.
Posted by: JB | February 09, 2025 at 11:33 AM