Supporters of the effort to put SDG&E out of business, and have a local government oversee the transmission and distribution of electricity, have apparently recognized that their biggest obstacle may be a perceived lack of trust in how well the city is operating.
At the Politifest 2025 discussion on how we can make electricity more affordable, former City Manager Jack McGrory argued that the best hope was to push SDG&E to keep trying to lower bills and advocate for the legislature to remove some of the many mandates they’ve put into electric bills.
But his main point was residents simply couldn’t trust the city of San Diego to run their power company.
“Do you actually trust the City Council of this city to take over the electric grid? Remember you are using your computers, your lights, all of your technology. Do you trust these guys … They’re $8 billion in the hole on infrastructure maintenance. You can’t drive on a goddamn city street without ruining your tires. You want them now to take over your electricity?” McGrory said.
No, at least not even Bill Powers, who made the case for creating a community-owned, “no-profit” utility. A government agency would have to buy the power lines and more from SDG&E. If SDG&E refused to sell them, the movement hopes the government would use eminent domain to take them.
“I agree with Jack that a municipal utility, a public electric utility, should not be a city department. I’m sold on that. But there are numerous structures that can be used to firewall it from city council, from the mayor,” Powers said.
He said there were many structures you can use, including creating a special district or running it as a quasi independent agency like the San Diego Housing Commission.
“The community just doesn’t have trust in the city’s ability to manage something complicated,” Powers said.
McGrory tried to predict exactly how it would go.
“Ultimately the city of San Diego is a corporation is going to have to decide how the utility is going to be governed. And trust me, when the unions get involved in this, and the unions with this particular city council, it’ll be a city utility. It’ll be a city department run by the city of San Diego,” McGrory said.
Powers’ presentation won the Solutions Showdown. His core point was SDG&E’s profits could immediately be redirected to lower prices and community benefits.
“We have over 40 public electric utilities in the state. Their hallmark: lower rates, high reliability, good customer service, fast interconnection. More importantly, they are under local control. We do not have that with SDG&E,” Powers said.
Powers and the group Public Power San Diego hope to qualify a ballot measure (and then win the vote for it) that would force the city to act on municipalizing the electricity grid.
As much as I agree the city should not be in charge of electricity, bill powers is a joke for trying to ride that pony before getting shot down. And CSU McGrory was blocked from testifying by SDSU for a free arena deal that was quashed and buried for the upcoming Midway Rising giveaway. A lot of dancers at the dance.
The extra M0ney has made a big difference in my financial situation. It’s a fantastic way to boost y0ur inC0me with0ut overW0rking yourself…
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Eliminating $500 million currently collected annually by SDGE as profits and allowing businesses, schools and home owners to install solar and/or batteries instead of restricting would be worth 86-ing SDGE.
Doing nothing means SDGE keeps collecting $500 million+ from customers annually and increasing bills 10% or more annually for eternity. Perfection isn’t required, we surely don’t have it now with SDGE.
Really do you know how much money it costs to maintain the power grid and add more electricity as technology advances and you expect the city to do it get really they can barely maintain the trash pickup
You do realize the public will still pay for electricity and delivery right? Or are you saying that somehow SDGE is so efficient at maintaining the current grid noone else can do it without much higher costs and in an unreliable way? Just to add though, current plans are NOT to have the city run the municipal utility.
“allowing businesses, schools and home owners to install solar and/or batteries instead of restricting”
I don’t understand this point. How is SDG&E restricting the installation of solar? I didn’t have any trouble with my residential installation.
As of September 2024, California’s current regulations do not allow schools and businesses to fully self-consume their solar energy, as they are required to sell excess power to the utility at lower “avoided cost” rates and buy power back at higher retail rates. Please look it up.
Solar power generated must be exported through a meter and credited at really low rates while another meter is required for consumption. Sounds crazy and it is but that’s the game with SDGE+CPUC.
Don’t know if the school is paying a higher cost from 4 to 9 peak hour pricing. And cali regulators can change anything.
the 4-9p window does not matter at all here. All of the solar energy produced by schools and businesses are credited at time of generation at far below retail rates. So while the school and businesses are generating electricity they can not consume it. They get credited very little and still have to purchase at retail rates AND pay for transmission to them.
At least I know my lights will be on. The city can’t manage infrastructure as it is. Solar tax credits end this year, and how is SDGE restricting solar? I know the city won’t care if an ADU or a multistory building blocks your panels.
Complete JOBS time freedom and income are in front of you. (fc416) This activity is just fantastic. Every individual can makes profits on-line with google without difficulty….
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Absorb SDG&E, with its costs and profits. Make it a special district or quasi independent agency – whatever. We would have more influence over it, instead of it currently pushing for projects that only benefit it, like bringing in electricity from far away, with high transmission losses. What kind of influence do we currently have over SDG&E and CPUC? Solar is way under-tapped: we should see it everywhere, not just on the homes of the well-off. “Do you know how much it costs to maintain the power grid and add more electricity?” Yes: it costs way less than SDG&E’s record profits, which would be ours to work with. Bottom line: publicly owned power is nothing new, and where it has been implemented, it has worked.
The Powers/ city consortium was negligible in savings and too scary to let the city run it.
Savings? Did you say savings? You know there is NEVER any “saving” with SDGE because their contract with the State and CPUC allows them to constantly keep collecting more and more and their stock holders insist they profit more and more. If there is anyone who can show a savings THAT is something to behold.
And local generation with localized storage eliminates any need for any more long distance transmission lines. IIRC there’s $500 million annually to help pay down debt and lower rates with no changes to infrastructure. Just allowing all schools and businesses to put up solar and self consume drastically drops energy usage. Why on Earth else would they have this limitation in place?
There wasn’t any savings on the city plan due to the cost of acquisition. And then it would have to expand to the county from the city being surrounded by SDGE if that initial plan had happened. The idea you’d save something eliminating SDGE is a red herring. San Diego produces 28 percent.
This!
Definitely can’t trust current Council, you saw the budget madness this year…
CFO Vespi just jumped ship for the Port…
Put someone else in charge.