Power costs are expected to continue escalating in the state.
Electricity rates in California are roughly twice the national average and are likely to keep climbing. A former state energy commissioner recently detailed the many factors behind this trend.
Since the late 1980s, California residents have paid as much as 10 percent more for electricity than the national average, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. However, energy rates have surged in recent years, from about 33 percent higher in 2015 to as much as 80 percent more than the national average in 2024.
Power costs are expected to continue escalating in California, however, as the state’s utility providers grapple with the loss of crucial power grid infrastructure in the aftermath of major wildfires.
Jim Boyd, former energy commissioner for the state, recently spoke with Siyamak Khorrami, host of The Epoch Times’s “California Insider,” and noted that the Golden State’s average utility rate is currently about 96 percent higher than the rest of the nation.
At Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), the state’s largest utility provider serving Northern and Central California, the average rate is roughly 104 percent higher than it was a decade ago, Boyd said.
Key Factors
Oftentimes, the damaging effects from the state’s many wildfires are a primary reason why California residents have seen such steep increases in their power costs, Boyd said.
“Utilities are damaged by wildfires. Their infrastructure gets burned, and it’s expensive to replace. Infrastructure costs go into the rate for electricity. Rate-payers pay for it.”
Boyd also said many wildfires have been started by utilities themselves because their equipment was too close to trees, and their wires were old and easily damaged.
According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), there already have been 62 wildfires in California through Jan. 26. In the five years from 2020 through 2024, there were an average of 7,713 wildfires each year in California, Cal Fire reported.
By Rob Sabo
