PLAN COULD LET COUNTY AVERT POWER RATE HIKES.Byline: Gina Keating Staff Writer County supervisors floated a plan Tuesday that would allow the county to buy electricity directly from private or municipal power generators to avoid Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, Edison's recent rate hike. The electric rate increase approved last week by the California Public Utilities Commission The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC; also often commonly referred to as simply the PUC) [1] is a state Public Utilities Commission which regulates privately-owned utilities in the state of California, including electric power, is expected to bust the county's utility budget by as much as $16.7 million this fiscal year, said supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Michael D. Antonovich Michael Dennis Antonovich (born 1939 in Los Angeles, California) is a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors representing the Fifth District, which covers northern Los Angeles County, the Antelope, Santa Clarita, Pasadena, and parts of the San Fernando and San . ``It is critical that immediate steps be taken toward securing additional power sources,'' Antonovich said. Noting that they have no regulatory authority over power prices, the supervisors want instead to use the county's buying muscle as one of the state's top five electricity consumers to cut a better deal with power providers, Yaroslavsky said. The supervisors also left open the possibility that the county would band together with cities served by Edison to shop for lower rates. In a motion to be voted on next week, Antonovich and Yaroslavsky also gave county staffers 30 days to investigate the following options and report back to the board: --Support legislation that would permit municipal utilities such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest municipal utility in the United States, serving 3.9 million residents in 2006. It was founded in 1902 to deliver water and electricity supplies to residents and businesses in Los Angeles. and the Pasadena Department of Water and Power to provide electricity service to neighboring cities and public agencies. --Explore agreements with municipal utilities to provide power to county facilities at lower rates than Edison now charges. --Evaluate the value of the county's utility assets, including co-generation plants, standby generators and natural gas fields This list of natural gas fields includes major fields of the past and present. N.B. Some of the items listed are basins or projects that comprise many fields (e.g. Sakhalin has three fields: Chayvo, Odoptu, and Arkutun-Dagi). , and determine how best to use them in the current and future marketplace. The CPUC CPUC California Public Utilities Commission CPUC Current Procurement Unit Cost approved the 90-day, 7 percent to 15 percent rate increase in response to complaints from Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and Sempra that state caps on consumer electric rates are driving them into bankruptcy. The three companies racked up more than $9 billion in debt by buying wholesale power at higher prices than they are allowed to charge consumers. The county's proposal did not surprise Pasadena Department of Water officials, who say they can legally sell power outside the city without changes to deregulation Deregulation The reduction or elimination of government power in a particular industry, usually enacted to create more competition within the industry. Notes: Traditional areas that have been deregulated are the telephone and airline industries. laws, said PWP PWP Parents Without Partners PWP People With Parkinson's (disease) PWP Plot, What Plot? PWP Password Protected PWP Professional Women Photographers PWP Porn Without Plot (fanfiction and erotica) Director Eric Klinkner. ``We're looking at the costs of taking on more customers - could we provide competitive rates?'' he said. But the city hasn't decided whether it should sell power to Edison customers. |
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