Campaign to Replace SDG&E With Public Utility Delivers Voter Signatures to City Clerk’s Office

San Diegans have paid among the highest energy rates in the nation for years, and 2024 only accelerated that trend.

Now, a local effort to create a community-led, nonprofit power company and replace SDG&E with a more resilient model is a step closer to reality.

The Power San Diego ballot measure campaign has collected more than 30,000 voter signatures from the city of San Diego. Power San Diego submitted them to City Clerk for validation this week.

The campaign, which is chaired by energy expert and environmental engineer Bill Powers, says it aims to wrest control from the San Diego Gas & Electric monopoly and lower rates throughout the region.

“The only way for us to be able to craft our own destiny as a city is to control the local grid and thereby enable the most cost-effective, innovative local clean energy strategy,” said Powers in a statement. “Without that local control of the electric utility, we do not control our destiny.”

Powers said that the not-for-profit, public electric distribution model is not unprecedented — in fact, it is already in use all over the state.

“There are more than 40 non-profit electric utilities across California, including Sacramento and Los Angeles. They’re all different but they share one characteristic — they all charge less, usually substantially less than SDGE, while providing the same or better reliability and paying good union wages.”

Power San Diego is campaigning to create a lower-cost electric distribution utility that would — among other things — prioritize solar power from rooftops and parking lots, rather than large-scale, relatively remote solar projects.

The campaign estimates that electric bills would fall by 20 percent initially, the campaign estimates, if San Diego adopts a non-profit model — while still maintaining all labor union contracts.

“We think that municipalization is dangerous for San Diego,” said Matt Awbrey, a spokesperson for Responsible Energy San Diego, which is a coalition of business, community, and labor groups which oppose the campaign, describing it on their website as “reckless.”

“Taking over the electric grid and creating a government owned electric utility would immediately run up $9.3 billion or more in debt,” Awbrey said.

“That’s a huge number — almost twice the entire City budget. One way or another, we are all going to pay for that — through higher taxes, higher electric bills, and/or cuts to essential City services we all depend on. If this initiative were to move forward, there is no turning back regardless of what the final price tag will be.”

If the city clerk’s office verifies that Power San Diego has collected at least 24,000 valid signatures, the San Diego City Council has the power to place the question up for a popular vote.

Meanwhile, the California Public Utilities Commission has approved a new pricing structure that is expected to cut electricity bills by about 15%. SDG&E customers will see those changes starting in 2025.

Updated at 6:03 p.m., Tuesday, May 14, 2024.