Electricity

The more than 16% rate hike requested by Southern California Edison for next year has triggered plenty of opposition from, among others, sign-toting Los Angeles customers who crowded into a room to tell the utility that they can't afford it. With gasoline and food costing more, few want to spend extra for electricity even if the money would help prevent blackouts.

The Los Angeles City Council gave preliminary approval Wednesday to restructuring electricity rates for city utility customers during the summer months, reducing rates in high-temperature neighborhoods and adopting a tiered rate system that would punish big energy users and reward conservation. The plan would give price breaks from June through September to customers living in "hot zones" in the San Fernando Valley, on the Eastside and in portions of South Los Angeles.

Does Southern California need a dozen or so new gas-fired power plants -- and if it does, can it build them? No one seems to know for sure. The region's long-term plans to generate electricity to serve a growing population and to replace decades-old dirty plants were thrown into disarray this week, when a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that local authorities had failed to do the necessary environmental and health analyses.

PG&E Corp., owner of California's largest utility, said second-quarter profit rose 8.9% on higher rates. Net income increased to $293 million, or 80 cents a share, from $269 million, or 74 cents a share, a year earlier, the San Francisco-based company said. Revenue climbed 12% to $3.58 billion. California utilities are spending more on electricity generators and power lines to bolster reliability and meet rising demand from a growing population. Last year, California regulators said the company's Pacific Gas & Electric utility could raise rates by $213 million in 2007 and by $125 million annually from 2008 through 2010.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has signed contracts to buy enough solar energy to power 239,000 homes a year. The utility said Thursday that it would buy 800 megawatts of renewable energy from subsidiaries of Hayward-based OptiSolar Inc. and San Jose-based SunPower Corp. The electricity will come from two large-scale solar projects to be built in San Luis Obispo County on the Central California coast. OptiSolar's 550-megawatt Topaz Solar Farm project is expected to begin delivering power in 2011.

The City Council voted Wednesday to allow the Department of Water and Power to purchase electricity from a wind farm in northern Oregon, the fourth such deal in the last year. The proposal is the latest effort by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to generate 20% of the DWP's power from renewable sources by 2010. The council unanimously agreed to pay up to $21.8 million annually to Willow Creek LLC, a subsidiary of the company Invenergy. The agreements approved so far will allow the DWP to secure 14% of its energy from renewable sources by next spring, said Randy Howard, one of its power system managers.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers will pay more for their electricity after the company hiked its rates by an average of 6%. The new rates, which went into effect Wednesday, mean a typical residential customer will now pay more than $73 a month for electricity. Larger homes will see their rates rise to a little more than $158 a month, and a typical small business will pay more than $292. PG&E says the rate hike is needed to cover a rise in the price of natural gas.

Proposition 7 on the November ballot aims to hurry the day when more of California's electricity comes from windmills, solar panels and other oil-free sources, requiring the state's utilities to get half their power from renewable energy by 2025.

Gasoline prices are falling, but energy bills are going up. The lagging effects of this summer's jump in natural gas prices is expected to boost electricity and gas bills in California and nationwide, though the size of the financial hit will vary widely depending on the utility, the weather, home energy usage and the region's dominant fuel source. This winter, the average U.S.

With California's mandate to have 20% of its energy needs met by renewable sources by 2010, more technology is being developed to harness energy from the ocean. Finavera Renewables in Vancouver, Canada, is developing a buoy that generates electricity from wave action. PG&E recently signed a contract to purchase power from the company's proposed site off Humboldt County. It will deploy eight buoys initially and produce 2 megawatts of power (enough for 1,500 homes) with plans to increase that to 100 megawatts.