San Diego Gas Electric

San Diego Gas & Electric reported Monday that net income for the year ended Dec. 31 rose 10% to $202.7 million and that revenues rose 6% to $1.7 billion. "Earnings were up because (state Public Utility Commission) disallowances were less in 1985 than 1984," SDG&E Chairman and Chief Executive Thomas Page said Monday. "The overall figures for 1985 show that the company has improved its financial health significantly." The utility reported that net income for the fourth quarter rose 20% to $59.

There are train wrecks, and there are train wrecks. Then there's San Onofre. You probably know San Onofre as the full-figured fiasco overlooking the Pacific Ocean near the Orange/San Diego county line. Beginning in 2004, Southern California Edison, the nuclear power plant's principal owner, oversaw a $770-million project to replace its two aging steam generators with new models. The new units, which were supposed to last 20 years, lasted scarcely 20 months before showing alarmingly severe wear and tear.

Residents and businesses in several south Orange County communities will get lower monthly utility bills and a one-time rebate this month as part of a $57-million refund by San Diego Gas & Electric. The state Public Utilities Commission approved the $22-million rate decrease and $35-million refund Thursday after the utility, which has 94,000 Orange County homes and businesses among its 1.2 million customers, said its operating costs for the past year had been lower than expected.

Prominent Los Angeles real estate developer Rick Caruso is expected to build a large-scale retail and entertainment center in north San Diego County after acquiring a plot of land along Interstate 5 from a local utility. Caruso said Thursday that he has agreed to buy a 48-acre parcel on Cannon Road in Carlsbad from San Diego Gas & Electric to be used for a future real estate development. Terms of the sale were not revealed and Caruso did not say exactly what he hopes to build, but he is best known for his Grove shopping center in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles and his Americana at Brand retail and residential development in Glendale.

A federal law judge on Tuesday recommended that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission prohibit Southern California Edison from merging with San Diego Gas & Electric because the combination would stifle utility competition, generate few benefits for utility customers and further degrade Southern California air quality.

For partisans rooting against the biggest electric utility merger in history, they have become known as "those four magic words." Not adversely affect competition --The phrase hangs conspicuously in one of the only bills to address the proposed Southern California Edison-San Diego Gas & Electric merger and survive the Legislature.

Experienced consumers know that whenever a company says it's changing its services to serve them better, it's wise to count the silverware and make sure the doors are locked. But San Diego Gas & Electric Co. has lately unveiled a groundbreaking advance in the art of shafting customers and disguising it as an act of love. The utility wants to give some of its 1.2 million residential customers the option to prepay their electric bills. Think of it as similar to a prepaid cellphone for which you buy a basket of minutes in advance; in this case you would put money in an SDG&E account, and when your electric usage drains it down you would refill it with cash or by bank card to keep the lights on. What could be more convenient than that?

Some power companies are pulling the plug on old-fashioned mechanical electric meters, and to the likely disappointment of growl-happy dogs, fewer meter-readers will be invading yards across Southern California. Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric and San Diego Gas and Electric are upgrading customers to digital "smart meters" that can transmit real-time data about electricity use back to the utility company wirelessly. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is updating meters too, but primarily for larger businesses.

The Public Utilities Commission on Thursday rejected a plan by San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to turn off power to back-country areas during times of high winds and low humidity to avoid a repeat of the disastrous fires that ripped through the county in 2007. The commissioners, in a 4-1 vote, said the company had not shown that its plan would decrease the chances of fire. Commission member Rachelle Chong said she was influenced by opposition from the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, the county Office of Emergency Services and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Even as firefighters continue fighting the Station fire, the largest brush fire in Los Angeles County history, an emotionally charged issue is flaring over how to avoid a repeat of the disastrous 2007 fires in San Diego County. On Thursday, the Public Utility Commission is set to vote on a San Diego Gas & Electric Co. proposal to turn off power to some back-country areas during fire-prone times of high winds and low humidity. The fires, which burned more than 200,000 acres and destroyed more than 1,500 homes, were caused by sparking electrical wires blown down by unusually fierce Santa Ana winds.

An administrative law judge and a member of the Public Utilities Commission offered different recommendations Tuesday about a controversial plan by San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to shut off power to fire-prone backcountry areas during high winds. The full commission will consider the contrasting recommendations at its Sept. 10 meeting, officials said. PUC member Timothy Alan Simon proposed that the utility be allowed to shut off power, although he attached several conditions.

Lis Sines of Hermosa Beach loves watching her electric meter run backward. When that happens, she knows that the 20 solar panels on her roof are producing more power than she needs to run her 3,800-square-foot home. The excess electricity flows to the electric company's grid, and she gets its full retail value credited to her utility bill. Sines' electric bill has plunged since she and her husband, William, installed a photovoltaic system on their roof three months ago.

About 32,000 San Diego Gas & Electric customers in Vista were without power for a short time Wednesday because of a failure at a substation, the utility company said. Power was restored to all residences and businesses within half an hour of the 12:42 p.m. outage, SDG&E spokesman Fred Vaughn said. The outage occurred when an insulator at the Melrose Avenue substation shorted out, shutting down a bank of circuit breakers, he said.

California's state parks director this week issued a blistering critique of a proposed power line through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, saying it "would forever change the character of this pristine park" and "set a dangerous precedent that would mean that state park lands ... are merely held ... until such time as they may be needed by private developers or utility companies." The comments by Ruth Coleman were submitted in response to San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'

Sempra Energy, owner of Southern California Gas Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., said Wednesday that fourth-quarter net income rose 2.6%, helped by increased profit from trading commodities such as gas, electricity and oil. Net income rose to $355 million, or $1.38 a share, from $346 million, or $1.46, in the fourth quarter of 2004, the San Diego-based company said. The lower per-share profit reflects an increase in outstanding shares. Sales rose 37% to $3.99 billion.