- Newsmaker: PUC Price Hike - California's Public Utilities Commission today allocated the biggest electricity rate hike in state history. Critics have protested that industry was being hit too hard, residential consumers not hard enough. PUC Commissioner Carl Wood, who faults the FERC and wholesale energy prices for rate hikes, explains how new rates will impact consumers.
Huntington Beach Power Plants; PUC Rate Hikes
The Orange County coastal city of Huntington Beach is feeling the brunt of efforts to avoid rolling blackouts this summer. The California Energy Commission has issued a permit to Virginia-based AES Corporation to fire up two 40-year-old power plants that have been standing idle since 1995 to provide some 10 percent of the power needed to keep the lights on statewide. We get three perspectives on the gas-fired plant from a California Coastal Commissioner, the president of AES, and the deputy director of plant licensing for the California Energy Commission.