SAN MARCOS , Most businesses would love to have the problems SunChoice is experiencing right now , an “almost unmanageable demand” for their services.
Kirk Stokes, president of Golden, Colo.-based Altair Energy, said the company opened its SunChoice operation a few months ago, predicting the San Diego area would become a hot market for solar-generated electricity.
Now, the area’s high electricity rates have residential and small business customers scrambling for alternatives, and using photovoltaic cells to generate electricity lic Utilities Commission members Aug. 30 when they held a public hearing in San Diego. Speaking before the Legislature’s vote later that evening, he chastised state leaders for their inaction.
“The response from CPUC and the Legislature up to this point has not been adequate to the catastrophe that we are facing,” he said. “We are in a real disaster here, and the only thing that has been offered so far is a deferment of payment, which will have to be dealt with at some point.”
And that means San Diegans will continue to pay off the generators who have been overcharging local ratepayers, Filner said.
Filner called upon the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to step in. FERC should roll back the wholesale electric rates retroactively to the beginning of the crisis, he said.
That may solve the problem in the short run, but a long-range solution is still needed. So long as there is a monopoly on electrical power in San Diego, the problem remains.
“That’s where the problem lies right now. They can charge us whatever they want,” he said. “There is no market here. They should never have deregulated in such a situation.”
Larry Stirling, Republican candidate for the state Senate seat currently held by Sen. Dede Alpert, D-Coronado, has filed a lawsuit to help give San Diego residents access to cheap hydroelectric power.
The lawsuit, filed Aug. 31 on behalf of ratepayers throughout San Diego, named Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson, FERC, San Diego Gas & Electric Co. and others as defendants.
At the center of the lawsuit is allegations over profiteering on hydroelectric power. The City of Los Angeles Department of Water & Power has made “tens of millions” of dollars this summer at the expense of San Diego ratepayers, Stirling said.
As a preference customer, the department buys its hydroelectric power at .9 cents per kilowatt hour, then turns around and resells its excess electricity back into the power grid at rates as high as 25 cents per kilowatt hour, he said.
The lawsuit calls upon the federal government to enforce the law preventing profiteering on federal hydroelectric power.
That would help San Diego ratepayers get a better shot at getting hydroelectric power at reduced prices, Stirling said.
