Thousands of Southern California Edison customers saw changes to their electricity bills in recent months — in some case much higher than expected. If you were surprised by the charges, you were not alone.
The billing changes were related to the Clean Power Alliance, a new joint powers authority — called a community choice aggregation program — focused on procuring energy that puts an emphasis on renewable fuels, according to a statement from SCE.
Customers were auto-enrolled into one of three options depending on their city governments.
“Lean power” customers, which offers the fewest renewables at 36%, saw a 1% to 2% bill reduction. For “clean power” customers with 50% renewable, rates didn’t change.
Under 100% “green power,” rates increased 7% to 9%.
Customers, however, can always alter their rate tier after being enrolled or even cancel the program and return to SCE.
The vast majority of CPA’s one-million customers came online in 2019, with residential customers in more than 30 communities in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. Most commercial customers came online in May.
But about 40,000 customers were never enrolled, the result of a computer programming error, CPA officials said. So those customers were auto-enrolled in recent months. And while CPA tried to notify customers as much as possible through repeated mailers that their bills would soon look different, some customers were still not aware of the switch.
“It can be confusing because how those charges appear on the bill is different,” said CPA Executive Director Ted Bardacke. “There’s some new surcharges, which the customer pays to Edison but then we discount those charges to make up for those surcharges.
“All of that is new to a customer looking at their bill,” Bardacke added. “I can understand why that’s confusing but if someone got a $100 bill from CPA in October, if they had been an Edison customer, they would have gotten the same $100 bill.”
Electricity bills now show two separate types of charges: SCE distribution service charges for lines and infrastructure; and CPA generation charges. The latter is the cost of generating or procuring power that ultimately gets delivered to customers.
“Southern California Edison strives to safely provide reliable and affordable service to all of its customers throughout Southern California, including those participating in (community choice aggregation programs),” said SCE spokesman Ron Gales. “CCAs and investor-owned utilities, such as SCE, are not in competition for customers and the formation or growth of CCAs does not impact the number of customers SCE serves, nor affects its profitability.
“By law, SCE doesn’t make money for procuring power on behalf of its customers,” Gales added. “However, SCE is permitted to earn a regulated profit for the delivery portion of its business.”
But there could be several other reasons electric bills seemed higher earlier this year, Bardacke said:
- A separate billing issue resolved in the summer caused some customers to receive delayed bills, meaning, for instance, they were not billed for a portion of the charges one month and then double billed the next;
- The recent billing changes also coincided with a heat wave across the region, resulting in higher utility bills in general; and
- Overall generation and delivery charges increased this year, independent of the CPA, due to infrastructure damage related to fires and increased demand during the heat waves.
How much customers’ bills increase or decrease over the year, however, are fixed, Bardacke said.
Roughly 94% of Southern California Edison customers chose to remain with Clean Power Alliance after being auto-enrolled in the program.
“To keep 90% is a pretty good track record of how we’re doing,” Bardacke said. “The programs and benefits we are offering are above and beyond what SCE is offering. Most of the programs SCE offers our customers are still eligible for.”
The Clean Power Alliance is currently available to customers in unincorporated portions of L.A. and Ventura counties, and the cities of Agoura Hills, Alhambra, Arcadia, Beverly Hills, Calabasas, Camarillo, Claremont, Carson, Culver City, Downey, Hawaiian Gardens, Hawthorne, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Moorpark, Ojai, Oxnard, Paramount, Redondo Beach, Rolling Hills Estates, Santa Monica, Sierra Madre, Simi Valley, South Pasadena, Temple City, Thousand Oaks, Ventura, West Hollywood, Westlake Village and Whittier.
Information and to see a rate comparison chart: CleanPowerAlliance.org.
Editor’s Note: Roughly 94% of Southern California Edison customers chose to remain with Clean Power Alliance after being auto-enrolled in the program. Because of a reporting error, a previous version of this story misstated the percentage of customers that opted out of CPA.
