Fight over Southern California Edison rate hike heats up

(From the latimes.com) To Southern California Edison, the $3.2 billion in rate hikes it wants on homes and businesses are vital to ensuring much-needed improvements to an aging electrical grid serving 14 million people and 285,000 companies. But consumer advocates say Edison is being greedy. While conceding the utility has legitimate infrastructure costs, they say the rate hike proposal has been swollen with questionable allocations for pay raises and pensions.

An administrative law judge opened a two-day public hearing on the rate request in Los Angeles on Monday. The judge will make a recommendation this fall to the state Public Utilities Commission, which is expected to rule on the Edison request by early next year.

If approved, monthly electricity bills would jump about 9.1% for the average residential customer, who uses 600 kilowatt-hours of power a month. Low-usage customers — below 300 kilowatt hours — would see rates climb about 5.9%, while customers who use 900 kilowatt-hours or more would see their bills increase 11.1%.

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