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Comment by ahmeneeroe-v2 | Hacker News Reader

>the urban areas of California are subsidizing the fire prone rural areas of the state

Meanwhile Rural California is where the electricity is actually generated[1]; they're "subsidizing" urban use.

>SVP vs PG&E

This has nothing to do with the ownership model and everything to do with not being obligated to serve rural areas. They get to serve only lower cost dense areas

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Cali...

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True that SVP benefits from not serving a rural area, but we also need to consider again that PGE is a for-profit organization that in 2024 posted $2.5B in profits, which were distributed to shareholders[1]. If PGE were owned by the state with no such fiduciary duty, this money could instead be used to lower rates and/or invest in infrastructure.

[1] - https://www.zacks.com/stock/quote/PCG/income-statement?icid=...

My napkin math is that the $2.5B in profits accounts for about $0.14/kWH.

This is based on total electrical energy production of 17,301 GWh, since PG&E doesn't seem to publish their total distributed energy.

https://www.google.com/search?q=%242.5+billion+%2F+17%2C301+...

https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php?sid=CA#tabs-1

Great idea to napkin math it, but I think you're off by a very large margin. CA energy commission shows PG&E's energy consumption to be over 70,000 GWh.

$2,500,000,000 profit/70,000,000,000 kWh consumed is ~$0.035 per kWh.

So not exactly the smoking gun that CA ratepayers are looking for.

site: https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...

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