by Alison Despathy

In 2008, California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger–aka the Terminator– signed an executive order demanding California utilities use 33% of renewable energy by 2020. At the time, California law called for 20% power generation from renewables and Schwarzenegger described his new order as, “The most aggressive in the nation.” In 2018, California ramped up the aggression to 100% carbon free and renewable by 2045. 

Since then California has been on a collision course between climbing electricity prices and ratepayers struggling to keep up with their electric bills.

Vermont’s revised Renewable Energy Standard (H.289) passed the House last week. The current Renewable Energy Standard (RES) requires utilities to access 75% of their power from renewable sources by 2032. Vermont’s newly designed Renewable Energy Standard increases that requirement to 100% by the year 2035. Additionally H.289 increases the amount of power required from local and regional renewable energy generation.

Cost for this new RES would be borne by Vermont’s electric ratepayers and estimates vary between hundreds of million of dollars to close to $1 billion over the next decade. This move equates to Vermonters paying utilities more, often significantly more, for renewable energy, renewable energy credits and infrastructure to support this goal.

Robert Bryce has been reporting on the energy sector for over thirty years. He is the author of six books with his most recent, A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations. He hosts the Power Hungry Podcast and has produced documentaries on electricity, power, politics and the grid. Bryce recently published an article entitled, “California’s Electricity Disaster in Seven Charts”. Access to his disturbing yet helpful charts are here.

Here are the key points:

1. Since the Terminator’s executive order in 2008, California’s electric prices have grown 3.2 times faster than the rest of the United States. 
2. California’s residential electricity prices have also risen on a percentage basis more than any other state. For comparison, Texas has seen the lowest increase in electricity prices at 9.9%, the average percent increase in the United States has been 41.9% and California has landed at a 109.4% increase in electricity rates over this same time period. 
3. California homeowners now pay 28.9 cents per kilowatt hour, the third highest in the nation, after Hawaii and Connecticut, with no end in sight as more renewables and batteries are ordered by their Public Utilities Commission with a price tag of $80 billion dollars at minimum.
4. California currently holds the highest poverty rate in the United States 
5. Electricity prices in California’s cities are far higher than all other cities in the United States
6. The average electricity price in the United States is 17.3 cents per kilowatt hour. San Francisco is 41.2 cents per kilowatt hour which is 2.4 times more than the US average. 
7. In 2023 alone, California residential electricity prices jumped 3 cents per Kilowatt hour–an increase of 11.9%
8. 3.48 million California ratepayers have fallen behind on their monthly payments as of January, 2024 with a total outstanding balance of 2.2 billion dollars. Mark Wolfe, Executive Director at the National Energy Assistance Directors Association stated, “The underlying problem is energy is very expensive in California and its not surprising to see people owing as much as they do.” 
9. Despite California’s increase in renewable energy and its accompanying exorbitant cost, the carbon intensity of their electric generation has not decreased.