The CPUC opened an official investigation into PG&E’s role in sparking wildfires in Northern California in mid-2019, after the agency’s safety division identified numerous instances in which the utility’s operations violated rules and regulations. The fires collectively burned hundreds of thousands of acres and led to 129 fatalities. Read more…
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Judge calls PG&E vegetation work ‘sloppy and unreliable,’ imposes new conditions on the utility
Vegetation management is part of wider wildfire mitigation efforts by PG&E. The utility has pushed back on Alsup’s insistence that it provide more details of its plans to expand its vegetation efforts, last month telling the judge it could not commit to contracting a specific number of tree-workers by a future date. Alsup also quizzed PG&E’s lawyers on the utility’s vegetation management...
Webinar: Renewable Energy Foundations
Due to COVID-19, our March 30th workshop at the CASBO conference for K-12 public school district business officials was cancelled. ForeFront Power, SPURR’s winning solar and energy storage vendor, and the SPURR team decided to convert the workshop into a webinar. SPURR Managing Director, Michael Rochman, was a speaker on this webinar. Whether you’re just starting the procurement journey or are...
PG&E to Plead Guilty to Involuntary Manslaughter Charges
While of course the COVID-19 pandemic dominates the news and our time, it’s important not to let energy system information that affects our schools, colleges, and other constituents get lost in the news cycle. Here is one new item we wanted to call to your attention: PG&E to Plead Guilty to Involuntary Manslaughter Charges in Deadly California Wildfire. Paradise Post reports that...
How SPURR is Handling COVID-19
I know you are all extremely busy these days, but I wanted to share brief SPURR updates re COVID-19, for your information. Natural Gas Program We sent out FYE Jun 2021 budgeting updates at the start of this month, based on pricing and regulatory filings through late Feb. That time period now seems like a world away. Natural gas prices,...
Utility Users Tax & Public Agency Accounts
Summary Some California cities and counties (Municipalities) levy Utility Users Taxes (UUT) on “users” of utilities services — such as natural gas, electricity, water, and telecommunications — within their borders.1 UUT is usually collected by the local utility distribution company (Utility) and remitted to the Municipality. In our experience, UUT should not be collected from federal, state, or local public...
Make Up School Time Lost to Climate Disasters – CalMatters.org
We recently read an interesting article about the proposed legislation Senate Bill 884, the Disaster Relief Instructional Recovery Program, and we wanted to share some information with you about how it may affect you and your school or district. What The Disaster Relief Instructional Recovery Program would help schools recover both funding and school days that were lost in the...
You Have Solar, but Are you Actually Buying Green Energy?
When a public agency negotiates a solar power purchase agreement (PPA) they have a somewhat counterintuitive choice to make: do we want to receive renewable energy from the solar project or non-renewable energy from the solar project? In other words, does the public agency want to retain or relinquish the project’s environmental attributes, or what are commonly referred to as renewable energy certificates (RECs)?...