Thread: California utility customers get 'climate credit'

California utility customers get 'climate credit'

The Associated PressMarch 30, 2014

SAN FRANCISCO — Customers of California's major utilities will get "climate credit" payments on their electric bills from money earned by the state's cap and trade system.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/1h8O0kq ) that the payments will appear as a line item on utility bills in April and October.
Cap and trade forces power plants and other polluters to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases, and places a cap on the amount of emissions allowed.

The payments will vary in size among utilities based on the number of customers and other factors.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. residential customers will get $29.81 in April; Southern California Edison's will get $40.

The payments are meant to help offset expected increases in electricity and gas prices due to cap and trade.

http://www.modbee.com/2014/03/30/326...omers-get.html

SDG&E CUSTOMERS TO GET ‘CLIMATE CREDIT’

By Morgan Lee12:01 A.M.MARCH 31, 2014

Come April, San Diego home electricity customers will receive a $36.24 “climate credit” on utility bills that comes from California’s new cap-and-trade system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The credit will show up as a line-item reduction in electricity bills twice a year, in April and October, and is expected to continue through at least 2020.

“You don’t get a check, but it’s money that doesn’t leave your pocket,” said Dave Clegern, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board.

About 1.2 million San Diego Gas & Electric residences will receive the $36.24 reduction. Small businesses also will receive a credit on a monthly basis starting in May, with dollar figures tied to individual energy use.

California has rolled out the nation’s first statewide approach for controlling pollution by capping total greenhouse gas emissions and issuing pollution permits that can be bought or sold by companies.

Revenue from the sale of those permits is being returned directly to utility customers for the first time in April.

When utilities buy electricity from power plants that emit greenhouse gases under the cap-and-trade system, the pollution costs are reflected in higher electricity rates. The climate credit is intended to help offset those costs for households and some small businesses that have no choice but to buy power from those utilities.

State officials are seizing on the credit’s rollout to encourage consumers to put those savings toward home improvements and devices that can further conserve energy and lower utility bills.

The initiative, funded by utility customers, will stuff utility bill envelopes with price and energy savings information about programmable thermostats, remote control sockets, LED light bulbs, water heater blankets and advanced power strips that reduce “vampire loads” from idling electronics.

“The Climate Credit is designed to help you join with California in its efforts to fight climate change and clean the air,” says a letter to consumers from the state. “You can use the savings on your electricity bills however you choose, but you can save even more money by investing the bill savings ... in efficient lights and appliances.”

If the April climate credit exceeds the utility customer’s total monthly bill, a credit rolls over to the next month. Customers may also ask for a refund check instead of having the balance applied to the next month’s bill.

The state’s cap-and-trade program is a crucial component of California’s 2006 global warming law that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

A dwindling market for emission permits results in power plants facing an increased cost when they produce electricity from fuels that put heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/...limate-credit/

I just got my April SDG&E bill and it has a $36.24 CA. Climate Credit on it.

California has rolled out the nation’s first statewide approach for controlling pollution by capping total greenhouse gas emissions and issuing pollution permits that can be bought or sold by companies.

Revenue from the sale of those permits is being returned directly to utility customers for the first time in April.

Oh, yeah, California is leading the way in innovation. It is so progressive that businesses are leaving by the boatload.

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4/10/2014

Mike Sandler

Expanding on the California Climate Credit

Posted: 10/01/2014 4:41 pm EDT Updated: 10/01/2014 5:59 pm EDT

California's climate change program lowered millions of households utility bills last April, but very few people noticed. And it is about to happen again with the return of the semi-annual "California Climate Credit" applied to October bills.

The credit deserves more attention because it is the rare case where funds raised by a price on carbon are sent back to households, rather than creating more government programs.

Carbon pricing is in need of a public relations boost. The European Emissions Trading System was heavily criticized for giving away too many emissions permits for free to polluting companies and shuffling funds among fossil fuel corporations or to politically favored programs that may or may not reduce emissions. Yet a program here in the U.S. has the potential to show that carbon pricing will not destroy an economy, and that household purchasing power can be protected by returning the funds back to people.

The state has many options for raising awareness of the climate credit. The easiest is to transition to an off-bill return of funds on a separate debit card. No matter how many inserts you include, people just do not notice a line item buried in the bill. The utilities complained about the high administrative cost of an off-bill return of funds, but that cost is worth it for building a long-term solution that provides an income stream to millions of households in an economy with persistent unemployment.

This off-bill climate credit could become a component of the State's set-asides for low-income and disadvantaged communities. The current plan is to let State Agencies dole out the funds for certain programs, but an argument could be made that it would be better to return the funds directly to households. In the international development field, researchers are studying the effects of programs that provide direct cash transfers on the poor (a well-known one is called "Give Directly"). Such transfers put the onus on programs to prove they are more effective than cash.

Residents in low-income communities must wonder how do regulators in Sacramento know if a family has health care expenses, or needs funds for bus fare, or any number of other impacts that a carbon price may have?

According to the recent book "With Liberty and Dividends for All" by Peter Barnes, it should be up to the individuals receiving their share of the atmospheric commons to decide how to spend their windfall.

Of course, the State can still encourage families to spend their dividends on low-carbon products such as Energy Upgrade California, transit subsidies, or donating it to a group advocating for more dividends.

The state could also get positive publicity by expanding the Climate Credit to include funds raised from transportation fuels, which enter the system in January 2015. Governor Brown recently signed into law an electric vehicle incentive program that attempts to address criticism that the State's electric vehicle rebates mostly benefit affluent residents along the Coast. Some would argue that market transformation requires that costly new technology must target elites first (that is Tesla's business plan), but it gives ammunition to critics who already see the carbon price as regressive, and it accentuates the urban-rural/red-blue county divide as farm workers and rural residents watch cap and trade funds go towards affordable housing in cities and high speed rail. The Democratic Legislature and Governor may not have intended it, but the city-centric programmatic focus does not build the broad bi-partisan statewide constituency needed for a rising carbon price that a per-capita dividend would.

Governor Brown recently spoke in New York to an international audience about California's carbon price. Sure, the price is $13/ton, the auctions are a highlight of the program, and the upcoming expansion to transportation fuels is a big step forward. But to make the system a real model for the international community, California should build upon the foundation of the California Climate Credit and return more funds back to people: one person, one share.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-s...b_5904432.html