Although some of the major agenda items were held over, the California Public Utilities Commission Thursday did approve more than $40 million in wildfire cost recovery for Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas and Electric Co., and established a new dispute resolution program among the several administrative steps to improve its regulatory processes.

SDG&E had asked for recovery of $40.595 million in costs incurred as a result of the October 2003 wildfires that devastated parts of San Diego County. The five-member CPUC granted the utility the full amount of its request and praised it in retrospect for a job the regulators said went well beyond the normal levels of customer service and assistance. Thousands of people were displaced when their homes were burned to the ground.

An administrative law judge in the case and the local utility watchdog group, Utility Consumer Action Network (UCAN), recommended allowing a lesser amount of costs. What was debated amounted to several cost segments, each equalling about $400,000 and $580,000 less than the utility wanted. As part of the fire response, hundreds of employees were housed in local hotels while responding to the crisis, for example.

On the administrative matters, the big one involved the establishment of a formal “alternative dispute resolution (ADR)” program that the CPUC said is supposed to “increase responsiveness to disputing parties, encourage more active participation of all parties (regardless of an individual party’s size or resources), save parties time and resources, and allow the commission to direct its decision-making resources to other important proceedings.”

Calling for the use of a neutral administrative law judge to assist two or more parties in resolving disputed issues, the ADR program is strictly voluntary, the CPUC stressed in approving the program. “The CPUC has used ADR for many years, but the [action taken] today seeks to broaden its use by expanding the types of ADR available and the kinds of proceedings in which it may be applied,” said lead Commissioner Geoffrey Brown.

Other administrative actions by the CPUC covered implementation of the Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s post-Chapter 11 reorganization plan, and post-2000-01 energy crisis data reporting under the state’s environmental laws, along with a revised revenue shortfall cost allocation method for Southern California Edison Co.’s residential customer tiers.

In granting SDG&E’s fire cost recovery, CPUC Commissioner Susan Kennedy said the costs were related to restoring service or replacing parts of the distribution infrastructure that were either damaged or destroyed in the fires. “This was the largest disaster of this type ever to occur in California history, involving nearly 400,000 acres burned, 15 lives lost, and more than 2,400 homes destroyed in San Diego County alone,” Kennedy said. “There were billions of dollars in damage, and SDG&E had severe damage to its infrastructure, losing 3,200 power poles, 400 transformers, and more than 100 other pieces of equipment.

“SDG&E’s response to this disaster was so swift that this commission issued a proclamation to the company and its thousands of employees, many of whom left their own homes and families during the crisis to staff emergency operations. Some of these put their own lives in danger to restore power.”

©Copyright 2005Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.