Cpuc

Dipping into a regulatory body’s bread and butter, California regulators on Thursday voted unanimously to re-tool the state’s general rate case process to make public safety determinations about the utility infrastructure they oversee. The specter of the fatal 2010 San Bruno natural gas transmission pipeline failure and its aftermath were cited as drivers for the new statewide examination.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) senior executives admitted Wednesday that the utility has dropped the ball in keeping state regulators informed of its efforts to upgrade the safety of its natural gas pipeline network. But they argued that at no time has the system’s safety been compromised.

Despite the city’s and court’s concerns, the utility maintains there is no safety risk.

As part of its efforts to increase the level of safety in natural gas delivery systems throughout the state, California regulatory safety staff on Friday finalized its procedures for implementing increased powers to issue citations for violations to the state’s major gas utilities. The action was touted as the basis for “an aggressive program” making safety “central to the utility bottom line.”

California regulators on Thursday continued to tinker with incentives for the state’s four largest private-sector energy utilities in the ongoing multi-million-dollar statewide energy efficiency program. The latest action sets aside incentive changes theCalifornia Public Utilities Commission(CPUC) made at the end of 2012 when it was doling out $42 million in rewards for 2010 efficiency results (seeDaily GPI,Dec. 26, 2012). Under the new incentives established for the 2013-2014 efficiency programs, utilities will be able to earn incentives in four performance categories, with actual, verifiable energy savings holding 70% of the incentive potential. The remaining 30% will be divided among three other categories: constructive/collaborative efforts in the review process; effective state and federal advocacy for new codes that promote efficiency; and implementation of non-resource programs. The CPUC said the new mechanism supersedes the risk/reward incentive mechanism approved in December.

In a reprise of record keeping errors that surrounded its San Bruno natural gas pipeline failure three years ago, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) found itself once again under fire Thursday for mislabeling high-pressure pipeline segments on the same set of pipes traversing the peninsula south of San Francisco. State regulators immediately set a hearing for Friday in which PG&E again will be on the hot seat.

The credit rating for PG&E Corp. and utility subsidiary Pacific Gas & Electric Co. face a “one-in-three probability” for weaker business and financial profiles over the coming year related to the San Bruno, CA natural gas pipeline explosion, according to Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P).

PG&E Corp. CEO Anthony Earley in a Wall Street interview Wednesday held out the possibility of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the company’s giant San Francisco-based combination utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E), if a proposed $2.25 billion penalty by state regulatory safety staff is upheld by the five-member California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

Southern California Edison Co. (SCE) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) have gone to war over failed steam generators from the Japanese industrial titan that caused the closure in June of SCE’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) along the Pacific Coast in north San Diego County.