Utility

The mayor of San Jose, California’s third largest city, has a preliminary proposal on the table to take over the natural gas and electric systems of bankruptcy-bound Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) and transform it into a customer-owned cooperative utility.

Edison International’s Southern California Edison Co. (SCE) utility acknowledged its infrastructure may have caused the disruptive, fast-moving Saddleridge fire that skirted residential areas and a major gas storage facility in northern Los Angeles County last week, according to a report the company filed with state regulators.

Sempra Energy’s natural gas distribution utility Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) faces an $8 million fine from California regulators for allegedly failing to follow protocols for timely billing of thousands of customers in 2015 and 2016.

Wildfires, including the largest in California’s history, continued to burn over the weekend, while lawmakers in Sacramento debated the liability issue hovering over major utility companies that are facing precarious financial times.

In what could be a sign of things to come in the wake of tax reform championed by President Trump and his Republican allies in Congress, a state regulator from Oklahoma warned contemporaries that swift action was needed to ensure that public utility customers, not the utilities themselves, reap the benefits.

The Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) on Tuesday approved integrating renewable natural gas (RNG), or biomethane, with traditional gas utility pipeline supplies.

Eagle LNG Partners Jacksonville LLC has received approval from the Department of Energy to export up to 1 million metric tons/year of liquefied natural gas (LNG) worldwide. The small-scale Eagle Maxville LNG facility plans to export to markets in the Caribbean Basin and elsewhere in the region from Jacksonville, FL, in Duval County. With the Eagle Maxville approval, DOE said as of Friday (Sept. 15) it has authorized a total of 21.35 Bcf/d in LNG exports to anywhere in the world not prohibited by U.S. law or policy from existing and planned facilities in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia and Maryland.

Kansas regulators on Tuesday laid out an accelerated plan for natural gas utilities to replace aging and obsolete pipeline infrastructure.

PG&E Corp. CEO Anthony F. Earley Jr. on Thursday declared that much maligned combination utility Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) is a completely changed company with a sharp focus on safety.