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# Power rates may drop by mid-year
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/power-rates-may-drop-by-mid-year/
- Published: 2003-01-27T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T01:24:01.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Low-income residents will still receive their discounts*

*By Daily Press staff*

As the state’s electricity crisis cools down, there might be some relief on the horizon for those painfully expensive utility bills.

According to a plan proposed by Southern California Edison last week, Santa Monica’s electricity provider may lower its rates by nearly 20 percent for small and medium businesses and large residential users by June.

Consumers who saw their rates soar the highest during the state’s electricity deregulation fiasco also will be the first to see relief, utility officials wrote to the California Public Utilities Commission.

“The higher electricity rates were borne by our business customers as well as those residential customers who have high consumption requirements,” said Edison CEO Alan Fohrer in a prepared statement. “Thus, we are asking the commission to reduce rates in the same pattern originally used to allocate those crisis rates across customer groups.”

Most residents under the plan wouldn’t see a difference in their bills. Those rates would remain flat because average homes are unaffected by the electricity surcharges put in place at the height of the crisis, Edison officials said.

Low-income residents enrolled in California Alternative Rates for Energy, or CARE, will continue to receive rate protection and a 20 percent discount under the proposal.

“Nearly two-thirds of our residential bills did not include the crisis surcharges, because most of our residential customers were either exempted through the CARE discount program or they were able to keep their consumption levels below the surcharge benchmarks,” Fohrer said.

Large residential users who are currently paying 20 cents per kilowatt hour would see their rates decline 8 percent to 18.6 cents per hour. Small and Medium business owners would see their rates drop 19 percent from 15.6 cents a kilowatt hour to 12.6 cents an hour. And large business owners may see their rates drop from 13 cents to 9.7 cents – a 26 percent decline.

Edison officials project by June the company will have recovered the costs of having to enter into inflated long-term electricity contracts made during the crisis. Edison has been collecting the higher costs under a 2001 settlement with the CPUC.

Edison officials said as of Dec. 31, 2002, the utility had collected all but $574 million of $3.6 billion in uncollected costs stemming from the higher contracts. The remaining balance will be paid off mid-year by the surcharges, allowing for the rate drop to take place.

But don’t expect to see electricity rates drop to levels seen before the electricity crisis just yet. Even if Edison’s proposal is approved, rates will not drop all the way to pre-crisis levels because of the higher costs associated with the state’s long-term energy contracts. Those costs will continue to affect rates for some time to come, Fohrer said.

“(But) we will continue to press for refunds and other measures that will restore reasonable pricing and reliable power supplies for our customers,” Fohrer said.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 27, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/012703.pdf?ref=smdp.com)