The California Public Utilities Commission approved a request to cancel Pacific Gas and Electric’s contract with California State University, Monterey Bay to convert hundreds of the university’s residential units from gas and electric service to all-electric service.
The project between PG&E and CSU Monterey Bay included retirement of about eight miles of existing natural gas piping and installing electric-only service and equipment at about 1,200 dwellings. As part of the project, the university would have waived its right to receive gas service in the future, said the decision, approved at a Nov. 20 voting meeting.
The project would have addressed customer safety needs, long-term rate affordability and customer energy preference, and would have aligned with California’s climate goals, PG&E said in its application.
PG&E originally introduced the project as a case study in “how a utility can use building decarbonization as a tool to both reduce emissions and promote long-term gas ratepayer affordability,” the decision says.
The company’s original application showed that electrification instead of new gas infrastructure would have resulted in “net present value of approximately $1 million to benefit utility customers,” the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a filing.
“This is in addition to the climate and air quality benefits of these investments, and the avoided risk of future stranded assets,” the NRDC said in the filing.
But in January, PG&E requested to withdraw the project application due to safety concerns, specifically around plastic fusion failures on the existing gas piping system. These failures needed to be repaired or replaced by Dec. 15, 2026.
However, PG&E said 2026 was the earliest year the regulatory approval process for the project would have concluded. This timeline would be too late to safely remediate the piping issues, the decision notes.
The NRDC disagreed with PG&E’s request, saying the investor-owned utility did not prove the timing of the project was infeasible.
CPUC ruled that it is “reasonable and in the public interest” to grant PG&E’s motion to withdraw the project application: The terms agreed to by PG&E and CSU Monterey Bay allow either entity the option not to pursue the project at any point, the decision says.
CPUC ordered PG&E to submit a lessons-learned report that summarized ratepayer impacts and operational experiences associated with the canceled project, the decision says.
SCE Reliability Contracts Approved
At the meeting, CPUC approved eight Southern California Edison contracts with energy storage and solar generation facilities as part of SCE’s midterm reliability request for offers to cover the agency’s 2023-2028 resource procurement compliance requirements.
The battery storage and solar facilities have capacities between 20 MW and 238 MW and are expected to start providing energy in 2026 and 2027, according to the resolution.
The contracts are part of CPUC’s Decision 21-06-035, which required load-serving entities to procure 11,500 MW of midterm reliability capacity.
