I’ve held off writing this post for as long as I could. Writing about this topic is challenging because of how obscure, niche, and—dare I say—unsexy it is. But it’s a deal so consequential to our future, you HAVE to know what’s going on.
In short, for the first time in 50 years, the City of San Diego’s energy franchise agreements are set to expire. I know, what does that mean and why is it a big deal? Well these agreements dictate everything about how our energy is delivered to us, and how much we pay. In short, this deal determines:
Who gets to design, build, maintain our energy system
What kind of energy system we get (clean or dirty)
What the bill will be for us at the end of the line
Needless to say, our current energy agreements favor the big Wall Street corporation. Our utility, SDG&E, fights tooth and nail to keep their monopoly power and line their Executive and shareholder pockets with our hard-earned money, while we pay the highest energy bills in the state.
I’m not going to get into the weeds just yet about how we can flip the script and win the People’s Deal for a Better Franchise Agreement, but I wanted to flag this for you now because it is about to heat up. Climate Action Campaign and our partners are on it, and we’ll need your help soon.
Stay tuned and check out this recent Voice of San Diego article on the Franchise Agreements to learn more.