Pacific Gas and Electric told the federal judge overseeing its felony probation that a distribution line under investigation for starting the deadly Zogg Fire on Sept. 27 remained active even as other circuits in the same region were de-energized during a large-scale public-safety power shutoff. In a court filing Monday,...

Discussion of high-tech solutions to climate change and the proliferation of electric vehicles turned to soil amendments and forest management at last week’s California Energy Commission EPIC Symposium. The annual three-day summit is an expo for the cutting-edge projects funded by the state’s Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) to ratepayers.

The California Public Utilities Commission acted to correct a "serious omission" Thursday that it said had resulted in huge sums of money going to owners of rural homes, regardless of income, to provide battery backup for electric well pumps. The commission voted 4-1 to limit its Self-Generation Incentive Program’s (SGIP)...

When historians write about the power industry’s efforts to reach net-zero carbon emissions decades from now, chances are good that hydrogen will be a big part of the story, speakers told the Energy Bar Association’s annual Fall Conference last week. Hydrogen is currently used in fertilizer, petroleum refining and other...

The California Energy Commission last week added another $260 million for electric vehicle charging infrastructure to the state’s planned $2.5 billion investment in transportation electrification over the next decade. Questions remain, however, about whether the state can install enough chargers, sell enough EVs and build sufficient generation, storage and transmission...

A big part of $612 million intended to provide battery backup to homes in high fire-threat areas has been gobbled up by customers who use electricity to pump well water instead of helping the low-income and medically vulnerable residents it was meant for, the California Public Utilities Commission said Thursday.

California fire investigators are looking at a distribution line as the possible cause of the Zogg Fire, which killed four residents and destroyed more than 200 structures southwest of Redding, Calif. The 56,000-acre fire started on Sept. 27 near the rural Shasta County community of Igo. Among the victims were...

A report on the causes of California’s August blackouts details for the first time the role that convergence bidding played in masking tight supply and contends that constrained transmission prevented much needed imports from reaching the state. The 107-page report to Gov. Gavin Newsom by CAISO, the California Public Utilities...

More than 8,000 wildfires have burned nearly 4 million acres in California this year, but there’s little indication that utility equipment played a role in starting major blazes. That differs markedly from the last three years, when equipment belonging to Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric was blamed...

CAISO CEO Steve Berberich will retire Sept. 29 after nine years as head of California’s grid operator. His replacement, Elliot Mainzer, who served for the past seven years as head of the Bonneville Power Administration, will take over the next day. At a time of great change for CAISO, the...