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I'm glad I live in the city of Santa Clara, where I am served by Silicon Valley Power, one of few exceptions to the PG&E monopoly in northern California. Silic

I'm glad I live in the city of Santa Clara, where I am served by Silicon Valley Power, one of few exceptions to the PG&E monopoly in northern California. Silicon Valley Power serves many homes in addition to large companies including Intel and Nvidia, and they do so with lower prices and better quality of service than PG&E. I will be very unhappy going back to PG&E if I move to another city. Electrical utilities don't need to be a government-granted monopoly like PG&E, which combines the worst aspects of government-run and private-sector business. Silicon Valley Power proves there are better ways to run electrical utilities.

kerkeslager 7y ago
> Electrical utilities don't need to be a government-granted monopoly like PG&E, which combines the worst aspects of government-run and private-sector business. Silicon Valley Power proves there are better ways to run electrical utilities. Is Silicon Valley Power not a government-granted monopoly? How does their business model differ?
- twblalock 7y ago
  Silicon Valley Power is a nonprofit operated by the city government. It's a little island in the middle of the sea of the PG&E monopoly. I wouldn't consider it a monopoly in comparison to the massive scale of PG&E, even though it is operated by a city government. Statewide utilities are bloated and inefficient, and they abuse their monopoly power. PG&E acts like the only choices are to cause fires or turn off power when it gets windy -- it faces no pressure to find a better solution because there is no competition. Small-to-medium municipal utilities that serve smaller areas can serve their customers much better, as Silicon Valley Power demonstrates -- if people don't like it they can move to a neighboring city. In contrast, PG&E is almost impossible to avoid. California should give more cities and counties the ability to experiment with this model. Competition between municipal utilities is better than granting a single company a monopoly on a utility millions of people depend on.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - unethical_ban 7y ago
    Let us clear up the terms we're using: They are both monopolies. But PG&E is investor owned, publicly traded. Their incentive is money, followed by quality of service. A government entity in terms of public services tends to have "getting their job done right" at the top of the list, albeit at a lower cost when possible.
    - greggman2 7y ago
      > A government entity in terms of public services tends to have "getting their job done right" at the top of the list, albeit at a lower cost when possible. not my experience. Most government entities try to raise as much money as possible to protect their jobs and raise their salaries. gettingthe job done right is not remotely near top of the list. See SFMTA or MTA (new your public transportaion) as 2 examples. Or watch IKIRU to see the same attitude in Japan. Yes it's a movie but it rings true to people's experience that goverment never tries to "getting their job done right"
      - kerkeslager 7y ago
        What exactly is "your experience"? You've ridden two subway systems and attributed their failures to not using your pet economic structure, and watched a fictional movie from 1952?
        greggman2 7y ago
        It doesn't take a whole lot of googling to find thousands of example of poorly run government services. I gave 2 I thought were obvious examples but you can search and find 1000s more. I'm not defending evil and corrupt PG&E. I'm only responding to the idea that government services are magically incentivized at "getting their job done right". Their incentives rarely align to "getting their job done right". Other examples off the top of my head, public schools in the USA who have more money per student than pretty much every other country but have worse outcomes. I don't have a solution but clearly they are not "getting their job done right" https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp Another example might be the USA's militarized police force killing its own citizens. Some people have arguied they're incentivized to buy all the military equipment because it raises their budgets. Again, they are not targetting "getting their job done right". And again I don't know the solution. Just pointing out making something a government serivce does not magically remove all bad incentives. you can read I guess a right leaning POV https://www.charleskochinstitute.org/issue-areas/criminal-justice-policing-reform/militarization-of-police/ https://www.charleskochinstitute.org/issue-areas/criminal-ju... or a left https://www.vox.com/2015/5/31/17937892/ferguson-protests-police-military-1033-program https://www.vox.com/2015/5/31/17937892/ferguson-protests-pol...
- cortesoft 7y ago
  It is actually owned outright by the city of Santa Clara. It is not a private company given a monopoly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_Power
- CameronNemo 7y ago
  The point also ignores the power of network effects -- certain industries are prone to monopoly. It is only natural that government oversight of these natural monopolies follows.
  - twblalock 7y ago
    The problem is, the government always steps in and grants a monopoly before a natural monopoly develops by itself, thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe a natural monopoly would not have developed statewide. Maybe the government makes a bad situation worse by picking the wrong winner before the market decides. Maybe the government should allow competition if cities and/or private businesses are willing to give it a shot -- it works pretty well where I live.
    - CameronNemo 7y ago
      I agree that municipalities should be given latitude to attempt to replace statewide utilities. But they should have some quality standards -- you would not want a rinky dink WISP with an invisible privacy record managing the internet access for schoolchildren.
  - mindslight 7y ago
    Even taking it as a given that last-mile power distribution tends towards a natural monopoly for every neighborhood, this still doesn't mean that this monopoly needs to be agglomerated across such a wide area. This overt dereliction can only come from an entity that is "too big too fail". If this were one or two cities' local power companies, it would not be national news. Residents of those communities would be showing up at city meetings going "wtf", and could easily point at adjacent communities not doing such things as a reference.
  - closeparen 7y ago
    The government made it clear that PG&E will be harshly punished for operating in high fire danger conditions, and so PG&E is not operating in high fire danger conditions. This outcome is exactly how government oversight is supposed to work.
- johnhenry 7y ago
  Your question intrigues me. While, I didn't find an answer (I guess I wasn't _that_ intrigued), I did stumble upon this interesting bit of history: http://www.siliconvalleypower.com/svp-and-community/about-svp/our-history http://www.siliconvalleypower.com/svp-and-community/about-sv...
nominated1 7y ago
I was born and raised in the Bay Area and remember when there was a vote that would have brought SMUD in instead of PG&E. I don’t ever remember PG&E coming out to our property (South Bay), despite having large trees near power lines. I’ve since left the Bay Area and now have SMUD. They come out every year to check brush and trees. This past summer they cut down a dying tree on the property at no cost. The arborist they sent out was extremely knowledgeable and didn’t mind that I took his time to ask about native replacements, etc.
gumby 7y ago
Palo altom also has its own utilities but was subjected to the blackout anyway. In the 2000 blackouts the state forced us to have rolling blackouts out of “solidarity” even though we had access to plenty of power. Unfortunately the phone system was sold off in the 60s, the cable plant in the 90s, and the animal shelter a few years ago. Short sighted.

kerkeslager 7y ago

> Electrical utilities don't need to be a government-granted monopoly like PG&E, which combines the worst aspects of government-run and private-sector business. Silicon Valley Power proves there are better ways to run electrical utilities. Is Silicon Valley Power not a government-granted monopoly? How does their business model differ?

twblalock 7y ago
Silicon Valley Power is a nonprofit operated by the city government. It's a little island in the middle of the sea of the PG&E monopoly. I wouldn't consider it a monopoly in comparison to the massive scale of PG&E, even though it is operated by a city government. Statewide utilities are bloated and inefficient, and they abuse their monopoly power. PG&E acts like the only choices are to cause fires or turn off power when it gets windy -- it faces no pressure to find a better solution because there is no competition. Small-to-medium municipal utilities that serve smaller areas can serve their customers much better, as Silicon Valley Power demonstrates -- if people don't like it they can move to a neighboring city. In contrast, PG&E is almost impossible to avoid. California should give more cities and counties the ability to experiment with this model. Competition between municipal utilities is better than granting a single company a monopoly on a utility millions of people depend on.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- unethical_ban 7y ago
  Let us clear up the terms we're using: They are both monopolies. But PG&E is investor owned, publicly traded. Their incentive is money, followed by quality of service. A government entity in terms of public services tends to have "getting their job done right" at the top of the list, albeit at a lower cost when possible.
  - greggman2 7y ago
    > A government entity in terms of public services tends to have "getting their job done right" at the top of the list, albeit at a lower cost when possible. not my experience. Most government entities try to raise as much money as possible to protect their jobs and raise their salaries. gettingthe job done right is not remotely near top of the list. See SFMTA or MTA (new your public transportaion) as 2 examples. Or watch IKIRU to see the same attitude in Japan. Yes it's a movie but it rings true to people's experience that goverment never tries to "getting their job done right"
    - kerkeslager 7y ago
      What exactly is "your experience"? You've ridden two subway systems and attributed their failures to not using your pet economic structure, and watched a fictional movie from 1952?
      - greggman2 7y ago
        It doesn't take a whole lot of googling to find thousands of example of poorly run government services. I gave 2 I thought were obvious examples but you can search and find 1000s more. I'm not defending evil and corrupt PG&E. I'm only responding to the idea that government services are magically incentivized at "getting their job done right". Their incentives rarely align to "getting their job done right". Other examples off the top of my head, public schools in the USA who have more money per student than pretty much every other country but have worse outcomes. I don't have a solution but clearly they are not "getting their job done right" https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp Another example might be the USA's militarized police force killing its own citizens. Some people have arguied they're incentivized to buy all the military equipment because it raises their budgets. Again, they are not targetting "getting their job done right". And again I don't know the solution. Just pointing out making something a government serivce does not magically remove all bad incentives. you can read I guess a right leaning POV https://www.charleskochinstitute.org/issue-areas/criminal-justice-policing-reform/militarization-of-police/ https://www.charleskochinstitute.org/issue-areas/criminal-ju... or a left https://www.vox.com/2015/5/31/17937892/ferguson-protests-police-military-1033-program https://www.vox.com/2015/5/31/17937892/ferguson-protests-pol...
cortesoft 7y ago
It is actually owned outright by the city of Santa Clara. It is not a private company given a monopoly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_Power
CameronNemo 7y ago
The point also ignores the power of network effects -- certain industries are prone to monopoly. It is only natural that government oversight of these natural monopolies follows.
- twblalock 7y ago
  The problem is, the government always steps in and grants a monopoly before a natural monopoly develops by itself, thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe a natural monopoly would not have developed statewide. Maybe the government makes a bad situation worse by picking the wrong winner before the market decides. Maybe the government should allow competition if cities and/or private businesses are willing to give it a shot -- it works pretty well where I live.
  - CameronNemo 7y ago
    I agree that municipalities should be given latitude to attempt to replace statewide utilities. But they should have some quality standards -- you would not want a rinky dink WISP with an invisible privacy record managing the internet access for schoolchildren.
- mindslight 7y ago
  Even taking it as a given that last-mile power distribution tends towards a natural monopoly for every neighborhood, this still doesn't mean that this monopoly needs to be agglomerated across such a wide area. This overt dereliction can only come from an entity that is "too big too fail". If this were one or two cities' local power companies, it would not be national news. Residents of those communities would be showing up at city meetings going "wtf", and could easily point at adjacent communities not doing such things as a reference.
- closeparen 7y ago
  The government made it clear that PG&E will be harshly punished for operating in high fire danger conditions, and so PG&E is not operating in high fire danger conditions. This outcome is exactly how government oversight is supposed to work.
johnhenry 7y ago
Your question intrigues me. While, I didn't find an answer (I guess I wasn't _that_ intrigued), I did stumble upon this interesting bit of history: http://www.siliconvalleypower.com/svp-and-community/about-svp/our-history http://www.siliconvalleypower.com/svp-and-community/about-sv...

nominated1 7y ago

I was born and raised in the Bay Area and remember when there was a vote that would have brought SMUD in instead of PG&E. I don’t ever remember PG&E coming out to our property (South Bay), despite having large trees near power lines. I’ve since left the Bay Area and now have SMUD. They come out every year to check brush and trees. This past summer they cut down a dying tree on the property at no cost. The arborist they sent out was extremely knowledgeable and didn’t mind that I took his time to ask about native replacements, etc.

gumby 7y ago

Palo altom also has its own utilities but was subjected to the blackout anyway. In the 2000 blackouts the state forced us to have rolling blackouts out of “solidarity” even though we had access to plenty of power. Unfortunately the phone system was sold off in the 60s, the cable plant in the 90s, and the animal shelter a few years ago. Short sighted.