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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

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...
      - kerkeslager 7y ago
        > It doesn't take a whole lot of googling to find thousands of example of poorly run government services. Perhaps, but you didn't say "Some government services are poorly run". You said: "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." You have not yet given an example of this. You're just pointing to random organizations' failings and saying that they're caused by incentives specific to government, without any evidence whatsoever. Are MTA and SFMTA's failings because they are "trying to protect their jobs" or because they have to maintain aging infrastructures in a culture that idolizes cars? Are public schools' failings because they are "raising as much money as possible" to "raise their salaries", or are they because of mandatory religion-based curriculum, mandatory standardized testing determining funding, lack of healthcare/childcare/nutrition support for parents, and parents being incarcerated? It's clever of you to bring up police, because you can look through my previous comments and see my political bent, but keep in mind that the discussion at hand is whether government or corporate incentives lead to better results. Looking at where the money goes when overly-militarized police purchase military equipment, I think it's hard to attribute this to government incentives as compared to corporate incentives. You can't point to corporate meddling in government causing problems, and use that as justification to put the corporation in charge. Saying "not my experience" at the beginning is pretty disingenuous, because it's become increasingly clear that you don't have any relevant experience.
sremani 7y ago
Here is the important line for you to chew on in wikipedia article of SVP.. <wikipedia> SVP receives generation produced outside Santa Clara via transmission facilities owned and operated by PG&E under the direction of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO). </wikipedia> About 2/3rd of SVP power comes from outside. If PG&E cuts certain transmission lines the good folks of Santa Clara will feel the bite, a bit lesser perhaps, but a brown-out can be willfully imposed by PG&E
- JJMcJ 7y ago
  Also the city of Santa Clara has no forested areas, avoiding the problems. The Berkeley campus is up against the East Bay hills and so there are trees all over near the campus.
sqldba 7y ago
> Statewide utilities are bloated and inefficient, and they abuse their monopoly power. This seems overly general. There's plenty of state-wide utilities in the rest the world which are fantastic in every regard including cost.
- andrekandre 7y ago
  i think what the parent poster might have meant was that for-profit state monopolies are bloated and inefficient (as opposed to non-profit public utilities) that was my interpretation (from the context) anyways... maybe i’m wrong ^^;
- rayiner 7y ago
  There are lots of things in the rest of the world that don’t exist in the US.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  Utilities with regulated monopolies need to be on a tight leash from a regulatory perspective. They trade operational freedom for a reliable return on assets. This changed in the 80s and 90s with deregulation. Some of them even turned into growth stocks or did other financial fuckery that made investors money at the cost of rotting out the business. End of the day, local municipal utilities or co-ops almost always deliver a better level of service at a lower cost. Smaller scale makes field service more efficient and reduces overheads like executive compensation. One municipal utility I’m familiar with has a civil service scale for all staff — the head guy makes $140k.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
>no pressure to find a better solution because there is no competition. // No-one wants a job, or to keep their current job?
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  The threshold for keeping your job is very low when there is no competition. Compare how cops act (who are damn near impossible to fire and have a local monopoly) with how private security acts (who can be fired on a moments notice and who's customers are not locked to a particular provider).
JJMcJ 7y ago
Palo Alto also has municipal utilities. And the biggest, of course, is Los Angeles Department of Water and Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Department_of_Water_and_Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Department_of_Wate... PG&E seems to be particularly bad in terms of upkeep and frequent power failures. That is, the unintentional kind, not like the shutoffs this week.

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...
    - kerkeslager 7y ago
      > It doesn't take a whole lot of googling to find thousands of example of poorly run government services. Perhaps, but you didn't say "Some government services are poorly run". You said: "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." You have not yet given an example of this. You're just pointing to random organizations' failings and saying that they're caused by incentives specific to government, without any evidence whatsoever. Are MTA and SFMTA's failings because they are "trying to protect their jobs" or because they have to maintain aging infrastructures in a culture that idolizes cars? Are public schools' failings because they are "raising as much money as possible" to "raise their salaries", or are they because of mandatory religion-based curriculum, mandatory standardized testing determining funding, lack of healthcare/childcare/nutrition support for parents, and parents being incarcerated? It's clever of you to bring up police, because you can look through my previous comments and see my political bent, but keep in mind that the discussion at hand is whether government or corporate incentives lead to better results. Looking at where the money goes when overly-militarized police purchase military equipment, I think it's hard to attribute this to government incentives as compared to corporate incentives. You can't point to corporate meddling in government causing problems, and use that as justification to put the corporation in charge. Saying "not my experience" at the beginning is pretty disingenuous, because it's become increasingly clear that you don't have any relevant experience.

sremani 7y ago

Here is the important line for you to chew on in wikipedia article of SVP.. <wikipedia> SVP receives generation produced outside Santa Clara via transmission facilities owned and operated by PG&E under the direction of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO). </wikipedia> About 2/3rd of SVP power comes from outside. If PG&E cuts certain transmission lines the good folks of Santa Clara will feel the bite, a bit lesser perhaps, but a brown-out can be willfully imposed by PG&E

JJMcJ 7y ago
Also the city of Santa Clara has no forested areas, avoiding the problems. The Berkeley campus is up against the East Bay hills and so there are trees all over near the campus.

sqldba 7y ago

> Statewide utilities are bloated and inefficient, and they abuse their monopoly power. This seems overly general. There's plenty of state-wide utilities in the rest the world which are fantastic in every regard including cost.

andrekandre 7y ago
i think what the parent poster might have meant was that for-profit state monopolies are bloated and inefficient (as opposed to non-profit public utilities) that was my interpretation (from the context) anyways... maybe i’m wrong ^^;
rayiner 7y ago
There are lots of things in the rest of the world that don’t exist in the US.
Spooky23 7y ago
Utilities with regulated monopolies need to be on a tight leash from a regulatory perspective. They trade operational freedom for a reliable return on assets. This changed in the 80s and 90s with deregulation. Some of them even turned into growth stocks or did other financial fuckery that made investors money at the cost of rotting out the business. End of the day, local municipal utilities or co-ops almost always deliver a better level of service at a lower cost. Smaller scale makes field service more efficient and reduces overheads like executive compensation. One municipal utility I’m familiar with has a civil service scale for all staff — the head guy makes $140k.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

>no pressure to find a better solution because there is no competition. // No-one wants a job, or to keep their current job?

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
The threshold for keeping your job is very low when there is no competition. Compare how cops act (who are damn near impossible to fire and have a local monopoly) with how private security acts (who can be fired on a moments notice and who's customers are not locked to a particular provider).

JJMcJ 7y ago

Palo Alto also has municipal utilities. And the biggest, of course, is Los Angeles Department of Water and Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Department_of_Water_and_Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Department_of_Wate... PG&E seems to be particularly bad in terms of upkeep and frequent power failures. That is, the unintentional kind, not like the shutoffs this week.