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California – Lowest Wholesale Electricity Prices in USA

• toomuchtodo 5mo ago
  Found via bryanlarsen's comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48401917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48401917 (thanks bryan!) in In a first, wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48399332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48399332 - June 2026
• Jblx2 5mo ago
  Wow, what a pronounced difference between wholesale and residential rates. https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/ https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/ What are some proposals for rectifying this? I've heard that some of this is essentially fire-insurance. If so, should that be broken out as a separate fee? And why is California uniquely fire prone?
  • dc396 5mo ago
    > And why is California uniquely fire prone? Combination of CA's climate (mediterranean), which leads to hot/dry summers exacerbated by global warming, natural ecology that evolved to handle that climate and fires (e.g., lodgepole pines can't reproduce unless a fire cracks open pine cones to release seeds into ash beds), the topology that funnels winds off the deserts, and probably most importantly, people, either because of building in places that have lots of fires or because they cause the fires directly or indirectly (transmission lines not buried, lack of control fires, arson, etc.)
    • Jblx2 5mo ago
      Is there a way to quantify how much more of a fire risk California is compared to say Utah (which looks to have about the 4th lowest electric rates (and an abundance of conifers)).
      • dc396 5mo ago
        California has 11x the population of Utah, with California having around 250 people per square mile and Utah having 40 people per square mile. This probably plays more into the fire risk than the number of pine trees.