California must spend a whopping $9.3 billion on power grid upgrades to support its transition to green energy, a policy push that has already brought soaring electricity prices to the Golden State.
Californians already pay some of the highest electricity bills in the nation, and Democratic governor Gavin Newsom's "aggressive" approach to "accelerate the state's transition to clean energy" will likely only increase those bills.
California's increased reliance on electricity as residents move away from gas-powered appliances and vehicles, meanwhile, has strained the state's power grid, prompting rolling blackouts last summer for the first time in two decades.
It's a huge problem," University of California, Berkeley professor Severin Borenstein told E&E News in January.
Should California mandate clean electricity, Borenstein added, "then there's just going to be huge political blowback.
Mandating electrification when you're charging people 30 or 40 cents a kilowatt-hour is going to be immensely expensive."
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