Xavier Becerra floats bizarre plan to slash Californians’ utility bills

California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has claimed he will slash people’s utility bills by granting two hours of free electricity per day.

The Democrat unveiled his new policy pitch on Tuesday to give the handout to lower-income families, though he failed to lay out how it would be designed or funded.

The so-called “power hour” plan comes as Californians struggle with the state’s increasingly high cost of living.

Part of that crisis includes skyrocketing energy bills, which his opponent, Republican Steve Hilton, has also targeted.

Californians have seen their energy bills spike by 39% over the past six years — the most by far of any state, according to UC Berkeley’s Haas Energy Institute — thanks in part to the destructive wildfires that have torn through Los Angeles and other areas, and policy choices that have shoved costs on to rate payers.

“We already do programs for folks, for Californians, who can’t afford their electricity bills,” Becerra said at an event hosted by Politico.

“We can use some of that money to not just give them a break in their bill, but also [incentivize] them to be smart about when they use energy.”

Becerra claimed his new idea would relieve stress on the electricity grid by nudging users to use more of their electricity during the day when solar power is at its peak.

In the middle of the day, electricity companies can have excess energy, because demand is lower then, while solar panels collect a lot of energy from the sun.

When a majority of the households crank up the electricity during the evenings after the sun is down, that could put strain on the grid.

Becerra’s plan would take advantage of that dynamic, the Democrat claimed.

“We produce a lot of energy during the hot hours because the sun helps us produce solar energy, take advantage of it,” Becerra said.

“The best way to get you to readapt, to recalibrate, is to tell you, ‘The best time for you to use electricity today, 1 [p.m.] to 3 [p.m.], and if you do that, I won’t charge you.’”

Becerra said he could put this into action in his first year of office in coordination with the state public utilities commission.

A similar program is underway in Australia, when states there offered three free hours of electricity daily.

But people who took advantage of that had to pay higher rates the rest of the day. Some consumer advocates cautioned against rushing into that plan.

“We don’t want to have people signing up to these plans assuming it will decrease their bills, when in fact it could do the opposite,” Energy Consumers Australia said.

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