Cal Rossi Region Manager for SCE. Photo by Catherine Stachowiak
Cal Rossi, region manager from Southern California Edison, spoke at the Kern Valley Exchange Club, Thursday July 18, at the request of the club’s new president Fred Roach who gave Rossi a bullet point list of questions to answer.
Paradise Cove Lodge hosted his speech during a luncheon. Rossi said, “It is an honor to be here. I was happy to come up.”
The SCE service territory, within 50,000 square miles, includes high fire risk areas of Kern County with 5 million customer accounts, 15 million residents within the over all SCE territory, with 300,000 power poles in high fire risk areas of the state.
He brought up the issue of proposed customer charges. On May 9, the California Public Utilities Commission issued a final decision in its current fixed charge proceeding. Once implemented around 2025 or early 2026 SCE customer bills would be organized into two main parts. The fixed charge will stay the same each month, at $24.15 per month for all residential customers.
Customers enrolled in low income assistance programs would be paying fixed charges of $6 to $12, depending on the program they are enrolled in for assistance, CARE or FERA. The energy charge is based on the amount of energy the customer uses. The fixed charge will not apply to non-residential business customers.
Most of SCE’s focus has been scheduled maintenance, and regarding fire concerns the company is focused on putting in fire resistance poles, making the grid more resilient, and removing conductors with trees in the higher elevation. The company has recently been replacing 26 poles along highway 178 on the south side of Lake Isabella.
