Electricity upgrades will zap customers

Oak Park's aging energy delivery system will be updated to prevent failures like the one that occurred during last summer's heat wave.

But the fixes will come at a price, Southern California Edison Co. regional manager Rudy Gonzales said at a recent Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council meeting. Residents can expect to see their energy bills continue to rise.

Residents were hit both physically and financially by the record summer heat. An older section of Oak Park lost power for several days. Residents of Conifer Street, Satinwood Avenue, Pinion Street, Bayberry Street, Smoketree Avenue and part of Kanan Road had more problems than other areas, according to Gonzales, and overloaded crews could not respond immediately.

The temporary transformer that crews installed in front of a Bayberry Street residence will be replaced by permanent updated electrical equipment in the affected area and other neighborhoods in the coming weeks. To accommodate the work, planned daytime outages will take place, but for no more than eight hours at a time, according to Gonzales, and residents will receive prior notice.

The improved equipment will allow Edison to isolate outage problems so that entire neighborhoods no longer lose power while repair work is done.

"We will add transformers, cabling and switches, and will install conduits and other equipment," Gonzales said. "This is our answer to the rehabilitation issues that the community is facing."

In spite of the power loss, many Oak Park residents' electricity bills were far above normal. The combination of Edison's rate hikes earlier this year and the record summer heat hit some homeowners particularly hard. Resident Mike Paule's July bill was a record $700. He said Edison's rates are up from 50 to 70 percent.

"Most homeowners don't understand how much rates have gone up. Edison is very misleading," Paule said. "Oak Park is paying a disproportionate amount. Why doesn't Edison better explain this to the community?"

Two rate hikes earlier this year, on Jan. 1 and Feb. 1, raised rates about 15 percent, according to Gonzales. Another 6 percent increase is planned for New Year's Day. Edison's tiered rate structure rises for every level of energy used above a baseline allocation assigned by the utility company.

The baseline is not the same for all, but is based on climate zone. For example, Oak Park residents have a higher baseline allocation than those who live along the coast. Edison assumes weather to be cooler near the ocean so those homes will require less energy. Conversely, Oak Park residents have a lower baseline than customers in hot desert areas, where energy is in greater demand.

"I hope our customers will use less energy because of the financial harm," Gonzales said.

Resident Jeff Friedman accused Edison of setting baseline levels "artificially low" so that customers' energy use quickly jumps into the higher, more expensive tiers.

"I say to Edison, 'Get your hand out of my pocket,'" Friedman said. "All of this just profits the company."

Gonzales insisted the baseline was established through the California Public Utilities Commission and consumer groups and was never meant to be a target amount for power used by consumers.

"We don't arbitrarily set those rates," Gonzales said.

He acknowledged that the next tier, which will take effect Jan. 1, will have "a tremendous financial impact" on customers.

"We're all feeling the pain," Gonzales said. "We don't expect our customers to live in 86-degree heat. We want them to be comfortable, but every degree you raise your air conditioning (thermostat setting, that's), a little less hard it has to work."

Lower natural gas costs and higher electricity sales generated 8 percent more income for Edison than expected. The company is refunding $10 million of that income, but only to customers in the greatest need.

Some of the money earned from the rate hikes will go toward improving the 30- to 40-year-old electrical system in Oak Park, Gonzales said.

"I don't know if that justifies the rate hike," Gonzales said. "But we will need money to go back into the system (to fix it)."

Residents' medical problems can have their baseline raised above the average if they submit a doctor's note to Edison. Customers can also earn credit by allowing Edison to shut off their power during the high demand hours of noon and 6 p.m.

One of the nation's largest electrical utilities, Southern California Edison serves 13 million people through 4.7 million accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area in Central, coastal and Southern California.