Becerra's free power plan won't be free

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has proposed giving away a couple of hours of electricity on the days that California has generated too much. It's not a crazy idea. But it is an inadvertent admission that the current power system doesn't make sense.

Solar power is booming in sunny California. On occasion, there's more energy generated than can be used. Ideally, the excess should be stored to use later when the sun goes down. But limited battery storage capacity can't take the heat, so the surplus produced in the early afternoon hours has to be exported. In some instances, California has had to pay other states to take its extra power so that it wouldn't upset the grid.

Becerra believes the solution is to keep it in state and give it away.

"Start small," he said at a recent Politico event. "Maybe with those who are low income, for whom affording their electricity bill is really difficult." To those "we say, 'I'm going to offer you two hours of free electricity.' "

Becerra recalled that it wasn't long ago that "we'd tell people, hey, please don't use your appliances during the afternoon hours, because we need to cover for all the air conditioners and the cost of trying to take care of a hot day.

"Well, today it's almost reversed. The best way to get you re-adapt, to recalibrate is to tell you the best time for you to use electricity today, 1 to 3. And if you do that, I won't charge you, you won't have a penny to pay for those two hours. So load up, charge your devices, wash your clothes, wash your dishes."

It's an intriguing concept. But it invites questions for which Becerra has offered no answers.

First, there's the matter of covering infrastructure and delivery costs.

There is, as well, the uncertainty that all concerned parties, such as the utilities and government agencies, will obligingly fall in line. No governor can set up a "power hour" by simply wishing it so. Becerra will need cooperation.

And what of the times when solar farms aren't producing too much electricity - how will the beneficiaries of the plan know that they won't be getting free power on those days?

Another logistical hurdle that Becerra didn't touch on, nor does he address on his campaign site, is the real possibility that "loading up" during those two hours will cause a demand surge during that window, which the system can't handle.

The bigger issue, though, is how the state delivers power. Becerra's proposal is an indirect and overly complex way to try to fix a broken system. Or as Haas Energy Institute Faculty Director Severin Borenstein puts it, "interpreting this as a solution to the affordability crisis in itself would be overinterpreting it."

To say California's system a mess is to understate the totality of a problem that has been wrestled with for decades. A plan to gift power to low-income ratepayers is undeniably an admission that energy is far too expensive in the state. Californians pay more for residential electricity than consumers in any other state outside of Hawaii, even though most of the population lives and works in temperate coastal communities and neither needs to crank the air conditioner in the summer nor overwork the heat in the winter. It would make sense that using less electricity in these zones would result in lower power bills, but that simply is not the case.

Because there is no such thing as a free lunch, there's no such thing as free electricity, either. Millions are connected to a three-hour "free power" program in Australia that uses excess solar energy, but outside of the "load up" period elevated rates can offset the "free" electricity. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that some "customers have been told by their retailers that moving to" to the plan might "cause their overall bills to increase unless they can drastically change their power-usage pattern."

The Democratic candidate made his proposal sound simple and foolproof. It is neither. Overhauling the state's failed power model would be a bolder and more lasting strategy than a plan that sounds good as long as the details aren't discussed.

Kerry Jackson is the William Clement Fellow in California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute, and co-author of "The California Left Coast Survivor's Guide."