Inside California's Plan to Fix the Utility Business Model with Senator Josh Becker

California built the one of the cleanest grids in the country and wholesale prices have never been lower — but utility bills keep going up. One reason: utilities make more money by spending more.

California State Senator Josh Becker is writing the bills to change that. Before politics, Becker was in venture capital — he seeded Opower and worked on EPA's first Clean Air Marketplace Conference in 1992. Now he runs much of California's energy policy from Sacramento.

Jigar and Arnab Pal (in for Jamie) talk with Becker about tying utility executive bonuses to keeping rates down, the metrics regulators should use to measure utility performance, why your home battery should count toward grid reliability, and how to use the grid we've already paid for before building more.

Along the way: why the grid is like a Walmart parking lot built for Christmas Eve, the plan to take wildfire costs off your electricity bill, and Becker's blunt verdict that "hope is not a strategy."

Plus: listener questions on virtual power plants, nuclear, and what happens when everyone goes off the grid — in this week's Ask Jigar.

Submit a question to Ask Jigar: https://octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar

S2G Investments:

https://www.s2ginvestments.com/insights/podcast-global-energy-order

Octopus Energy: https://octopusenergy.com/faas