California’s political class takes evident pride in the state’s climate credentials. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass regularly tout a “coal free” future and chase applause from activists who will never have to answer for the practical consequences of their ideas. What they do not celebrate is the state of energy affordability in California, where more than three million households are unable to pay their electric bills and basic service has become a quiet but growing crisis for nearly one in four families.
Recent filings with the California Public Utilities Commission show that roughly 3.4 million customer accounts across the state’s major investor-owned utilities are behind on their bills, with total arrears approaching $2.2 billion. Using standard household estimates, more than eight million Californians are living with energy debt. While officials in Sacramento and Los Angeles continue promising a renewable-powered utopia, millions of residents cannot even keep the lights on.
This affordability crisis did not appear out of thin air. It is the predictable result of a state government that treats reliability as secondary and working families as acceptable collateral in its pursuit of climate symbolism. Since 2022, electricity costs in California have risen nearly 35 percent – almost three times the rate of overall inflation. Families did not suddenly become irresponsible. Their bills simply became unaffordable.
The scale of the problem is evident across the state. At PG&E, more than one in five customers fell behind on payments earlier this year. At Southern California Edison, nearly one million accounts carried overdue balances, with average arrears nearing $1,000 per household. At San Diego Gas & Electric, nearly a quarter of customers fell behind. Taken together, these figures leave little doubt that energy affordability has become a statewide problem of the state’s own making.
Yet, rather than reassess their policy choices, state leaders continue to frame these recent developments as progress. Mayor Bass proudly announced that Los Angeles is now “coal free,” a decision that followed the closure of the Navajo Generating Station, which for decades provided reliable power to the region and supported thousands of jobs. That generation was replaced not with firm, around-the-clock alternatives, but with weather dependent systems that already struggle to meet peak demand.
California’s leaders call this progress even as they increase the state’s dependence on inefficient and costly peaker plants, short-duration battery systems, and imported power from neighboring states that still rely on reliable thermal generation. Even as California politicians celebrate renewable abroad and the export of energy jobs to China, California imports power – and pollution – produced elsewhere. The result is a grid that is more fragile, more expensive, and often no cleaner than before.
The financial cost is substantial. Californians continue to subsidize costly vanity projects such as the Ivanpah solar facility in the Mojave Desert, which has failed to meet expectations, required repeated bailouts, and produces some of the most expensive electricity in the country. Yet funding persists, because admitting failure would complicate the state’s preferred narrative. Every dollar spent propping up Ivanpah is a dollar that cannot reduce rates for struggling families, invest in grid resilience, or help households recover from arrears.
California politicians like to blame utilities for high rates, but utilities are following rules written by lawmakers and regulators who treat energy as a political tool rather than a public necessity. The CPUC has continued layering mandates and procurement requirements onto a system already under strain. Consumers, meanwhile, are left to absorb the cost.
The irony is painful. California promotes itself as a climate leader while millions of residents fall into energy poverty. It retires reliable generation in the name of sustainability, then turns to diesel generators during emergencies and imports power produced by the very fuels it claims to reject. It presents itself as a national model while producing outcomes no responsible policymaker would ever want to replicate.
There is a better path. Affordable and reliable energy must be the foundation of any serious policy framework. A functional grid requires firm generation that operates whenever demand requires it, not only when the weather cooperates. California’s experiment in centrally planned decarbonization has made power more expensive, less reliable, and less secure. State leaders can continue to insist this is success. Californians, faced with their monthly bills, appear unconvinced.
Jason Isaac is the CEO and founder of the American Energy Institute.