Why California bills keep climbing
Southern California Edison's wildfire-cost recovery filing pushed rates from about 31.2¢ to 35.3¢/kWh — roughly a 13% jump — effective October 2025, and 2026 rates layer on an additional $380.7 million for wildfire self-insurance. PG&E filed its own delivery rate increase of about 4%, effective January 1, 2026, tied to grid hardening and line undergrounding. Both utilities point to the same underlying driver: the cost of hardening an aging grid against an increasingly severe wildfire season, spread across every ratepayer's bill.
California also shifted new rooftop solar economics with NEM 3.0, which sharply cut export credits for newly installed systems — making a large rooftop array a slower payback than it used to be, even as delivery rates keep rising.
The genuinely new part: SB 868 just passed
SB 868, the “Plug Into the Sun Act” sponsored by Sen. Scott Wiener, would let residents install plug-in solar systems up to 1,200W and connect them to a standard outlet without utility approval, fees, or a full interconnection process. It passed the Senate 35-1 back in May 2026 and cleared the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee in June — and on August 25-26, 2026, it passed the full Assembly and cleared a Senate concurrence vote 36-4. It's now on Governor Newsom's desk, who has until September 30, 2026 to sign or veto it.
If signed, California would join Utah, Maryland, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Colorado, and Virginia as states with a dedicated plug-in solar law — giving California residents a small, permit-free way to offset exactly the kind of delivery charges driving SCE and PG&E bills up.
Bottom line
California's wildfire-hardening surcharges aren't going away, but SB 868 is the closest the state has come to giving residents a cheap, fast way to push back on their own bill. Watch for Governor Newsom's decision before the end of September.
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