Regulators Require Edison to Pay $100M for Shoddy Efficient Light Bulb Program

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Southern California Edison was ordered to pay $102 million for mismanaging its energy efficiency lighting program from 2017 through 2019.

The California Public Utilities Commission found the utility shipped several million energy savings light bulbs to small discount and grocery stores and failed to track their sales. That resulted in unverified energy savings for which it took credit.

SCE spokesperson Ron Gales said the company “believes it provided evidence in the proceeding that should have produced a more proportionate remedy to reflect SCE’s accountability for upstream lighting program management deficiencies.”

Whether SCE will seek a rehearing is not yet known because it is still reviewing the CPUC decision, Gales said.

It is “gratifying to see SCE finally being held accountable and fined for falsifying records of distribution of light bulbs that never reached customers," countered Mark Toney, The Utility Reform Network executive director. He thanked utility employees who exercised the courage to blow the whistle, adding that claims of "SCE corruption and mismanagement of its energy efficiency program stretches back to nearly 20 years."

The CPUC found the company committed a “significant offense” and ordered it to return $76 million to its ratepayers for the program costs. Regulators also found the utility “knowingly and repeatedly submitted information in its energy efficiency annual reports and quarterly filings that it knew or should have known was inaccurate and misleading.” Because of that, the CPUC required the utility to return $6.8 million in unearned shareholder incentives and send $19 million in fines to the State’s General Fund.

A Commission Energy Division sponsored report by DNV GL Energy Insights found that data on the huge volumes of bulbs shipped to small stores in 2017 “reveal that the market could not have supported” the volume of sales reported.

SCE insisted it conducted in 2019 a bona fide internal evaluation of its 2017 program handling several million light emitting diodes, specialty LEDs, reflector light bulbs, and globe light bulbs, and that it took corrective action to address the earlier problems. However, SCE also claimed it could not complete its field investigation because of the pandemic.

Cal Advocates and TURN called SCE’s investigation “woefully incomplete.” The ratepayer advocates noted San Diego Gas & Electric, which was also under investigation, completed both its internal and independent evaluation during the same time period.

Cal Advocates, which also conducted discovery on this upstream lighting program, said SCE’s data responses revealed “an inadequate invoice review process that resulted in SCE staff approving incomplete or inaccurate invoices.”

A decade and half ago, the CPUC took over the oversight of independent energy efficiency program evaluators to ensure unbiased reviews.

“This case illustrates the importance of our role overseeing the independent evaluators, to ensure that there is an accurate and fair source of data when such issues arise,” according to the CPUC.