We posted a video last week recapping a recent protest against Sempra’s latest earnings report, and one comment captured exactly how many San Diegans currently feel: “big personal beef with SDG&E.”
Isn’t that the truth? How many conversations with friends and family eventually spiral into frustrations about skyrocketing energy bills? As summer approaches, many of us are preparing to do what we do every year: ration electricity, avoid turning on the A/C during heat waves, and hope we can stay afloat in one of the most expensive cities in the country.
Meanwhile, Sempra called its latest earnings a “great start” to the year. Of course it was. Last week, Sempra reported more than $1 billion in profits in just the first few months of 2026. Its CEO earned more than $22 million the year prior. For executives and shareholders, this system is working exactly as designed.
But for the rest of us — the ones paying some of the highest energy bills in California to fund these profits — it’s a horrible reality.
The line between public service and corporate profit has become increasingly nonexistent, yet we’re expected to absorb every rate increase without question. Which raises the important question: If SDG&E is supposed to provide a public service, why does its business model work against the public interest?
The answer lies in how corporate utilities like SDG&E make money.
SDG&E operates under a “spend-more, make-more” system. The more it builds, like poles and wires, the more profit it is allowed to collect. That means the utility is financially rewarded for pursuing expensive, gold-plated projects, because ratepayers are forced to cover the cost of construction and a guaranteed 10% profit margin.
The higher the spending, the higher the profits. And we pay for it time and time again.
These costs show up directly on our monthly energy bill. They also show up on bills from the grocery store, restaurants and local businesses, which raise prices to cover their own rising energy costs. Instead of being reinvested back into our neighborhoods, that money is extracted from us to pad the pockets of a corporate utility already making billions.
SDG&E has proven itself incapable of operating in its customers’ best interest. San Diegans deserve both immediate relief and a long-term alternative to the broken monopoly utility model that got us here in the first place.
Right now, a slate of bills is moving through Sacramento aimed directly at the utility profit structure that has allowed companies like SDG&E to rake in billions while Californians fall behind on payments. These proposals would curb excessive profit-taking, create stronger accountability measures to lower energy bills, and accelerate the development of affordable clean energy projects.
Those reforms deserve the full support of local leaders across San Diego County. We need these bills to cross the finish line. Our elected officials should be doing everything possible to support statewide efforts to lower costs for working families and hold corporate utilities accountable.
While these reforms provide necessary short-term relief, they are not enough on their own. The only long-term solution for lasting rate relief is to fire SDG&E and replace it with a nonprofit alternative: public power.
Despite what opponents often claim, public power is neither radical nor unrealistic. In fact, SDG&E’s model is outdated. More than 40 communities across California already operate public power utilities with, on average, half the rates of SDG&E. A recent city-commissioned analysis found that transitioning to public power is both technically and financially feasible, and could save San Diegans over $600 million.
Transitioning to public power will take time, but that is not an excuse to allow SDG&E to continue business as usual while families struggle right now. We need immediate state reforms to protect ratepayers today and a local, long-term transition that permanently puts our energy system back in public hands.
For San Diegans who have a personal beef with SDG&E, there are real solutions on the table.
For too long, our energy system has prioritized SDG&E’s profits over the people forced to pay them. It’s time for our leaders to decide whose side they are on.
Anthony Dang is the policy and community outreach manager form the San Diego-based Climate Action Campaign.
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