The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote Thursday on a change that could affect the electricity rates that PG&E and other investor-owned utilities charge.

Going to a conference about home electrification isn’t the funnest thing you can do in San Diego.

But when Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Katherine Ellison heard former energy industry exec turned consumer advocate Mark Ellis speak for the first time during a conference at UC San Diego, her longstanding curiosity about energy policy reached a new level.

“Afterward, I saw him talking to anyone who would listen,” Ellison told me. “He is clearly on a mission.” 

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Ellis’ talk was about clean energy and ways to speed up home electrification. Part of that mission, he said, was lowering unnecessarily high rates for electricity that........

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