California gubernatorial candidate pledges two hours of free power a day

California’s Democratic candidate for governor, Xavier Becerra, is borrowing a page from Australia with a new plan to give state residents free electricity during certain parts of the day.

Last week, Becerra unveiled a proposal to offer up to two free hours of electricity per day, starting with low-income families. He estimates it could save households about $1,000 per year.

The idea could find traction with restive voters in the Golden State. Power prices in California have risen by 46% in the last decade, the largest increase in the nation. And energy affordability has become a top issue at the ballot box nationwide.

The program, which he calls ​“Power Hour,” aims to help Californians soak up more of the state’s copious solar energy.

“We produce so much solar energy … that oftentimes in the afternoon we can’t make use of all of it, and so it essentially goes to waste,” Becerra said at a Politico event last week. Solar power can become so abundant that wholesale electricity prices dip into the negative, meaning that producers will pay others to take the excess off their hands. The state throws away what it can’t consume or store for later with batteries.

Becerra’s plan could send a strong market signal to consumers to take full advantage of the state’s solar riches, he explained to his California audience. ​“The best way to get you to readapt, to recalibrate, is to tell you the best time for you to use electricity today,” he said, giving as an example a free-power period between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

How Australians tap free power

Some energy retailers in Australia started offering free-power plans years ago to take advantage of the solar power flooding the grid.

Thanks to a push from the Aussie federal government, now millions more can access the scheme, known as Solar Sharer. As of last month, households with smart meters in three of the country’s six states can sign up for rate plans that offer free power in the middle of the day. For example, in New South Wales and Queensland, the energy bonanza is from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The no-cost energy is capped at 24 kilowatt-hours per day — enough to cover the energy needs of a household of five, according to the Australian government. Anything beyond that the utility charges for.

While free power sounds like a great deal, it’s important to note that these plans don’t automatically guarantee lower electricity bills. Outside the free-power period, utilities can set higher-than-average rates to recoup costs — sometimes, much higher.

One of the largest retail providers in Australia, AGL, which serves more than 4 million customers, has a free-power plan with a peak rate that’s almost twice what it charges under its standard plan. The federal government provides an online tool to help consumers figure out whether switching to a plan with free power will actually save them money.

People who can shift a lot of their energy demand to the free period or cache the zero-cost power for later will benefit most. The Australian government is making that easier to do by providing a 30% discount on home batteries. (The U.S. had a similar incentive, a federal tax credit, until the Republican-held Congress and President Donald Trump axed it last year.)

More than half a million home batteries have been installed under the Aussie program. And thanks to cheap, high-tech electric vehicles out of China, households increasingly have battery behemoths in their driveways. EVs now make up a quarter of new car sales on the continent.

Existing California programs could give Becerra’s plan a big boost. Qualified households could get a generous home-battery incentive of up to $1,100 per kilowatt-hour. And the state is rolling out a $3,500 EV rebate for first-time buyers.

Hot takes for ​“Power Hour”

Some experts doubt a free-power program can be as effective in California as it is shaping up to be in Australia.

“I applaud the intent here to change human behavior,” said Saul Griffith, CEO of Otherlab and founder of electrification advocacy nonprofits Rewiring America, Rewiring Australia, and Rewiring New Zealand. ​“But unless this [plan] really goes along with more comprehensive electricity market and pricing reform, it may not mean that much.”

Electricity could be far more affordable if Americans unleashed clean, cheap, distributed power, Griffith contends. But to do that, ​“you have to break the single-utility monopoly model,” he said.

Severin Borenstein, faculty director of the Energy Institute at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, also had a mixed reaction to Becerra’s plan.

“I do think this would be a step in the right direction, making electricity prices more accurately convey the cost of supplying the electricity in a given hour,” Borenstein said in an email. ​“But it would require making up the revenue shortfall somehow, which I fear would be done by raising prices in other hours.”

The vast majority of what utilities charge customers for is not the electricity itself but fixed system costs, according to Borenstein. ​“Those costs would still need to be covered,” he noted.

If elected, Becerra can’t implement his plan by fiat. He said he would work with the public utility commission, utilities, and other stakeholders to realize his plan within his first year in office.

Despite the uncertainties, Michael Rochmes, policy and advocacy manager at the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council California, is excited to see Becerra’s Power Hour take shape.

The prevailing narrative has been that electricity is expensive, and costs are ballooning faster than inflation, he said. But that story leaves out how renewables and battery storage can deliver ​“long-term energy abundance,” Rochmes noted. ​“If this idea can break through and get people who aren’t in the energy space to start to understand the benefits of electrification, load shifting, battery storage, and renewable energy, I think this is a huge win.”