They are also regulated to have a 10% profit margin, so that only way to increase revenue is to drive up costs year after year.

The state should pay for that out of general taxes rather that shifting the economic incentives of power use

IMO the state should have forced PG&E into liquidation, bought all the assets, and converted the whole mess to a public utility. It would surely take some time to learn how to operate PG&E’s disaster of a system, but it’s not as though PG&E can competently operate its own system right now.

I hated this idea at the time, but have come around to it. Im fairly libertarian, but understand that competition is difficult for the power distribution network.

As much as I think the state is inefficient, a cost plus regulated monopoly is even worse. Municipal power companies in CA run $0.10-0.20 per kwh, while PG&E is $0.40-0.50 cents, and going up.

It would be amusing to require PG&E to match the average rates of the municipal utilities plus 10%. And then liquidate them when their stock goes to zero as a result :)

Which leads to opening up a whole nother can of worms regarding forest mismanagement and lack of controlled burns.