Committee advances AB 710 to expand dynamic electricity pricing; author pledges IOU collaboration

Assemblymember Erwin opened the bill hearing for AB 710, saying the measure aims to expand dynamic pricing and require utilities to plan for wide deployment of advanced metering to enable load shifting and lower bills.

"Dynamic pricing encourages customers to use electricity at times when it is less expensive to generate and cleaner," Erwin said, framing the measure as a tool to reduce costs and emissions. Caleb Weiss of Environment California told the committee that increased load shifting is important because "in 2025 alone, California curtailed over 3,700,000 megawatt hours of wind and solar energy." Weiss urged the committee to adopt the bill to help reach renewable goals.

Opponents, including a PG&E representative, warned that parts of the bill — notably a section referencing the Energy Commission's hourly day‑ahead load management standard — would impose hard deadlines while utilities are still piloting real‑time pricing components. The PG&E witness told the committee the bill "presents... putting out a date, a hard deadline, and then we have to really struggle with the how," saying a broad mandate could force reprioritization of costly billing modernization work.

Committee members pressed both sides on whether AB 710 would disrupt ongoing CPUC rate proceedings and on how the bill's language applies across customer classes. Erwin said the bill mirrors recommendations from the Energy Commission's 2023 load‑shift goals and pledged to work with investor‑owned utilities to address practical concerns. Assemblymember Schultz moved the bill and Assemblymember Berner seconded.

The committee called the roll and the secretary recorded the motion as passed to appropriations. The chair later announced the committee vote as 11–0 (finalized on the record), and left the roll open for absent members to add their votes.

The next step for AB 710 is consideration by the Appropriations Committee. The author and IOUs said they plan follow‑up meetings to reconcile technical timeline and implementation questions raised by witnesses and members.