Southern California Edison (or SCE Corp), the largest subsidiary of

Edison International Edison International is a public utility holding company based in Rosemead, California. Its subsidiaries include Southern California Edison, and unregulated non-utility business assets Edison Energy. Edison's roots trace back to Holt & Knu ...

, is the primary electricity supply company for much of

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of approximately 50,000 square miles. However, the

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is the largest municipal utility in the United States with 8,100 megawatts of electric generating capacity (2021-2022) and delivering an average of 435 million gallons of water per day to more ...

San Diego Gas & Electric San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) provides natural gas and electricity to San Diego County and southern Orange County in southwestern California, United States. It is owned by Sempra, a Fortune 500 energy services holding company based in San Dieg ...

(SDG&E),

Imperial Irrigation District The Imperial Irrigation District (IID) is an irrigation district that serves the Imperial Valley in Southern California. Established under the State Water Code, the IID supplies roughly of Imperial Valley farmland with raw Colorado River water ...

, and some smaller municipal utilities serve substantial portions of the southern California territory. The northern part of the state is generally served by the Pacific Gas & Electric Company of San Francisco. Other investor-owned utilities (IOUs) in California include SDG&E,

PacifiCorp PacifiCorp is an electric power company in the western United States. PacifiCorp has two business units: # Pacific Power, a regulated electric utility with service territory throughout Oregon, northern California, and southeastern Washington. # ...

Bear Valley Electric The Bear Valley Electric Service Inc. (BVES), is the Public utility, utility that provides electricity to the Big Bear valley in the San Bernardino Mountains, California, United States. It is a subsidiary of the American States Water Company. H ...

, and

Liberty Utilities Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. is a Canadian renewable energy and regulated utility conglomerate with assets across North America. Algonquin actively invests in hydroelectric, wind and solar power facilities, and utility businesses (water, nat ...

East Coast Relief Efforts in the wake of Hurricane Sandy

Southern California Edison (SCE) still owns all of its

electrical transmission Electric power transmission is the bulk movement of electrical energy from a generating site, such as a power plant, to an electrical substation. The interconnected lines that facilitate this movement form a ''transmission network''. This is d ...

facilities and equipment, but the

deregulation Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a ...

of California's

electricity market In a broad sense, an electricity market is a system that facilitates the exchange of electricity-related goods and services. During more than a century of evolution of the electric power industry, the economics of the electricity markets had un ...

in the late 1990s forced the company to sell many of its power plants, though some were probably sold by choice. In California, SCE retained only its

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

plants, totaling about 1,200 MW, and its 75% share of the 2,150-MW

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) is a permanently closed nuclear power plant located south of San Clemente, California, on the Pacific coast, in Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region IV. The plant was shut down in 2013 after repl ...

, which has been shut down since January 2012; in June 2013 the company announced its intention to permanently close and decommission the nuclear plant. The utility lost all of its

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

-fired plants, which provided most of its electrical generation. The large, aging plants were bought by out-of-state companies such as

Mirant GenOn Energy Holdings, formerly Mirant Corporation, was a subsidiary of GenOn Energy, and is now a part of NRG Energy. The company was spun off from its former parent, Southern Company, on April 2, 2001. The company was merged into GenOn Energy ...

and

Reliant Energy Reliant Energy is an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. History Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Reliant Energy, a subsidiary of NRG Energy, is one of the largest Texas electricity providers serving over 1.5 million Texans. Relian ...

, which allegedly used them to manipulate the California energy market. Southern California Edison's power grid is linked to PG&E's by the

Path 26 Path 26 is a set of three Southern California Edison (SCE) 500 kV power lines, located primarily in Los Angeles County, and extending into Kern and Ventura counties, all in California. Path 26 is part of the Western Electricity Coordinating Coun ...

wires that generally follow

Interstate 5 Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Califor ...

over

Tejon Pass The Tejon Pass , previously known as ''Portezuelo de Cortes'', ''Portezuela de Castac'', and Fort Tejon Pass is a mountain pass between the southwest end of the Tehachapi Mountains and northeastern San Emigdio Mountains, linking Southern Californ ...

. The interconnection takes place at a large substation at

Buttonwillow Buttonwillow is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in the San Joaquin Valley, in Kern County, California. Buttonwillow is west of Bakersfield, at an elevation of ). The population was 1,508 at the 2010 census, up from 1,266 ...

. PG&E's and

WAPA WAPA may refer to: * WAPA (AM), a radio station (1160 AM) licensed to Ponce, Puerto Rico ** WBQN, a radio station (680 AM) licensed to San Juan, Puerto Rico, which held the WAPA call sign from 1947 to 2022 ** WMTI (AM), a radio station (1160 AM) li ...

Path 15 Path 15 is an portion of the north–south power transmission corridor in California, U.S. It forms a part of the Pacific AC Intertie and the California-Oregon Transmission Project. Path 15 is part of The Western Electricity Coordinating Cou ...

and

Path 66 California Oregon Intertie (COI), identified as Path 66 by Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC), is a corridor of three roughly parallel 500 kV alternating current power lines connecting the electric grids of Oregon and California. Th ...

, respectively, from Buttonwillow north eventually connect to BPA's grid in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...

. There are several other interconnections with local and out-of-state utilities, such as

Path 46 Path 46, also called West of Colorado River, Arizona-California West-of-the-River Path (WOR), is a set of fourteen high voltage (500 kV & 230 kV) alternating-current transmission lines that are located in southeast California and Nevada up to the ...

. In addition, SCE operates a regulated gas and

water utility The water industry provides drinking water and wastewater services (including sewage treatment) to residential, commercial, and industrial sectors of the economy. Typically public utilities operate water supply networks. The water industry does ...

. SCE is the sole commercial provider of natural gas and fresh water service to Santa Catalina Island, including the city of

Avalon, California Avalon is the only incorporated city on Santa Catalina Island, in the California Channel Islands, and the southernmost city in Los Angeles County. The city is a resort community with the waterfront dominated by tourism-oriented businesses. The ...

. SCE operates the utilities under the names of Catalina Island Gas Company and Catalina Island Water Company.

History

The origins of the company lie with the grand scheme of business magnate Henry E. Huntington and hydraulic engineer John S. Eastwood, developed around 1908, for a vast complex of reservoirs to be constructed in the

Sierra Nevada Mountains The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley (California), Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Cars ...

of central California. Huntington founded Pacific Light and Power, one of the roughly two dozen companies he controlled at the time, to execute what would eventually become one of the largest hydropower systems in the United States, the

Big Creek Hydroelectric Project The Big Creek Hydroelectric Project is an extensive hydroelectric power scheme on the upper San Joaquin River system, in the Sierra Nevada of central California. The project is owned and operated by Southern California Edison (SCE). The use and reu ...

. Pacific Light and Power was one of the predecessor companies to SCE, along with Edison Electric, Mt. Whitney Power & Electric Co., California Electric Power Co., Southern California Power Co., and others.

Settlement for blackout

Southern California Edison agreed to pay a $650,000 settlement for the 2011 blackout with FERC and NERC.

Shooting

On December 16, 2011, a

shooting Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or blowpipe). Even the acts of launching flame, artillery, darts, harpoons, grenades, rockets, and guided missiles can ...

occurred when an employee of Southern California Edison opened fire at an office building in

Irwindale Irwindale is a city in the San Gabriel Valley, in Los Angeles County, California. The population was 1,422 at the 2010 census, down from 1,446 at the 2000 census. The ZIP Codes serving the area are 91010, which is shared with Duarte, 91702, w ...

. The employee killed two co-workers and seriously wounded two others before committing suicide.

COVID-19 pandemic

In March 2020, during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, 8,000 of the 13,000 employees were shifted to

remote work Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, ware ...

. The US

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

has named utilities like SCE part of the 16 sectors designated “critical infrastructure sectors. The group of remote workers was set up so the company can operate if it faces workforce disruptions or shortages if employees become stricken or quarantined because of COVID-19. The company also ceased power disconnections for non-payment.

Renewable energy

Southern California Edison allows its customer to obtain their electricity entirely from renewable sources by subscribing to a "green rate". In 2006, Southern California Edison planned to secure 1,500 megawatts or more of power generated from new projects to be built in the Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm area. The contract, which more than doubles SCE's wind energy portfolio, envisions more than of wind parks in the Tehachapi region, which is triple the size of any existing U.S. wind farm. In March 2008, Southern California Edison announced a $875 million project to build a network of 250 megawatts of

photovoltaic Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially us ...

solar power generation, making it the biggest solar cell project in the nation. The photovoltaic cells will cover of rooftops in southern California and will generate enough power to serve 162,000 homes. In 2009, Southern California Edison entered into a contract with

Solar Millennium Solar Millennium was a German company globally active in the renewable energy sector founded in 1998 in Erlangen, Germany, which is specialized in the designing and implementation of solar thermal power plants. The main activities are site selectio ...

to purchase solar thermal power up to 726 MW. Southern California Edison also entered into a contract with Stirling Energy Systems to buy electricity from a 500 megawatt, 4,600 acre (19 km²), solar power plant which was due to open in 2009. The purchase was canceled in late 2010, as changes in technology reduced the cost of photovoltaic-based solar power to below that of solar Stirling generated power. This would have been the first commercial application of the dish stirling system. A different technology from the more familiar solar panel, the dish concentrates solar energy by the use of reflective surfaces and by the use of the

Stirling heat engine A Stirling engine is a heat engine that is operated by the cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas (the ''working fluid'') between different temperatures, resulting in a net conversion of heat energy to mechanical Work (physics), wor ...

to convert the heat into electricity. In 2014, Southern California Edison installed the

Tehachapi Energy Storage Project The Tehachapi Energy Storage Project (TSP) is a 8 MW/32MWh lithium-ion battery-based grid energy storage system at the Monolith Substation of Southern California Edison (SCE) in Tehachapi, California, sufficient to power between 1,600 and 2,400 h ...

, which is composed of more than 600,000 lithium-ion battery cells at Monolith Substation in

Tehachapi, California Tehachapi (; Kawaiisu: ''Tihachipia'', meaning "hard climb") is a city in Kern County, California, United States, in the Tehachapi Mountains, at an elevation of , between the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert. Tehachapi is east-southeast ...

in order to test storing power generated from an area that currently has 5,000 wind turbines. In 2014 SCE had a renewables mix of 23%. By 2016, 28.2% of SCE's power sources were renewable.

Natural gas and energy storage

In 2017, the company opened two new hybrid electric gas turbine (EGT) units called peaker plants, that combine gas turbines and storage batteries at the same site. Each plant delivers around 50-megawatts; the batteries can provide 10-megawatts and four megawatt-hours of power. Both the turbines and the batteries are designed and manufactured by General Electric’s Power Division. The plant runs the battery first in a series of short bursts, saving gas usage for longer power demand. The combination of a 30-minute duration battery improves the environmental impact of the gas turbine. The SCE setup (the first of its kind) cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60%, reduced annual water usage by 2 million gallons and lowered the number of gas starts by 50%.

Electric vehicles

Southern California Edison has a number of resources and a rate designed specifically for electric vehicle users. As of July 2018, Southern California Edison plans to add thousands of new charging stations for passenger electric vehicles (EV). This addition is a component of the company's "Charge Ready" program, a pilot program with the aim of increasing the availability of charging ports for EVs. Since 2016, Southern California Edison has installed 1,000 charging stations throughout their Southern and Central California service area. The company also runs a rebate program for electric vehicle purchases. Southern California Edison gives people in its service area who purchase a new or used, or lease, an electric vehicle a $450 rebate. The program will run until 2020.

Energy research and policy

Southern California Edison has a long history of research in the energy arena. Often this includes working with other companies and government entities. One example is the SOLARII feasibility generator, which was a solar-powered energy plant that could produce electricity 24 hours a day. This was done by heating molten salts that would hold the heat during the day and would be used to generate power at night. Dr. John Jurewitz served as Director of Regulatory Policy for Southern California Edison for 15 years until his retirement in July 2007. His major areas of research are in oil, gas, and electricity policy and

greenhouse gas A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbs and Emission (electromagnetic radiation), emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse ...

regulation. He has testified and participated in government-sponsored proceedings addressing electric industry restructuring and

energy policy Energy policy is the manner in which a given entity (often governmental) has decided to address issues of energy development including energy conversion, distribution and use as well as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in order to contri ...

at the state, federal, and international levels. In November, 2014, SCE announced a partnership with

Ice Energy Ice Energy was an energy storage company serving utility companies in the U.S. state of California. Its main product was the Ice Bear system, developed for small to mid-sized commercial buildings. The Ice Bear freezes water at night when electric ...

to provide more efficient energy storage by freezing water at night when electricity is cheaper. (Ice Energy filed for

Chapter 7 bankruptcy Chapter 7 of Title 11 of the United States Code (Bankruptcy Code) governs the process of liquidation under the bankruptcy laws of the United States, in contrast to Chapters 11 and 13, which govern the process of ''reorganization'' of a debto ...

in December 2019.)

Labor practice controversy

In April 2015, Southern California Edison laid off about 400 IT employees, with an additional 100 IT workers leaving voluntarily. Meanwhile, the utility company hired immigrants from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

through

Infosys Infosys Limited is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational information technology company that provides business consulting, information technology and outsourcing services. The company was founded in Pune and is headquartered in Ba ...

, based in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

, and

Tata Consultancy Services Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is an Indian multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company with its headquarters in Mumbai. It is a part of the Tata Group and operates in 150 locations across 46 countries. In July ...

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

, which are among the largest users of

H-1B visa The H-1B is a visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 101(a)(15)(H) that allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. A specialty occupation requires the application of ...

s. About 70% of the work to be done by Tata and Infosys will be completed offshore, according to SCE. The company claimed it had to lay off US-based employees to stay competitive. The layoffs were questioned by members of the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

. SCE was subsequently investigated by the US Department of Labor for potential H1-B visa abuse. In October, Department of Labor concluded Infosys did not abuse the H1-B program in the dealings with SCE, while Tata's case remained open.

References

External links

Southern California Edison websiteSCE Launches 250-MW Solar ProjectSouthern California Edison’s Electric Vehicle (EV) Technical Center
in

Pomona, California Pomona is a city in Los Angeles County, California. Pomona is located in the Pomona Valley, between the Inland Empire and the San Gabriel Valley. At the 2020 census, the city's population was 151,713. The main campus of California State Polyte ...

{{Electric Utilities in CA Energy in California Electric power companies of the United States Electric power transmission system operators in the United States Hydroelectric power companies of the United States Nuclear power companies of the United States Southern California Companies based in Los Angeles County, California Rosemead, California Energy companies established in 1908 1908 establishments in California Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Superfund sites in California American companies established in 1908