Regulators OK Rate Hike For Edison Customers

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Customers of Southern California Edison can expect a bigger bill in the mail this winter.

KNX 1070's Brian Ping reports state regulators have approved a five percent rate increase for the utility.

While the increase approved by the California Public Utilities Commission is less than the 16.6 percent Edison was requesting, customers can expect their residential bills to go up by about $7 a month starting in January.

The increase is expected to bring in about $840 million in revenue over three years.

Regulators demanded the company try harder to cut costs and disallowed some of what it called "non-essential projects".

Officials also demanded Edison improve its emergency response, particularly in the wake of a destructive wind storm last December, resulting in lengthy outages.

Edison called the scaled-back increase "constructive."