SAN FRANCISCO, July 27 (San Francisco News Online) — California regulators have approved new protections meant to limit when electric utilities can cut off service for unpaid bills during dangerous heat.
The California Public Utilities Commission voted July 16 in San Francisco to approve Resolution E-5468, a decision that modifies a joint proposal from Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric, San Diego Gas and Electric, and Southern California Gas.
What the new rule does
The commission said the rule applies only to disconnections for nonpayment during extreme heat events. It does not cover outages caused by equipment failures, wildfire-prevention shutoffs, or other emergencies.
Under the approved resolution, the utilities must use CalHeatScore Level 2 as the trigger for waiving disconnections, rather than the higher threshold they proposed. The commission also ordered the electric investor-owned utilities to put that system in place within six months of final adoption.
CalHeatScore is a heat-health forecasting tool developed by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. The utilities are expected to use it to judge when heat risk is high enough that shutting off power for unpaid bills should be paused.
Why regulators changed the proposal
The utilities had asked to raise the disconnection-waiver trigger from a 100-degree Fahrenheit standard to CalHeatScore Level 3. The CPUC modified that request and set the threshold at Level 2 instead.
The resolution says 90 degrees is an appropriate interim trigger threshold. It also requires PG&E, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas and Electric to use a statewide fallback of 90 degrees within a 72-hour look-ahead period when CalHeatScore data is not available or their systems are not yet ready to use it.
Secondary reporting on the decision says the commission adopted stronger rules after rejecting the utilities’ proposal and lowered the heat threshold from 100 degrees to 90 degrees.
What happens if CalHeatScore is not available
The CPUC included an interim and fallback standard so the protections can still work while the full CalHeatScore system is being rolled out.
If the data or software needed to run CalHeatScore is unavailable, the utilities must rely on the 90-degree rule instead. The resolution says that temporary standard stays in place until the full CHS data is available and each utility’s system can use the CHS application programming interface.
What changed from the older rule
Secondary coverage says the new policy replaces a statewide standard that had been in place since 2020. Under that earlier rule, residential electric disconnections for nonpayment were not allowed if temperatures above 100 degrees or below 32 degrees were forecast in the next 72 hours.
The new decision is more specific about heat risk and uses a tool that can account for regional conditions instead of relying only on a single statewide temperature cutoff.
Why this matters in California
The policy is meant to protect customers during periods of extreme heat, when losing electricity can make it harder to stay cool and safe.
That is especially important in parts of the state that face repeated high temperatures, including High Desert communities served by Southern California Edison.
The CPUC’s resolution also calls for annual reporting for three years so regulators can review implementation costs and customer arrearages and judge whether the policy is working as intended.
The bigger regulatory picture
The CPUC action follows earlier commission direction calling for stronger public health protections from extreme heat and for utilities to bring forward temperature thresholds and data-driven tools.
Resolution E-5468 is the commission’s latest step in that process. It sets a statewide framework for when utilities must pause shutoffs for unpaid bills during dangerous heat, while leaving the practical details to the utilities and the heat-risk system they are required to use.
For customers, the main takeaway is simple: California has moved to make it harder for electric utilities to disconnect service during severe heat, and it has tied that protection to a regional heat-health system instead of a single blanket temperature rule.
