California Mutual Water Companies Ass'n v. Public Utilities Commission

SHENK, J. — This is a proceeding pursuant to section 1756 of the Public Utilities Code to review portions of an order of the Public Utilities Commission affecting the rates of the Southern California Edison Company for the sale and distribution of its electrical energy. (Decision No. 50449, 53 Cal. P.U.C. 385.)

The petitioner California Mutual Water Companies Association is an unincorporated association of mutual water companies. The other petitioners are 18 duly incorporated mutual water companies engaged in pumping and delivering irrigation water to their shareholders and members at cost, and one irrigation district. The mutual water companies and the irrigation district are consumers of electrical energy from Edison’s system. These petitioners had been receiving and paying for electrical energy under a schedule applicable to irrigation pumping facilities only, and designated by Edison as Schedule PAP-2. Under this schedule each was entitled to a conjunctive billing feature which permitted a single facility to receive electrical energy at several metering points but to pay for the total energy consumed as if received through a single meter. As electrical energy was billed at a rate which diminished as consumption increased, a decreased overall rate resulted to those entitled to conjunctive billing.

Edison applied for a general rate increase and proposed, as applicable to consumers in the position of petitioners, that Schedule PAP-2 be replaced by a schedule designated as [154]PA-3, which differed in some respects from PAP-2, bnt continued the conjunctive billing feature. Edison further proposed that at the end of five years after its effective date Schedule PA-3 would terminate and be replaced by other schedules applicable generally to agricultural consumers and not containing the conjunctive billing feature. By its application Edison sought an increase of approximately $16,000,000 in its annual income. That sum was claimed to be necessary for a fair return on its investment and to maintain its operations. The rate change from PAP-2 to PA-3 was calculated, according to Edison’s computations, to produce a proportionate share of increased income when the new rate was to go into effect.

The decision of the commission in general reduced the overall increase requested by Edison but adopted for the most part the form of schedules proposed by Edison. It provided for an increased annual revenue in the amount of $9,835,000 which would be realized at the time the new schedules should become effective. Among the changes found justified was that from Schedule PAP-2 to Schedule PA-3. However, Schedule PA-3 differs from that proposed by Edison in that it “will expire on October 1, 1956,” two years after its effective date instead of continuing for five years after its effective date as contemplated by Edison.