SAN FRANCISCO -- Dozens of renewable energy plants being built to meet California's tough global warming laws, including a major Spanish-owned solar plant in the Mojave Desert, are so overpriced they will increase consumers' energy bills for decades, according to the independent watchdog arm of the state's utility regulator. The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday approved a deal that my be $1.25 billion over market price....the deal is one of dozens of overpriced contracts statewide rubber-stamped by the commission in recent years, giving away too much to utilities and hurting consumers. "In the long run, this harms the state's efforts to achieve greenhouse gas reductions because it will result in unnecessarily higher rates and people are going to get rate shock." Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/12/4049933/analyst-bills-rising-due-to-overpric...
