Affordable Rates

Fair utility rates are essential to keeping small businesses open.

Small Business Utility Advocates (SBUA) represents small business ratepayers in utility regulatory proceedings to prevent unfair cost shifts, promote equitable rate design, and protect affordability.

Utility rates directly affect a small business’s ability to operate, grow, and remain competitive. When rates are poorly designed or costs are shifted unfairly, small businesses—often operating on thin margins—feel the impact first.

Why Small Businesses Need a Voice

Utility rates are set through complex regulatory proceedings that determine how costs are allocated, how rates are structured, and which customers pay for which programs. These decisions are made before public utility commissions and other regulatory bodies—often without meaningful small business representation.

While residential customers are typically represented by public advocate offices and large commercial customers can retain attorneys and expert witnesses, small businesses are frequently left without a seat at the table.

As a result, small business customers may:

  • Bear a disproportionate share of rate increases
  • Pay more relative to their energy use
  • Be excluded from favorable rate structures and protections

SBUA’s Advocacy

SBUA intervenes in utility proceedings to ensure small business customers have a voice. Our advocacy focuses on:

Equitable and transparent rate design

Preventing unfair cost shifts

Protecting small businesses from disproportionate bill impacts

Holding utilities accountable for spending and long-term planning decisions

Below is our state-level advocacy— Campaign for Affordable Power—along with reports that document affordability challenges and the policy solutions needed to protect small business customers.
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SBUA has joined TURN’s Campaign for Affordable Power (CAP) to ensure that small business customers have a strong voice in the fight for more affordable utility bills.

Building a Big Tent to Win Affordable Bills

Utility rates have reached crisis levels—driving up operating costs for small businesses (and residential ratepayers), squeezing thin margins, and forcing choices between keeping the lights on, making payroll, and investing in growth. We need to lower costs and ensure fair, transparent electricity pricing, while advancing energy solutions that are reliable, equitable, and affordable.

In January 2025, The Utility Reform Network (TURN) launched CAP, a three-year initiative focused on grassroots advocacy, local power-building, and bold legislation. Through CAP, we are uniting a diverse movement to:

  • cut monthly bills,
  • rein in utility spending and excessive profits, and
  • prevent shutoffs and the cascading harms that follow.

SBUA is proud to participate in this coalition to help ensure reforms work for the small businesses that power California’s communities.

Thank you to Senator Becker and co-author Assemblymember Petrie-Norris for championing this effort, and to Governor Newsom for signing SB 254 into law. Read the Bill here.

Why the Legislative Analyst’s Office 2025 Electricity Rate Report Matters for Small Businesses

California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) confirms what small businesses across the state experience every month: electricity rates are among the highest in the nation and continue to climb. The LAO finds, for example, that average residential electricity rates in California are close to double the rest of the country, driven largely by the pricing and cost structure of the state’s three largest investor-owned utilities. 

For small businesses, these rate trends are not an abstract policy issue—they directly affect whether a business can stay open, hire, and grow. Electricity is a core input for retailers, restaurants, small manufacturers, laundromats, grocery and cold-storage businesses, and offices. When energy bills rise sharply and unpredictably, small businesses often have limited ability to absorb the costs without cutting staff hours, raising prices, postponing investments, or closing locations.

What the LAO report signals for affordability

  • Rising rates squeeze small business margins. The LAO finds rates are increasing rapidly and are projected to continue outpacing inflation. 
  • Cost drivers matter—and so does oversight. The report discusses how major spending categories (including wildfire-related costs and clean energy program costs) flow into rates, underscoring the need for rigorous scrutiny of utility spending and cost-effectiveness.
  • High rates can slow electrification that should lower total costs over time. The LAO highlights that rising electricity rates can discourage adoption of technologies central to California’s climate goals, a dynamic that also affects small businesses evaluating EV fleets, electric appliances, and building upgrades. 

SBUA’s perspective

Small businesses support California’s clean energy transition—but affordability has to be part of the plan. The LAO report strengthens the case for reforms that deliver transparent bills, disciplined utility spending, and fair rate design, so small business customers are not asked to carry an unsustainable share of system costs.

Read the LAO report: Assessing California’s Climate Policies—Residential Electricity Rates in California (January 2025).

Additional Resources

Video Resources