Discovery Valley Utility (DVU), a non-profit utility owned by the City of San Marcos, was established in 2000 as a result of the state of California’s energy chaos caused by deregulation of the electrical energy industry. Assembly Bill 1890 was unanimously approved by the California State Legislature in 1996 and authorized the deregulation of the electrical industry. This move ultimately caused massive brownouts, blackouts and significant increases in rates by investor-owned utilities like SDG&E, Southern California Edison and PG&E , all of whom actively supported the assembly bill.
Fortunately for San Marcos, voters approved a City Charter in 1994 that authorized the City to establish a municipal utility. The purpose of the utility section of the Charter was to improve the quality of life for citizens, provide competition to monopolistic utility companies’ practices and ensure competitiveness in the market place so that rates would not be driven by investor-owned utilities.
Although the DVU, which is both an electrical and natural gas utility as of 2003, is not yet serving customers (principally due to continued obstacles put in its way by the investor-owned utilities, the PUC, as well as the state legislature who created the energy crisis to begin with), DVU continues to work to establish competition in the electrical and natural gas utility business within San Marcos and is working within a variety of strategic alliances to put a long-term plan in place that will provide competitive electric and natural gas rates to constituents within San Marcos.