Sempra 2025 RAMP A.25-05-010
Background
Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) and San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E), collectively referred to as Sempra utilities, filed their joint 2025 RAMP application with the Commission on May 15, 2025 (A.25-05-010). The application describes the utilities’ primary safety risks and the proposed mitigation solutions and associated spending the companies believe are necessary to keep Californians safe. The 2025 Sempra RAMP is the first regulatory step Sempra must complete in order to secure funding approval for its four-year funding request for operations covering years 2028 through 2031. The process by which an energy utility makes such a funding request is known as a General Rate Case (GRC) application.
The role of the Commission’s Safety Policy Division (SPD), through its Risk Assessment and Safety Analytics (RASA) section, begins well before any GRC application is filed. RASA’s responsibility is to closely scrutinize those aspects of Sempra’s proposed spending for risk and safety efforts that address wildfire, gas transmission/distribution, underground gas storage, electric distribution and transmission interruptions, cybersecurity, and climate adaptation, among other threats to public safety. As such, the 2025 Sempra RAMP application constitutes the Risk Assessment section’s latest GRC-support assignment: the forthcoming Sempra TY 2028 GRC applications, expected to be filed in May 2026, seeking authorization for cost recovery for the utilities’ proposed electric and gas risk and safety efforts for years 2028 through 2031. The Risk Assessment section’s evaluation will determine the adequacy of Sempra’s 2025 RAMP application, with ongoing expertise made available to CPUC decision makers and the Energy Division—the lead entity for GRC proceedings—through May 2027, when the Commission is expected to render a decision on whether to approve Sempra’s requests as described in the GRC applications.
The process by which a utility’s RAMP application informs a subsequent GRC application, under regulatory oversight by the Risk Assessment section, is illustrated in the figure below, with the case of the 2025 Sempra RAMP as the example.
Public Engagement Efforts
Workshop #1
On December 17, 2024, in accordance with D.22-12-027, Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) and San Diego Gas and Electric Company (SDG&E), jointly the Companies, held a workshop to solicit and gather input regarding 1) the preliminary 2025 Risk Assessment and Mitigation Plan (RAMP) Risk assessments (risk selection and scoring metrics) and, 2) the Alternative Tranching Method White Paper, which was served to parties on November 1, 2024.