The City of Pittsburg is continuing its exploration of the possibility of owning the city’s electric service.
The city commissioned a study from GE Warren Associates on the feasibility of purchasing — as state law allows — the local electrical grid from Weststar and forming a public utility.
At Tuesdays’ Pittsburg City Commission meeting, the representative from GE Warren — who said he was a “big proponent” of public power — said the number of customers in Pittsburg would make a city-owned power utility larger than 85 percent of public utilities in the U.S.
Additionally, he said, the utility would generate roughly $35 million in gross sales per year, with an internal rate of return of 9.6 percent per year, adding that — given a 20 year note — the utility would be profitable starting year one.
According to a release from the city, the reason behind exploring forming a utility comes down to costs.
(Read more: Pittsburg Morning Sun)