California's Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Xavier Becerra, has unveiled a proposal to provide state residents with up to two hours of free electricity each day. The plan, reported by Canary Media, is explicitly modeled on a practice already used in Australia, where certain periods of the day are made free to encourage consumers to shift their electricity use away from peak demand.
Becerra's pitch frames free power as both a cost-saving measure for households and a way to better align consumption with renewable generation. If implemented, the hours would likely be chosen to coincide with times of high solar output or low grid stress, though the source does not specify exactly when those hours would fall.
The proposal is still a campaign promise, not a detailed policy, and no specifics are given on how utilities would be compensated or how the costs would be covered. Still, it signals a growing interest among U.S. politicians in demand-side incentives that have already proven popular abroad.