Southland

A Power Meeting: After a series of postponements, the state Public Utilities Commission is expected to release one or more proposed policy blueprints for deregulation of California’s electric power industry at the commission’s next biweekly public meeting Wednesday in San Francisco. The ambitious effort to introduce market competition--with the hope of lowering electric bills--is being observed and debated worldwide. A watershed in the long process begun more than two years ago, the proposal--or competing proposals, as many expect--will reveal the commissioners’ current visions for restructuring the $20-billion industry. More rounds of comment gathering and commission hearings will be held, much as they have been in the year since the commissioners set out their policy goals last spring in a document known as the Blue Book. A final policy is expected to be adopted later this year, to be followed by the specific rule making that will put a new system in place. The hearing starts at 10 a.m. at the PUC Auditorium, 505 Van Ness Ave.