Good morning.

(Want to get California Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

San Diego is going into the utility business.

After a long and often contentious debate, Mayor Kevin Faulconer is set to announce on Thursday that the city will create an alternative to the area’s investor-owned utility, San Diego Gas and Electric Company. The city says the government-run program will increase competition, lower electricity rates by as much as 5 percent and ensure that the city reaches its goal of 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035, 10 years ahead of the state’s mandate.

“We’re giving our customers the choice, and that choice is to go with greener energy,” Mr. Faulconer said in an interview. “It keeps San Diego on the cutting edge of environmental protection.”

The move makes San Diego the largest city in the state to embrace a program in which residents essentially band together to buy power in bulk. More than 160 cities, towns and counties in California currently take part in similar programs, which began two decades ago in Cape Cod and spread to other locations in Massachusetts, New York and Illinois.