New York Gets CCA 2.0

On April 20, the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) approved an order authorizing the
establishment of Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) programs by municipalities statewide, and articulated the necessary program design principles and standards that municipalities must apply in developing and implementing CCA programs for their constituents.

The PSC order adds one of the nation's largest markets for power to the list of U.S. states that allow CCA, including California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, and New Jersey, with several other states considering similar laws. Local Power Inc. played an active role in educating the PSC and other New York state agencies throughout its process, drafting legislation in 2014 and preparing testimony and comments in the proceeding over the past year, while also advising local advocates on their efforts to win CCA rules to encourage and open a clear path to DER development and community energy in New York.

The order opens a path of activists in Ulster County, Sullivan County and others to follow the lead of Westchester County, which launched its local CCA program under a PSC pilot project earlier this year. Perhaps most significantly, New York's CCA take California's move toward a more ambitious form of CCA foward another step, focused strategically not only on retail choice or greener power, but the development of Distributed Energy Resources, or DER.

The Public Service Commission's order, approved following the lead from NY Governor Andrew Cuomo following disruption of New York's power supply from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, states that while CCA will offer the vast majority of residents and businesses benefits from retail electric competition that deregulated markets have failed to deliver, but "(m)ore importantly, the CCA construct provides substantial positive opportunity for meaningful and effective local and community engagement on critical energy issues and the development of innovative programs, products, and services that promote and advance the achievement of the State’s energy goals....CCA programs can educate, encourage, and empower communities and individuals to take control of their energy future through engagement with existing...opportunities and development of new DER and clean energy programs" with the Governor's Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) and New York's Clean Energy Fund (CEF).

Local Power Inc. is very pleased by this order, and thrilled to see CCA growing both in the scale of the market, and in the wisdom of is intention. We look forward to helping New York communities realize energy independence, develop local economies, create local jobs, and transform customers into owners in coming years under this order, and encourage community energy activists everywhere to take encouragement that our strategy is not only working, but finding its way to the mainstream.