New York CCA 2.0 Working Group Report Released!

New York State's "CCA Policy Recommendations Report" has recently been completed.

New York State created a special working group a year ago to prepare a detailed report assessing the opportunities, barriers and limitations to CCA 2.0 for the New York Public Service Commission's (PSC) Clean Energy Advisory Council (CEAC). You can read the report in full by clicking the link below.

New York State is a major opportunity for energy localization because, unlike other states with CCA, New York's leadership has recognized CCA, from day one and the highest level, the opportunity for Distributed Energy Resource development (CCA 2.0). Unlike other states, New York State has focused material resources to its implementation, such as the CCA Toolkit, which Local Power helped prepare. While New York's already deregulated electricity and gas markets present certain challenges to CCA 2.0, and the PSC's regulations added some restrictions to the "California" (wholesale) approach to local development, nevertheless New York is fertile ground for a CCA 2.0 model, which moreover can be replicated in other U.S. states with active deregulated markets having "retail" market structures. This, above all else, is the reason why Local Power worked with Citizens for Local Power to draft CCA legislation in 2014, and became actively involved with the PSC and NYSERDA since then: having gotten CCA 2.0 on its feet in California, we want to prepare a nationally replicable model that will work in states that (unlike California) have retail market structures.

The New York "CCA Policy Recommendations Report" is yet another systematic effort to make DER happen on a meaningful scale here. Local Power Inc. was honored (as the only outsider) to work with New York-based NGOs and market participants to make these recommendations to the PSC and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) for policy and program changes to augment a transition of CCAs to locally-based renewable energy systems. The final report was presented to the CEAC and submitted to the Public Service Commission at the end of January, and could potentially expand CCA program opportunities if its recommendations are implemented by the PSC and NYSERDA.

The working group was chaired by Brad Tito, NYSERDA's Communities & Local Government Program Manager. As Citizens for Local Power reported, "a wide range of interests and perspectives were represented in the working group, including utilities, which did not agree with some of the report's recommendations." However the report provides valuable insight into current pathways and obstacles to CCA 2.0 in New York, as well as recommendations to the State of New York on how to further simplify and support ongoing efforts of CCAs such as Westchester to use CCA as a platform for Distributed Energy Resource (DER) development.

Apart from Local Power Inc., the report authors include the Association for Energy Affordability,  Citizens for Local Power, Constellation, Consolidated Edison, Croton Energy Group Inc., Joule Assets, Municipal Electric and Gas Alliance (MEGA), Office of Clean Energy, New York State Department of Public Service, New York State Electric and Gas Corporation (NYSEG) and Rochester Gas and Electric (RG&E), National Grid, Orange and Rockland Utilities,  Pace Energy and Climate Center, Renewable Highlands, Sustainable Westchester, and Tompkins County Council of Governments.

Read the Full Report Here.

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.

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The past year has seen a lot of action on Community Choice Aggregation, and Local Power Inc. continues to rake in good press on our leadership. Next month I will join the manager of California's largest PACE program Renewables LLC and SolarCity at NorCal Solar to talk about the emergence of CCA as a revolutionary platform for solar development. In California, some ten counties are now actively preparing CCA programs for implementation as San Francisco's Local Agency Formation Commission completes a peer review of the business case and program design that LPI completed for the City last year. Meanwhile, Sonoma Clean Power, which is the state's second CCA to come online, just announced that it has doubled the amount of solar photovoltaics online countywide in a single stroke of the pen, signing a contract to install seventy megawatts. Nationally, I just returned from a speaking tour of New York State and Montana, where CCA has attracted the attention of both activists and policymakers. In New York, where last year's hurricane devastated the state with flooding, power disruptions and a doubling of Winter rates, Governor Cuomo has installed new leadership at the New York Public Service Commission with orders to find the best ways to implement distributed energy resources - the so-called Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) proceeding. Prompted by local activist group Citizens for Local Power, LPI prepared CCA legislation for New York state earlier this year, and the PSC appears to be interested in CCA as a platform for distributed energy resources to  enhance local energy resiliency. Finally, CCA continues to grow at a record pace throughout New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois and Ohio, promising yet another year of dramatic growth, with growing recognition of its radical potential to open the market for distributed generation, energy efficiency, storage, and microgrids. Today, some five percent of Americans receive their service from Community Choice Aggregation: it is thinkable that this figure will reach ten percent in the near future, making CCA a significant and permanent element in the American energy system. To review recent articles, sign up for updates or twitter feeds, check out Local Power's news page.  If you prefer facebook, connect with me here.