Honey I shrunk the utility: California's final nuclear plant closure attributed to CCA

The impact of CCA on California is just getting started, but it has already caused a nuclear power plant to become redundant. Pacific Gas & Electric officials said its recent decision to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant was influenced in part by the loss of customers because of Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), under which local jursidictions group power purchases to choose alternative suppliers.

With six Bay Area counties already under service from Napa to San Francisco, and virtually every coastal county of the state now preparing to launch their own local electricity services, PG&E's nuclear baseload power is simply no longer needed. Industry analysts predict that 60% of all Californians served by investor-owned utilities like PG&E will soon be served by CCAs, leading the media to ask, can renewables and energy efficiency replace nuclear power?

Moreover, now that CCA is definitely and permanently transforming California's electricity system, the operative question is, will the CCAs forming up and down the coast from Humboldt to Alameda County, San Mateo County to San Jose, Santa Cruz to Lancaster and Los Angeles County and Riverside, San Diego and Del Mar, realize their founders' dreams of becoming energy independent, building local renewables and energy efficiency, creating local green jobs. and achieving a new business model focused on the other side of the meter? These are palpable local benefits that only get delivered if substantial local buildouts happen, and in a meaningful time frame.

The answer lies in the very activists who are driving each of these efforts in each community. CCA is not just a solution to the energy crisis and climate change: it is an opportunity for democracy to deliver this result. CCA is not an end, but a means to an end. Activists must realize that this unique opportunity to change everything requires more than the conventional campaign, in which winning a vote on a law is the goal, then everybody folds up their tents and goes home.

CCA is a more holistic, comprehensive process that takes years of community deliberation to fully execute. Changing everything takes perseverance on the inside, and activists who see CCA through to launch only are blowing it if they think they are "done" once the program launches. Creating your new CCA program is just the beginning, not the end, of CCA. Now you have to attend to the details of transforming energy. It must involve an active community process. If you want to deliver local jobs, local development, local companies, and local ownership, there is work to do to make those things happen. The physical transformation of energy takes time but it won't happen unless it starts at program launch. No waiting for reserves is called for, because so many ways now exist to finance efficiency and renewables, build-outs should begin at program launch, and local build-out be the centerpiece of the program from day one. If CCA activists, who have successfully made local build-out the central focus of California CCA, will just persevere with their elected officials that govern CCA programs, and hold their feet to the fire, democracy will prevail: we will truly revolutionize energy in this state, as we have promised for so many years. 

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.