How 10 CCAs Were Bigger than China in 2024

A dozen years of work with San Francisco,  Marin, and Sonoma County, including partnerships with Los Alamos National Laboratory and the California Energy Commission, spawned a Revolution in Power that has replicated massively ever since. We could not be more pleased.

CCA 2.0, which combines the aggregation of energy demand with Green Bonds, is already out-investing China and Canada in the massive Green Bonds realm since Local Power, creator of California's CCA 2.0 model, wrote the landmark Green Bond Authority as part of this new model in 2001. 

The California Community Choice Financing Authority has issued $6 billion in 2024, with a significant uptick in the past 12 weeks, cementing its place as the 10th biggest green bond issuer in the world—larger than either the governments of China or Canada, as reported last week in Bloomberg. helping green bond sales approach previous records. That made US the largest issuer, too! 

Local Power developed the CCA 2.0 model as a way to scale and accelerate climate action while avoiding rate increases for consumers. California CCAs have maintained competitive rates while issueing $15B in Green Bonds and leveraging $20-25B in private financing, approaching $40B in investment in renewables in California and the West and creating over 25,000 jobs. 

By inventing this model, Local Power LLC has proven right: a scaled, accelerated demonstration of the power of municipalities, independent of federal politics, to implement climate action on a global scale, without increasing costs to consumers, through local power and local action. CCA 2.0 is now record-smashing.

In California, the California Community Choice financing Authority (CCCFA) has implement Local Power's CCA 2.0 program design, copying Local Power LLC's groundbreaking work for San Francisco (CleanPowerSF), Marin County (Marin Clean Energy) and Sonoma County (Sonoma Clean Power) from 2001 to 2014 to use CCA to leverage Green Bond financing of new renewable energy facilities to the tune of $15 billion dollars. In California CCAs procure power for more than 14 million customers—over a third of the state's population. Two hundred cities and and counties throughout the state have amassed a total of 346 long-term power purchase agreements adding about 18 MW of new-build renewable energy resources, including over 10,000 MW in renewable energy and over 7500 MW of energy storage. PPAs range from 10 to 27 years in length and average 16 years across all agreements. CCAs  tax-exempt status to lower interest rates and energy costs. 

The California Community Choice Financing Authority (CCCFA), a public agency formed to help CCAs finance clean energy purchases, uses “green bond” prepayment transactions. This approach can reduce CCA PPA costs by 10 percent or more. 

CCCFA has ten CCAs as members - under half of the two dozen CCAs in the California. CCCFA has issued $16 billion in prepayment bonds, equating to savings of approximately $100 million per year for community choice customers or nearly $3 billion over the lifetime of the contracts. according to CCCFA. For reliability, in the past year CCAs  invested  in both stand-alone and co-located energy storage with various technologies including lithium-ion batteries, vanadium redox flow batteries, and compressed air energy storage. CCA providers have also procured 617 MW of long duration storage with an eight-hour discharge capability to help stabilize the grid.

Interest is growing in our latest, newer business model under development for the past decade and now coming to market outside California: CCA 3.0: Climate Mobilization. This is CCA for decarbonizing all addressable carbon sources, and based not only on Green Bonds and third party financing, but on direct investment by customers based on local finance, cooperation and sharing. This is a new level of energy transition beyond even California's great leap beyond even the gargantuan scale of China! Its secret weapon is: an ownership model based on the energy user. 

To learn more about Local Power's Green Bond work, click here

To learn more about Local Power's creation of CCA 2.0 in California, click here

National Rankings: California CCA 2.0 is America's Only Proven Renewable Energy Business Model

We received the latest news on green power achievement by California CCA 2.0 programs and
Massachusetts Green Municipal Aggregations (CCA 1.0) and wanted to provide an illuminating comparison between the firing power of CCA 1.0 and 2.0 when it comes to producing results for renewable energy and climate action.

In Massachusetts, the first state to introduce CCA as a part of electricity restructuring legislation passed in 1997, principally produced the Cape Light Compact, a group of 21 towns on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard, forming the state’s first aggregation program in 2000. The idea was slow to catch on, however, until electricity prices started rising and news of CCA 2.0 from California in 2013 and 2014 showed how CCA could actually build renewables, not just buy certificates, prompting more climate-minded Massachusetts municipalities to follow suit. Today, there are 168 municipal aggregation plans active in the state, saving consumers more than $200 million annually, according to a report from the nonprofit Green Energy Consumers Alliance. Seventy-six of Massachusetts’ aggregation programs included extra renewable content in 2022, or about half of the CCAs, which comprise about half of Massachusetts communities. Among these, 40 communities didn't set minimums but instead let individual residents opt-in to higher levels of renewable energy, but this option achieves very little in terms of volume, with typically low participation rates. In 2022, Massachusetts’ green energy aggregation programs increased demand for renewable energy in the state by more than 1 million megawatt-hours, the Green Energy Consumers Alliance calculated. While there is no other program in the commonwealth that produces cleaner electrons without subsidy, according to the Consumers Alliance, only one Massachusetts CCA - the first one - is in the top twenty in the US at number 12. The million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy is sourced, not built, and suggests a total generation at about 700 MW. CCA 1.0 is a lot better at supporting renewable energy than any other policy in Massachusetts, but was depth-charged by California's v2 model.

California's CCA 2.0 model, though implemented in just the past decade and most of them in the past five years has already beat every utility in the nation for the number of customers served green power above state requirements. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's latest annual ranking showed that nine California CCAs were ranked in the top 10 nationwide, beating utilities hands-down. These top nine represent 4.6M customers, compared to the lower 10 on the list, which only total 650K customers. This makes CCA 2.0 hands-down the US green power winner when it comes to exceeding the minimum standard of green power set by regulators. Not only is CCA 2.0 ten times more impactful than other energy business models out there, but it achieved this level within just a few years, whereas the utilities have had decades to achieve change like this - and simply have not. 

The firepower of CCA 2.0 is easily illustrated. CCA 2.0 in California has committed $30B in 14GW of renewable generation mostly in-state, often regional and sometimes in-town, together generating 29,000 green construction jobs in California. The thirty billion dollars total as of 2023 includes the “Climate Bonds” Local Power developed to fund renewable energy and efficiency (San Francisco’s Proposition H charter amendment, 2001) in the amount of $6B to date in Solar Bonds added to $19B of private investment to produce the 14GW.

A key here is time. Utilities have had thirty years of mandates to green their power and did not do so. Massachusetts CCA created one big achiever - the Cape Light  Compact - but even it took a quarter century to get there, and most CCAs in Massachusetts followed a more conventional model and remained largely limited to the purchase of Renewable Energy Certificates to this day. California CCA 2.0 programs built 14 GW of new renewables in just a few years, compared to Massachusetts where 1.0 merely bought power from the equivalent of a 0.7GW facility. 

California's population is larger, but even adjusted there is still no comparison. 14 is twenty times 0.7.. And the 14 GW is new, whereas Massachusetts' 0.7 is mostly purchased power from already existing facilities.  That means CCA 2.0's net carbon benefit is in the zone of 20-50x CCA 1.0. .

That's the good news. Better news is, CCA 2.0 is 20 years old. We have been working on the Next Level  for the past decade, releasing CCA 3.0: Climate Mobilization in 2020 and implementing it since then. The CCA 3.0 model now getting started in New York State will take an even greater leap in terms of accelerated energy transitions by upgrading an already proven model both with new depth from revolutionary customer engagement methods to drive voluntary investment in energy localization; and with an expanded breadth across all addressable carbon - aggregating not just power but, heat, vehicles and waste. You can order a copy for free at the link above. This is already getting going in New York but is designed to work in any state: even California.

Just as we learned the lessons of the limitations of Green Municipal Aggregation or CCA 1.0 in the late 20th century, so we have learned from the limitations even of California's record-shattering CCA 2.0 model, transforming an already successful idea onward into something even more transformative and powerful: a platform and umbrella for Climate Mobilization in any community.

H Bonds Finally Realized: California CCAs issue $5 Billion in Solar Bonds

In addition to founding Community Choice Aggregation, Local Power has long boasted of our founder's invention of the Solar Bond or Green Bond ("H Bond" from Proposition H, the original bond authority adopted by San Francisco Voters in 2001). However, we have long been frustrated by the how very long it has taken CCA programs in the Bay Area and California to implement H Bonds. Climate change does not forgive slowness, and neither do we. 

As we have been telling CCA leaders for over nearly two decades, the buying power of municipal aggregation must combine with municipal financing through revenue bonds to transform a CCA into something much, much more powerful. From 2008 when Marin Clean Energy chickened out, and then San Francisco Supervisors lost their courage in 2013, we were afraid CCAs would never see the light. 

But finally, this past week, Local Power's leadership finally paid off - however belatedly - with the announcement of the issuance of $5 Billion in revenue bonds by CCAs to build renewable energy in California. The "Clean Energy Project Revenue Bond" is a renamed H Bond, the original CCA revenue bond authority written by Local Power and adopted by San Francisco in 2001. Local Power drafted San Francisco's CCA law to combine CCA with revenue bonds for the first nearly twenty years ago, in 2004. Since then, only San Francisco had ever used the authority. But now the H Bond, like CCA itself, has hit prime time. Five billion dollars is very big news indeed: the level of big we have long awaited. Climate change scale: community wide scale.

California CCAs East Bay Community Energy, MCE, Silicon Valley Clean Energy, Pioneer Community Energy, and Clean Power Alliance have all issued clean energy revenue bonds, claiming to save an estimated $840 million for California electricity customers over the next 30 years. Each of the CCAs entered into a long-term power supply agreements for sources like solar, wind, geothermal, and hydropower. The municipal revenue bond or H Bond issuer – in this case, California Community Choice Financing Authority (CCCFA) – issued tax-exempt bonds to fund a prepayment of energy that is to be delivered over the contract length. The CCA energy supplier utilizes the bond funds and provides a discount to the CCA on the power purchases based on the difference between the taxable and tax-exempt rates. This approach was articulated for San Francisco in Local Power's H Bond Action Plan in 2007 and with the help of our attorney Howard Golub and the bond team at Nixon Peabody in 2009. 

Now it is a very real thing at the kind of scale climate action demands, and "CCA 2.0" - the new model for municipal aggregation in California that Local Power LLC invented 20 years ago after coauthoring the nation's original CCA law in Massachusetts - is finally complete. Congratulations, everyone. 

CCA 2.0 now not only provides the most power in California, they are using H Bonds to achieve a whole new level of decarbonization, sustainability, and energy independence.

“CCCFA’s member agencies have now issued six clean energy prepayment transactions ranging from $460 million to $1.2 billion," said CCCSF, which boasts that "this prepayment structure allows California CCAs to reduce long-term costs on clean energy projects by issuing tax-exempt clean energy revenue bonds to prepay for the renewable energy....These transactions have locked in $210 million in savings for customers with the potential to save $840 million over the next 30 years according to representatives."

The California Community Choice Financing Authority (CCCFA) was established in 2021 by Central Coast Community Energy, Clean Power Alliance, East Bay Community Energy, MCE, Pioneer Community Energy, and Silicon Valley Clean Energy.  

Local Power established CCA in California and started, or helped to start, many of the first CCAs in the state to implement CCA 2.0. Local Power LLC has now moved on to "CCA 3.0," which its founders are implementing in states like New York. The CCA 3.0 model brings new, additional leverage to grow the climate impact of CCA in profound and even more powerful ways than CCA and H Bonds. CCA 3.0 activates a new layer beyond just government and finance: people. With people properly engaged and empowered to "Own Your Power," real scaled local climate action will be within the grasp of citizens in Anytown, America. Click on the CCA 3.0 link to get a free white paper on how Local Power's new model for energy transformation might work in your community tomorrow.

New Report Demonstrates that Renewables are a Cost-Effective Replacement For California’s Aging Power Plants

Local Power Research Director Robert Freehling has completed a new report with San Francisco-based Pacific Environment that provides a detailed cost-benefit analysis of options for phasing out California’s oldest and most inefficient natural gas fired power plants. The report, titled “Green Opportunity: How California Can Reduce Power Plant Emissions, Protect the Marine Environment, and Save Money,” finds that when the costs to public health and the environment are accounted for, replacing the aging power plants with renewable energy and efficiency would save up to 50 percent over replacing the plants with new natural gas power plants - the darling technology of utilities Pacific Gas and Electric that sell both gas and power, and tend therefore to favor gas as a power plant fuel.

The report is released as the California State Water Resource Control Board (SWRCB) is considering options for limiting the environmental damage caused by the state’s 17 natural gas power plants that use Once-Through Cooling Technology (OTC). OTC is a single pass cooling method that withdraws over 15 billion gallons of coastal and estuarine water per day statewide. This process kills billions of fish, larvae and marine mammals every year. Sound like "clean energy" to you? Pacific Environment’s report shows that replacing these aging power plants with renewable energy and efficiency will be more cost-effective and provide greater environmental, climate and public health benefits than replacing them with new natural gas power plants.

The report finds that replacing the power plants with clean energy would cost from 22 to 29 cents per kilowatt-hour, whereas repowering the power plant generators with non-OTC fossil fuel plants would cost 31 to 39 cents per kilowatt-hour, when externalities such as public health and environmental impacts are properly accounted. If California’s efficiency measures are also implemented, the average cost of clean energy is further reduced to about 17 to 21 cents per kilowatt-hour. In addition, California’s efficiency program is expected to yield a net savings, which will bring down the cost of clean energy replacement even further.

“This report puts to rest the myth that it is more expensive to invest in renewable energy than it is to upgrade fossil fuel power plants,” said Rory Cox, California Program Director at Pacific Environment and chief editor of the report. “Replacing these plants with renewable projects and efficiency measures will restore California’s marine ecosystems, while helping avoid the public health impacts of fossil plants, and help meet California’s clean energy goals.”

To Download the Pacific Environment Report, Click Here.

San Francisco Supervisors Approve CCA RFP

October 27 - San Francisco, California. Supervisors approved a major City document seeking a new, radically green supplier of electricity for San Francisco residents and businesses starting in 2010. Approving issuance of an RFP for the SF "Community Choice" (CCA) Program, commonly known as CleanPowerSF, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said it is a "benchmark occasion that we are advancing the RFP" to seek a new power supply for the seven-by-seven mile urban community of three quarters of a million people. For Local Power Inc., which over the past ten years has prepared the City’s H Bond Authority (2001), its CCA Ordinance (2004), CCA Implementation Plan (2007), and now the CCA RFP itself, the CCA RFP is the last, key stage of a decade long process bringing a revolutionary new energy concept to market. We are very pleased with the quality of the solicitation document, which will bring in a new power company to replace former monopoly Pacific Gas and Electric providing power to all San Franciscans under a new, innovative service intended to be 51% green (renewables and energy efficiency) by 2017 including development of 360 Mewawatts (about $600M) of new local green power facilities using financing from the City’s voter-approved green power revenue bond authority, Prop H. As reported in the San Francisco Examiner, this RFP has been made more flexible to bidders to in order to facilitate an accelerated RFP process to meet PG&E’s threat to block CCAs statewide through a $30M-$100M California initiative on the June 2010 statewide ballot. Given the importance of negotiating with prospective suppliers before the June 2010 deadline arrives, Local Power agreed that flexibility is needed, and we have worked hard to ensure that the CCA RFP remains substantively oriented towards the 360 MW rollout outcome, as well as the 51% by 2017 RPS outcome. For Local Power as a company, the issuance of this CCA RFP is a major event – the first official request for “Climate Works” by a U.S. City, according to Local Power’s “turnkey” or Design-Build-Operate-Maintain approach. The supplier would meet-or-beat PG&E’s rates now followed by a structured rate into the future that is intended to be competitive with PG&E – while providing benefits of much greener power and substantial localization of supply as well as demand technologies such as Smart Grid, demand reponse, and other decentralized power systems, including customer ownership. Prior to the Supervisors’ 1o-0 vote in favor of issuing the RFP, Mirkarimi restated the CCA program’s commitment to green power, promising "not just 15% renewables like other Californians get under state law, but towards a renewable standard of 50-plus-1 %” by 2017. Click here for a press release on the City's issuance of the RFP with the actual document and background article attached at PR.Com.

First Major US Climate Action Plan Released

The Sonoma County (California) Climate Action Plan is out - click on coolplan.org to view and download documents - implementing the highest carbon reduction target yet set by any local jurisdiction in the United States - a 25% Reduction from 1990 levels by 2015.

Local Power wrote the whole energy element, which achieves a 66% Renewable Portfolio Standard by 2015 without requiring any increased energy costs. Community Choice (CCA) provides the logistical backbone of an integrated power/thermal/transportation fuel project - billed as a "public works" project on the web site, which was posted just a few days ago.

The Sonoma Climate Action Plan is by far the most visionary, far-reaching project Local Power has been lucky to be allowed to help write. Moreoer, its announcement adds Sonoma County to the list of jurisdictions now actively investigating CCA alongside San Francisco, Marin, San Joachin, and others.

CNS News Video on Community Choice

Jordan Ehrlich of CNS News has posted a good, concise video on the efforts of San Francisco, the Sierra Club and others to implement Community Choice (CCA) against political opposition from utility (post) monopoly PG&E. Click on the image to view.

California's Assessment District Solar Finance law AB811

I got a call from Greentech Media about Local Power's view of AB811, signed yesterday by Gov. Schwarzenegger, a bill sponsored by Palm Desert officials to allow cities to provide their residents with low-cost loans for energy-efficient home improvements.

The bill has many leaders of the new movement of third-party-finance solar photovoltaic system marketers and installers taken aback, and some have verbally said they feel threatened by municipalities financing solar, because part of the Solar PPA industry's service is to finance solar, and by financing it, offer to sell people solar power rather than solar power equipment. Today, Solar PPAs constitute a disproportionate chunk of the huge new growth in solar PV sales in the United States.

I told Greentech Media that Solar PPA businesses who adapt their business models will beat out those who don't; and moreoever, that the municipal re-intervention in the energy business to address Climate Change in a big way is both inevitable and also represents the largest, indeed an exponential, step up in the growth of the photovoltaic market (and green DG, and energy efficiency) since the solar PPAs started up after San Francisco's 2001 solar bonds.

In fact the Solar assessment tax authority of Assembly Bill 811 is one of several new municipal interventions, next to Community Choice Aggregation and the use of H Bonds after San Francisco. AB811 allows cities to offer their residents low-cost loans for big-ticket energy efficient home improvements, such as high-efficiency air conditioners and solar photovoltaics with a long-term payback plan linked to property tax payments. This adds to the arsenals created by H Bonds and CCA to offer a third way: persuading homeowners to consent to a tax on their homes in order to secure (lower than Solar PPA cost) municipal financing of these green, energy related home and small business improvements.

More will come in coming years as cities fully take on the leading role in addressing Climate Change. They are already doing it politically, with the leadership of cities and counties in setting Greenhouse Gas reduction targets in the past decade and a half. As the U.S. and U.S. states follow California's lead in passing AB32 creating a compulsory GHG reduction schedule, the Solar PPA industry and indeed Big Energy will increasingly face a re-entry of municipalities into the energy business in the name not of economic warfare, but saving the world from the Climate Chaos and economic insecurity imposed by Dumb (Big) Energy.