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.

CCA Reaching Critical Mass

GTM Research - The "Total Addressable (PV) Market for
 California Community Choice Aggregators" - Oct 2, 2017

Even though Community Choice Aggregations (CCAs) still serve a small minority of communities in the United States, the scale of going green regionally is already registering in national green power industry statistics.  It's about to get a lot bigger.

CCA is already 4% of the national PV project pipeline based on a “green CCA” market that is just getting started and about to expand rapidly in both California and New York. Given the fact that CCA is just now hitting a major growth curve in some of America's largest energy using states, and most new adopters are motivated by a focus on energy localization, this percentage is certain to grow significantly in 2018. 

CCA is finally getting the attention of national industry and media as a major and revolutionary new force in American energy. In October, GreenTech Media announced that CCA has taken over the solar market in California, and the impact is being felt across the country.  “Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs) are positioned to represent up to 45 percent of California’s utility PV demand over the next five years. The total addressable market for CCAs is set to reach 3.9 gigawatts by 2022, but it is also expected to grow beyond that projection, as eight more (county-scale) CCAs are slated to launch in the immediate future."

 Green CCA is not new, and was in fact the original concept, but has taken years to make into the rule rather than the exception among CCA implementors. While the initial growth curve of CCA in Ohio and Illinois was focused on discounts and/or higher renewable energy content using Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), more recent, and even much dramatic growth curve has been largely motivated by the benefits that can only be achieved by localization: local jobs, climate action, and local economic development. 

In California, truly a revolution in power is already underway, with 85% of all customers of investor-owned utilities expected to be served by CCAs in the next few years. Virtually all of these CCAs are focused on development of local renewables, energy efficiency and meaningful greenhouse gas reductions in addition to greener power: 150,000 GHh switching to CCA could leverage an unprecedented wave of DER development, and cause an historical greenhouse gas reduction.   

New York is the exciting new CCA 2.0 kid on the block. After the State of New York approved CCA as a platform for Distributed Energy Resource (DER) development in 2014, the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) has taken the lead role in helping municipalities pursue a DER-centric "CCA 2.0" strategy, creating a "CCA Toolkit" with Local Power's assistance, and forming a special workgroup to advise the state on how to augment energy localization and remove any outstanding barriers in state law and regulation. I am proud to have participated in these processes.

The trend towards green power has even spread back to early CCA states whose early adopters were initially focused on achieving discounted rates for customers, inspired by widespread successes of CCAs to achieve greener power at discounted rates, and also new local benefits associated with local renewables.

In Massachusetts, about 130 municipalities out of the Commonwealth's 351 total are already under CCA service, with the City of Boston recently joining the pack, focused on achieving greenhouse gas reductions. 

More than 250 communities in Ohio are under CCA service, including the nation’s first “green CCA” in Northeast Ohio. Today, NOPEC has 850K customers in 218 communities in 14 counties statewide, all being served 50% renewable power at a discount below utility rates - something that was unthinkable even in California only half a decade ago, but becoming widespread under CCAs, which have been proven able to deliver greener power much cheaper than utilities and deregulated suppliers. This kind of scale creates substantial environmental benefits. In Southeast Ohio, SOPEC has been focused not merely on greener power but on energy localization for the past couple of years, providing the state with a ramming rod for CCA 2.0.

About 600 communities in Illinois are under CCA service. Between 2011 and 2014, 91 Illinois municipalities representing 1.7 million consumers switched their communities to 100% Renewable Energy using CCA. 91 medium sized cities and towns containing 1.7M customers have chosen 100% renewable energy (using RECs), which is a six TWh annual renewable demand boost - the carbon reduction equal to eliminating one million cars! While Illinois' CCA law needs changing to eliminate barriers to CCA investment in local renewables and efficiency, these accomplishments demonstrate both the power of CCA and the political will for significant action in green power.

With the numbers starting to show, national policy groups are beginning to recognize the true potential that CCA has to create significant local benefits like customer equity, community wealth retention, local jobs and economic development, and local pollution reduction, as well as global benefits like greenhouse gas reductions.  NAACP's just featured CCA in its Environmental and Climate Justice Program's Just Energy Policies and Practices Action Toolkit. 

 Watch for some major new leaps in 2018, with emerging CCAs shifting their focus further towards the local, and even behind the meter. As CCAs continue to prove new services like EVs and solar plus storage, solar bonds/green bonds continue to go mainstream, and increasing levels of DER integration prove themselves in the form of community microgrids, and community solar, EV sharing and dynamic charging, CCAs will revolutionize demand-side technologies and customer-ownership the way the have already transformed retail energy. Mark my words: what was a luxury will soon prove cheaper than status quo power, and what was a fantasy utopia will soon become reality.

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.

CCA Transforming Electricity in California

California CCA Activity -  Spring 2016 (Local Power Inc.)

How to report on the details of a revolution? As of this year, everything has changed. No longer is California's energy landscape dominated by Investor-Owned Utilities. No longer is CCA just an idea for how things might be different. Things are different. No longer are CCAs just talking about localizing energy. They are actually doing it.

As of today, most Californians know about CCA - in a few years, most Californians will be served by CCAs.

As the Center for Climate Protection's Ann Hancock recently reported, it appears that over half of all Californians are about to become CCA customers. Whereas just one CCA served a population of 261K in 2010, by the end of 2016 San Francisco, the South Peninsula and Silicon Valley  - plus Lancaster - will cover a population of over 3 million: by next year CCAs will cover over 12 million Californians. CCP estimates that the total population of communities launching or exploring CCA to be over 17 million, which comprises some 60% of California's entire population served by Investor-Owned Utilities. Considering that their estimates actually exclude a number of CCAs, these figures are actually conservative.

California's electric pie 2018 - IOU pops. (red) vs. CCA pops. (blue) 

What is more, virtually the entire crop of cities - even, finally, Marin Clean Energy - is strategically focused on energy localization goals: local jobs, demand reduction, carbon reduction, and local economic development. With the launch of Lancaster Choice Energy in Southern California last year, California saw its first CCA formed outside of PG&E's service territory. Boasting one of the most ambitious solar photovoltaic programs in the U.S., its Republican mayor has put Lancaster on the map as one of the nation's greenest cities.  Perhaps most importantly, Lancaster's business model is clearly focused not just on greener power, but on energy localization, local development of renewables, local storage, and strategic demand reduction.

California CCA growth curve from 2010 to 2020 in pops.

The die is, as they say, cast. Sonoma Clean Power is building local solar. San Francisco is launching CleanPowerSF this year, and has already shifted its focus upon localization. The City of San Diego became the first city in the nation to adopt binding targets for its CCA program - the very kinds of targets Local Power Inc. has pushed for. Reading through the solicitation and planning documents of CCAs covering virtually the entire California coast, I must conclude that we have won the war of ideas. The revolution is truly here.

These basic elements describe the Revolution in Power that Local Power Inc. had in mind when we created CCA, and we are even more thrilled to see "CCA 2.0" take hold in California and beyond than we are to see CCA hitting prime time. A great deal of pain and suffering - controversy and acrimony - has paid off.

California Gets Second CCA - Sonoma Clean Power Blows Past Marin on Local Power

I am pleased to announce that it is official: California finally has a Community Choice Aggregation with a focus on energy localization, as applauded by an editorial of the local daily (PD Editorial: "The promise of local power contracts"). Local Power Inc. spent many years helping Sonoma county and the Sonoma County Water Agency design this program with significant funding from the California Energy Commission.
We collected a mass of PG&E data and other government data, and used the data to come up with a localization regime for Sonoma county, which reached a localized portfolio of 67% by 2015), including a significant portion of power from a local Geysers geothermal expansion.

Sonoma Clean Power officials say the three-year contract will allow them to be competitive with rates by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., according to a Santa Rosa Press Democrat article, in a 10-year deal with a subsidiary of Calpine Corp. that will "fulfill their promise to spur local green energy generation and support local jobs." The deal will account for 15 percent of the agency’s overall supply as it begins rolling out to customers next year, and will make up for a little under half of the agency’s initial renewable energy portfolio according to the Press Democrat , which quoted Sonoma Clean Power's statement that "the power venture’s political standing, if not its business future, depends on staying true to that mission. “This is a really good start. I think it gives us credibility,” said Sebastopol Mayor Michael Kyes, an agency board member who has pushed for pursuit of local power. Another Sonoma Clean Power board member, Supervisor Shirlee Zane noted, the county wants the company “to expand as we expand and create those local jobs.”

We at Local Power Inc. are very pleased that a CCA has finally gone beyond the Marin-type green supply business model, and to include a first step of localization - signing a long-term agreement with an existing local renewable power operator to expand its capacity. This is an example of a CCA telling the market what it wants rather than asking what it can have.

While Marin has improved a great deal on PG&E in terms of greener power at the same price, with a 50% renewable mix that is price competitive with PG&E's 20% renewable mix, it has limited it self to a more conventional old business model based on CCAs pursing green power in other states like Ohio and Illinois, which have tended to focus on getting greener power content, or renewable energy credits.  The first CCA in California, Marin neglected local resources and imitated a supply-centric business model of power plant owners. Marin declared victory early without physically doing anything different - "The biggest change you'll never notice" was Marin Energy Authority's marketing campaign, though approval of the agency was achieved with a promise of localization. Three years later, no significant localization has been delivered - as of today, the agency's web site's "Local Power" page refers to a single solar array at the airport.

The Sonoma CCA's motto is "Local. Renewable. Yours."  With its commitment to true localization in physical plant and customer ownership, Sonoma has provided needed leadership to other CCAs now investigating or pursuing green power strategies among 1300 municipalities and 5% of the U.S. population under CCA service, most coming online in the past few years. Sonoma Clean Power will produce local green jobs, cause local tax revenues, achieve major regional greenhouse gas reductions, enhance local resilience and permanently eliminate energy dependency upon remote grid-based resources. These are mainstream, national policy goals.

San Francisco will hopefully provide additional leadership for Sonoma on direct financing and development of new local projects. Sonoma was blessed with a no-brainer low-cost resource with a willing operator, Calpine. So some will say "that was easy" because a high-capacity, low-cost resource is so conspicuously available in Sonoma county. But the truth is,  every city and county has a number of local renewable resources - solar, wind, wave, river, and most important - energy efficiency measures.

San Francisco is still debating how to get local build-out into it portfolio, where Local Power Inc.'s analysis has indicated a combination of energy efficiency solar photovoltaics, wind, battery storage, and other technologies will achieve the full "CCA 2.0" business model - building rather than buying more of your power. Sonoma's deal with Calpine is an important step forward by purchasing power from an in-county facility, and Sonoma Clean Power has indicated it plans to issue revenue bonds, like San Francisco, to actually finance and build new local renewable resources. San Francisco's voter approved the Solar Bonds a decade ago - "solar neighborhoods" being a cornerstone of CleanPowerSF since the beginning.

Defensively, Marin Energy Authority's staff have criticized Local Power Inc. for pushing so hard for localization and local green development to be central to CCA, claiming it was smarter to "start with baby steps" and implying that localization itself is the problem. So, with Sonoma's decision to go local, we are vindicated that localization is both technically and economically feasible in any of the 1300 CCA municipalities in America today, and we are grateful for the leadership of Sonoma municipalities and county, water agency staff and Sonoma activists, in particular the Climate Action Campaign, for getting us a step further towards The Real Thing. Next - look to San Francisco!

With San Francisco, a Whole New Environment in California Energy

The past two years have yielded a huge expansion of Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) from just a handful of CCAs in a couple of states into a national phenomenon including major cities like Cincinnati, Chicagoland, and  800 U.S. municipalities now under CCA service. The movement Local Power started has received a profound shot in the arm by recent approval to launch San Francisco's green power program, CleanPowerSF, in which Local Power has been deeply involved for over a decade and prepared many of the elements of the program. This is a long-awaited launch of a program that will have a profound impact on not just the growing California CCA movement but at the national energy policy level. San Francisco will provide intellectual leadership for a growing number of cities that see the logic not just of aggregation, but solar & efficiency finance, and green jobs.

San Francisco's ordinance to launch CleanPowerSF power service in Spring of 2013 also provides for the issuance of Requests for Proposals or RFPs - solicitations to developers of solar, wind, other renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other green technologies for rollout in San Francisco in the near-term (small footprint, easy to permit), medium-term larger projects, and long-term major projects requiring exhaustive state environmental permits. The In City RE/EE rollout will install a portfolio each year based on a financial model, deployment report and solicitation documents Local Power is now preparing for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which operates CleanPowerSF.

An already vibrant movement for greener, more local power in states constituting 25% of the U.S. electricity market is now underway not only in Marin County, but also San Francisco, with dozens of local governments not far behind. Focused on scaled energy localization to make their community not just renewable but locally powered and customer-owned, CleanPowerSF starts with a small amount of power from a global conventional power provider. Our task is to advise the City on how the SFPUC may operate and control wholesale power procurement planned with decentralized demand reduction, in order to achieve a smooth citywide transition to local green power.

CleanPowerSF starts with a 100% renewable power service for a small initial group of early adopters (all residential 30 MW - less than 10% of the aggregated private sector), which will be followed by construction of a new, local, renewable infrastructure to power the CCA, while phasing in commercial customers and remaining residential customers citywide over the next couple of years.

Part of this focus is carbon. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's General Manager Ed Harrington spoke eloquently when he remarked to Supervisors that just Phase I of the CCA program (less than 10% of customers enrolled) will provide ten times the greenhouse gas reductions of all City policies of the past ten years combined, at a tiny fraction of the cost. But another rising criterion for municipalities is how to deliver green jobs today - the opportunity to get local jobs because the power generation is being brought to smaller local renewable developments. Localization creates local jobs because smaller companies can win this work, and local labor can be trained and prepared to work for these companies building here in the community.

Many other California communities are seeing green when they consider energy localization - not just global carbon reductions like CleanPowerSF or Marin Clean Energy on the other side of the Golden Gate. It is the green of monthly utility bill dollars not leaving the city or county. PG&E has claimed it is a "local company" compared to Shell North America. But it cannot compare itself to the city of San Francisco, which controls this program and intends to localize its energy supply using its solar "H" bond authority, both to build city-owned plants and to offer financing so San Francisco residents and businesses. This is localism in the true sense - not greenness defined by the logo or corporate identity of a wholesale power supplier like Green Mountain Energy, but greenness defined by  municipal financing, localization, and reducing our dependence on these companies through fundamental change.

CCA Goes National With Cincinnati

Greenpeace's blimp over Cincinnati was a rallying flag; Community Choice has finally reached a nation-wide audience. With the City of Cincinnati mobilizing to implement a 100% renewable power service Citywide to all customers using Ohio's decade-old CCA law, the profile of a new idea, now over a decade in the making, has assumed the mantle of an achieved new reality. With dozens of new CCAs being implemented, 150 cities and counties moving to implement CCA in Illinois, and San Francisco now moving joining Marin and other California cities and counties to implement this vision of a new kind of power, Community Choice Aggregation has finally become a palpable national movement.

In past years, CCA in one state was considered separate from CCA in another. Today, California's CCA movement, determinedly focused on greening the power supply, changing the business model, and implementing local green power projects, has gripped the imagination of American cities facing de-funded state budgets, collapsed property tax-based revenues, and a stagnant economy. The idea of a  dramatically more renewable power supply at competitive prices with monopoly power is now shared between Cape Cod, Cincinnati and San Francisco Cities, large and small, rich and poor, rural and urban. Perceiving the power of aggregate purchasing, solar finance and local control, are turning to CCA for the true opportunity it was meant to provide from the start. Check out the Local Power News page or my daily news aggregator, Power Grab News.

AB 976: RoboCorp Attack on Local Power Inc.?

California’s statewide International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) has found a Los Angeles-based junior Assembly Member to file legislation, to be heard in the California Assembly this month, that would create a new crime in California – a crime that regulates what I do for a living. My small California-based company, Local Power Inc., is a longtime consultant to the city of San Francisco as well as Sonoma County helping prepare these communities to implement Community Choice (CCA). After a dozen unpaid years pushing for CCA in Marin County, we opted not to try to be a consultant, and instead bid to actually provide power and localize energy production. With broad stroke language, AB976 would appear make it illegal for my company to help these cities implement their CCA programs.

Government consulting is a competitive business with much stricter fairness and transparency than a monopoly like PG&E offers. We competed against Shell and lost for Marin’s business - Local Power Works lost, and Shell got to eat PG&E’s lunch. That is American competition no? I raised the money to pay for organizing our consortium of local companies and spent $150K to write Local Power Works' bid. AB976 would police my clients for doing business with us and prevent us from working if our programs are successfully implemented. Hm?

Local Power Inc. is not criminal for creating CCA and forcing competition on PG&E. To PG&E or the IBEW or the bill's sponsor, competition is criminal - and small companies like Local Power Inc. are sleazy consultants trying to fleece local governments in California. PG&E is free to write bills like AB976 or Prop 16 and pay to get them passed - like proposing a constitutional amendment to preempt local governments doing CCA, or a law to criminalize PG&E's competitors. It is PG&E that should be policed, not local governments or Local Power Inc..

LPI is not criminal for writing San Francisco’s solar bond authority and seeding the solar finance movement in America. PG&E does have issues that call for policing – it runs a political machine that is hostile to the green power efforts of communities in Northern California.  Enron was no better, but PG&E has become comparable in its banality - its use of the 'good government' ruse to harm the public. Peter Darbee didn’t resign last month for nothing. But does America have a political memory? Now with Assembly Member Hall's bill, the IBEW would banish memory itself  – making it illegal to work for a decade or more for a government to design and implement CCA. This bill would amount to criminalizing the CCA movement in California.

AB976 would invent a new crime just for us.  I live in the Bay Area living in Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, San Francisco, and Marin. I work for these local governments because this is where I live - part of our true interest in localism. Is this a crime? Local Power has spent thirteen years in San Francisco preparing its H Bond and CCA Program, Marin County thirteen years too, and Sonoma County six years. Funny that the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers would come for my job!  Would they like similar restrictions on PG&E, a mega-corporation? Unions – against local governments and for monopolies? Our medieval fathers would weep.

I am not accustomed to playing the special interest, so I suppose the IBEW, (was PG&E behind this? I do not know) is teaching me a lesson for being such as high-handed activist: it appears that my small business, extant for 15 years but still very small, is being branded as a potential criminal. Goliath calls David bully – when in fact the real bully has a black eye for being playing RoboCorp with California governments less than a year ago.

The bill is now in third reading after passing unanimously out of committee. Assembly Member Hall is sponsor, and it has passed the Assembly Appropriations committee.  The bill would make it a crime for Local Power Inc. (localpower.com) to help cities implement the plans we are helping them make for large-scale energy localization – through “CCA” – Community Choice Aggregation. PG&E has been fighting the right of communities to purchase their power from competitive suppliers. They have spent hundreds of millions on Public Relations to fight Community Choice in the Bay Area ($46M on Prop 16 in 2010), as much on lawyering and lobbying, and have lost at the voting booths. Whereas Prop 16 required supermajority support for a municipality to even investigate CCA, AB976 would now propose to criminalize the companies that work for CCAs: in effect, to police local governments, which are already subject to Brown Act and Sunshine Act laws.

The bill says any consultant performing work for a CCA in preparation for implementation of a local energy service, would be classified as criminal for helping the same government implement that program.

Last year PG&E failed in its floating of Proposition 16.  They put it forward as a good government bill to prevent government abuse, but it was recognized for what it was: corporate attack on the government’s ability to govern where it has any impact on PG&E’s quasi-monopoly revenues. The voters rejected Prop 16. Assembly member Hall’s bill, AB 976, is a test of the legislature’s stupidity – would it accept the proposal of a corporate market abuser (CEO Peter Darbee just got fired for what he did on Prop 16) as if to prevent CCAs from being criminal? Failing to win public approval of the state to police local governments who dare implement the 2002 CCA law, PG&E’s handlers now shuffle forward a bill and ask the legislature to criminalize the firms that work with local governments

PG&E has no such requirements -  energy monopolies are quietly left out of AB976. PG&E can continue to consult the local governments in its service territory on any energy of energy efficiency programs they have or want to have (witness PG&E’s foray into Zero Energy Cities)  but also control the electricity services that are physically provided for all of Northern California: and have controlled them for a century.

What is worse, unlike municipalities, which are elected and transparent, California’s electricity monopolies have closed meetings and are Wall Street oriented. Who is policing whom?  Corporations over local government. Sounds like globalization to you?

Carbon War - California Regulators Threaten PG&E with Fines, Superior Court Reviews Prop 16 as Marin County Launches 78% Carbon-Free Power Service

San Francisco, California.  A "hornet's nest" surrounds PG&E's $35M political war to block California cities from following Marin County and San Francisco's lead in breaking away from PG&E's utility power service to buy greener, cheaper power. With Marin physically starting its new power service on Friday and PG&E's Prop 16 facing voters on June 8, (and a copycat Texas Oilman-funded initiative to kill California's carbon law now on the November ballot), the state appears to be ground zero for a new brand of political aggression by energy companies against the very governments that allow them to do business at all - a Carbon War. California's energy regulator "slammed" PG&E yesterday for what it called illegal efforts by the former monopoly to stifle competition, warning the energy giant that it may face fines for attempting to block two Bay Area counties, Marin and San Francisco, from implementing greener, lower carbon electricity service at rates that meet or beat what PG&E's charges. On Monday, Michael Peevey, President of the California Public Utilities Commission, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying Prop. 16 embodied a "blatant misuse" of the election process. "Imagine a single company trying to seek protection for its monopoly status in a state constitution," he said. "It's offensive."

Meanwhile, the Marin Clean Energy Authority, which aims to replace Pacific Gas & Electric Co. as the primary electricity supplier in Marin County, says 78 percent of the electricity it is supplying to the county this year will be from sources that don't produce greenhouse gas emissions, and include no nuclear power, but will meet or beat PG&E's prices. The deal has finally proven the case that Community Choice can deliver much greener power much faster at competitive prices than monopolies or deregulated markets can deliver, and this fact, now official, has PG&E very worried about the future of its business. The Marin Energy Authority has invited the general public to attend the  "historic launch" of its service this Friday at 1 pm to mark the day for the launch of its revolutionary new power service, which PG&E appears determined to nip in the bud with Prop 16.

As both San Francisco and Marin move forward with Community Choice programs to green their power supply with competitive suppliers, PG&E has already spent over $35M of ratepayer bailout funds to advertise, write and place on California's June ballot a constitutional amendment that would block any other communities from pursuing Community Choice by requiring any local government to first persuade a supermajority of voters to vote for it first. A 2/3 voter approval requirement would allow just 1/3 of voters to block any Community Choice programs. Regulators and governments have come forward to block a deep-pocketed corporate attack on local governments that are prohibited by law from spending any money on ballot campaigns like PG&E's fully funded "astro-turf" campaigns, "Taxpayer's Right to Vote" for Prop 16 and the "Common Sense Coalition" in Marin and San Francisco.  In contrast, PG&E has unlimited political capital based on captive ratepayer revenues. PG&E spent over $10 million fighting San Francisco in 2008 and even more fighting Yolo County public power campaign in 2007. Apart from its public power battles, Prop 16, PG&E has already spent tens of millions in marketing locally against Community Choice programs for several years.

Yesterday, the California Public Utilities Commission called the anti-Community Choice brochures the company has been mailing all Marin residents and businesses "misleading" -and ordered the company to stop sending them. The CPUC also said that PG&E can not use its own phone banks to call customers (at ratepayer expense) and then transfer them to customer service to opt-out of the Marin Clean Energy public power effort. PG&E has been in effect imitating a government by "processing" opt-out calls for its competitors - which the CPUC officially declared illegal.

The energy giant's aggressive political strategy to permanently diminish local control over energy and reclaim its liquidated monopoly through a new kind of corporate plebiscite, has caused a "hornet's nest" of opposition from local leaders already stuck in a debt crisis that another infamous 2/3 majority requirement - Prop 13 - has largely caused.  Public voter approval requirements already exist in local government charters and state law, but Prop 16 would place a 2/3 majority requirement on all local government retail energy programs whether or not taxpayers would be impacted by a program. 

A case in point is San Francisco. Because its city charter required it to get a majority of votes to authorize the revenue bond it will use, San Francisco voters approved a revenue bond authority, Proposition H, in 2001, but the 55% majority of voters that approved the use of H Bonds to finance renewable energy facilities would not be enough voter approval to authorize a Community Choice program under Prop 16.

Today, a Superior Court in Sacramento, California, will hear oral arguments from California municipalities in the case on whether PG&E's Proposition 16 should be removed outright from the California June 8, 2010 primary ballot. Judge Allen H. Sumner will hear from a long list of local governments, including Marin and San Francisco, suing to disqualify the PG&E-sponsored Proposition 16 from the June 8 statewide ballot. In their written arguments, attorneys for over a dozen cities used PG&E's own chief executive’s public statements as evidence that the utility's proposed measure is false and misleading, according to San Francisco’s City Attorney, who has helped lead the lawsuit. The Sacramento Bee reported that, according to the petitioners' reply brief filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, a public exchange between PG&E Corporation Chairman, CEO and President Peter A. Darbee and a stockholder at the company's March investor conference revealed that the purportedly pro-vote measure actually aims to greatly diminish voting, discourage elections, having to spend millions and millions of shareholder dollars to campaign against competing energy programs, according to a release from San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. The coalition of locally-owned public utilities from throughout California, including the San Francisco Local Agency Formation Commission, filed civil lawsuit on March 18, 2010. 

While Marin and San Francisco have implemented Community Choice in parallel, only Marin will initiate service prior to June 8 when, if passed, Prop 16 will go into effect. Thus San Francisco and all other cities pursuing Community Choice would be blocked. The Marin Energy Authority signed a five-year agreement with Shell Energy North America to provide power to the county from at least 25 percent renewable sources. In contrast, PG&E today sources about 14 percent of its electricity from renewable sources though it has signed contracts with independent power producers including Oakland-based BrightSource and Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar that would deliver more than 20 percent once the new projects are built. Not included in PG&E's renewable tally is an additional 51 percent of PG&E's power that comes from a large hydroelectric dam. State law doesn't recognize large hydropower as a renewable resource even though it is emissions-free power.

The Marin Clean Energy Authority recently added to the agreement with Shell a commitment that the power mix will include at least 53 percent emissions-free sources.The Authority aims to give Marin residents more options for using power from "non-polluting renewable sources" and will offer Marin's 7,500 largest electricity users an option to buy electricity from more renewable sources than they get from PG&E at no additional cost, or customers can get 100 percent renewable power for a $5 premium. The Authority's power mix will include 37 percent hydropower from the Tri-Dam Power Authority in San Joaquin, 9 percent landfill gas in Oregon, and 8 percent windpower and 5 percent biomass from Washington. An additional 9 percent will come from a variety of smaller sources, according to the Marin Independent Journal.

The San Francisco Examiner recently reported that San Francisco's Community Choice program is still behind closed doors, but the City is working feverishly to complete negotiations from a December Request for Proposals that selected a consortium backed by Silicon Valley leaders. "What is known about the company is that there are at least three key members at the helm. W. Kent Palmerton has more than 31 years of experience in both the private and public electric industry and has worked at companies that include Williams Energy Services. Samuel Enoka, along with working for Power Choice, is the president and chief financial officer of VIASYN, also a power company. Glen Casanova helps head the company, and he has worked in global energy and infrastructure industries.“Power Choice Inc. is a joint venture of top-tier energy services firms with decades of experience in developing electricity projects and in generating and delivering electricity,” Power Choice spokesman Trevor Curwin said. The consortium touts members as Oracle Corp., real estate firm Grubb & Ellis Co., independent power producer RealEnergy and GE Energy, one of the world’s leading power suppliers. Power Choice wound up in the negotiating seat after undergoing a competitive bidding process. “Power Choice LLC was the highest-scoring and most complete out of the five bids submitted by various vendors,” Jue said. “Their collective experience on power scheduling and pooling energy resources vaulted them to the top of the list for the [request for proposal] process.”

In Marin, however, a major success has already been achieved: 78% greenhouse gas free power without resorting to nuclear power as PG&E does. I will myself be present at the Marin Energy Authrity's event this Friday because I view this plain fact as a major proof of concept for Community Choice that breaks some of the old myths from the Market Fundamentalists who insist greener power must be more expensive than brown power. This is what PG&E is really trying to stop: a breakthrough that changes everything. “Some people have been skeptical that Marin Clean Energy could achieve its renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction goals and keep rates the same or lower, but the proof is in the power," said Marin County Supervisor Charles McGlashan, chairman of Marin Clean Energy, in a press release.

On Friday, May 7 at 1 pm on the Island at the Lagoon off Avenue of the Flags at the San Rafael Civic Center. State Senator Mark Leno, State Assembly member Jared Huffman, other dignitaries, and hundreds of local businesses, clean energy advocates and other community supporters will celebrate the first day of service by Marin Clean Energy (MCE)."  May 7th is MCE's first day of service to the ratepayers of Marin. The general public is invited to attend this historic event hosted by Supervisor Charles McGlashan, Marin County Supervisor, 3rd District Chair, Marin Energy Authority This event is a co-production of Marin Energy Authority and Marin Green Leadership, a nonprofit partner that supplements and supports MEA's educational outreach. Friday, May 7, 2010 1:00 - 3:00 pm Marin Center, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael For more information, call 473.6624. Park in the main parking lot at Marin Center and proceed to the right of the theater to the lagoon area. Signs will direct you to the event.

Former State Energy Commissioner, San Francisco Supervisor Blast PG&E before Legislators

Former California Energy Commissioner John Geesman and current San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi lambasted energy giant Pacific Gas & Electric for trying to stifle competition and kill customer choice with Proposition 16, a June state ballot measure. So far PG&E has indicated it will spend $35 million in ratepayer funds (already contributing over $10M) to campaign for Prop. 16, which would amend California's constitution to require a 2/3 vote anytime cities wanted to provide an alternative source of electric power from the for-profit utilities. This comes after PG&E was paid billions of dollars from ratepayers, to compensate the utility for all future financial losses from giving customers the right to have a choice back in the late 1990's.  PG&E’s  CEO, Peter Darbee, bungled drafting the constitutional amendment, which could not be repaired by the legislature without extraordinary effort. If approved, Prop 16 would also prevent dozens of California municipalities from providing electricity service to new home buyers or new businesses seeking to open their doors. 
The California Senate Energy Utilities and Telecommunications Committee and the California Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee had a hearing on Thursday, February 27 on the ballot measure. Geesman provided comments at the hearing on behalf of NO ON PROP 16, TAXPAYERS AGAINST THE PG&E POWER GRAB. Geesman is an attorney who served as Executive Director of the California Energy Commission when Jerry Brown was Governor, as the Chair of the California Power Exchange during the Energy Crisis, as a board member of California's power grid operator, the CaISO, and as an member of the California Energy Commission from 2002 to 2008. He is now co-chair of the American Council on Renewable Energy.

Geesman pubished his biting testimony at his blog, "Peter Darbee's dog of an initiative: 3 tapeworms eating away at the internal logic of Prop 16," on his PG&E Initiative Factsheet blog. He began his speech to legislators with devastating clarity: "Never, in all of that time or in any of those venues (of his 35 year career) have I seen political activity by a regulated utility so far outside the bounds of acceptable conduct as PG&E's sole sponsorship of the Constitutional Amendment politely referred to as Proposition 16." 
The piece speaks for itself and features excellent illustrative art, so I will directly quote Mr. Geesman and encourage you to visit his blog. Geesman told the state senators and assembly members in Sacramento yesterday:

"I am mindful of the contempt for the legislative process, reliance on deceptive wording, and resort to strong-arm tactics that are manifest in PG&E's campaign.  But today I want to take Proposition 16 at face value, and focus your attention on three tapeworms that eat away at the internal logic of the measure itself."

Click Here to View Other Curious Artistic Renderings of PG&E and Prop 16.