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COMMUNITY CHOICE POWER:
The Solution to California’s Energy & Climate Crisis
The problem:
Electricity production is the single largest cause of climate change, air pollution and radioactive waste. Natural gas supplies are dwindling, and global petroleum production will peak in this decade. The majority of remaining oil and gas reserves are in the Middle East and Russia; growing dependence on foreign sources encourages continued US military involvement in the region. As supplies decline, prices will continue to climb, destabilizing almost every aspect of our national economy, from food production to health care.
The continued use of fossil fuels is unsustainable, causing severe environmental and social consequences; the projected impacts from climate change alone pose a serious threat of worldwide economic decline. State and national energy policy is dictated by major energy corporations focused on increasing the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power for short-term profit, rather than on reducing demand and transitioning to alternative sources. Cleaner energy sources and technologies exist today, but are not being widely developed or made available to consumers.
The opportunity:
California’s city and county governments are the largest consumers of green (renewable) power in the state. Now they can buy green power for their citizens and businesses as well. San Francisco, Marin, and other California cities and counties are using community choice to require a clean and renewable energy portfolio from their chosen electricity provider. By switching to green energy, they are reducing carbon dioxide emission levels, slowing climate change, improving air quality and public health, and decreasing fossil fuel dependency.
What is Community Choice Aggregation?
The Community Choice Law was passed by the California Legislature in 2002, following the example of Ohio, Massachusetts and other states. Community Choice allows California municipalities (cities and counties) to “aggregate” or combine all the customers in their area in order to collectively purchase clean, affordable electric power from their chosen provider.
By giving City Councils decision-making power over resource planning and rate-setting, Community Choice allows communities to democratically determine their own energy future, instead of being subject to short-sighted corporate decisions. Communities can control prices through long-term competitive contracting, strengthening their local economy and protecting city budgets from costly rate hikes. It also opens the opportunity for Electric Service Providers (ESPs) to break into California’s electricity market to serve whole cities and regions - not only with bulk power services, but with conservation and energy efficiency programs and dramatic increases in ‘green’ power generation capacity, significantly expanding the market for renewable energy.
Community Choice is not just about cheaper power. Most California cities are interested not only in reducing electric bills but addressing the many environmental crises caused by the electricity industry, protecting residents, businesses and public agencies against energy and fuel price volatility, and improving local energy security. Cities view Community Choice not merely as a vehicle for finding cheaper electricity, but as an opportunity to invest in the long-term reliability, stability, and sustainability of their energy supply.
How does Community Choice work?
Municipalities create a purchasing cooperative whose members are the local residents and businesses, and whose founding member is the city or county government itself. (Individuals and businesses are free to opt out at any time.) By ‘aggregating” or combining hundreds of thousands of customers, the municipality is able to bargain for better rates and terms than an individual customer could. The municipality solicits bids from Electric Service Providers, chooses the best offer and signs a contract with that provider. This allows the cities to buy power over a long term at stable prices, and to specify that some or all of it be produced using clean, renewable sources such as solar and wind. The law also allows municipalities to administer their share of state energy conservation funds.
What are Solar Bonds?
The state legislature also authorized the creation of Solar Bonds, which allow the municipality to finance energy efficiency & conservation and the building of new green energy generating capacity. By spreading costs over a period of years at low bond interest rates, the municipality offsets the costs of the solar, wind, conservation and efficiency investments, so that the more expensive components need not result in higher rates.
The biggest obstacle to creating a sustainable local power system is the capital cost for photovoltaic, wind, or other distributed generation technology. Solar bonds provide a local, public source of revenue with which to finance the construction of the energy systems we will need to move beyond peak oil.
Advantages of Community Choice:
- Affordable rates through long-term, competitive public contracts (rather than spot-market buys).
- Stable, predictable prices and protection from price spikes – important for tight city budgets!
- Reduced dependence on foreign oil, increased local & national energy security.
- Dramatic increase in national market for ‘green’ renewable power generation sources, such as solar and wind.
- Meet or exceed the Kyoto climate change goals, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions as much as 20%.
- Improve air quality, and avoid the need for gas-fired ‘peaker plants’ (which have been proposed for Sonoma County), with all the environmental and health impacts they would bring.
- Built-in incentives for conservation and energy efficiency, rather than more consumption & waste.
- Increase local democratic control of electricity supply, a key strategic resource – too important to be left to the whims of private corporations like Enron.
The Potential:
Electricity that is affordable, renewable, reliable, locally generated and democratically controlled.
Community Choice power for Sonoma County!
What you can do:
To find out how you can help bring Community Choice Power to Sonoma County, call us at (707) 823-4480.
For more info:
More on Community Choice at www.local.org
More on climate protection at www.skymetrics.us