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Ava Board of Directors Weighs In on Slate of California State Bills, Makes Updates to Legislative Program

Jun 17, 2025

Ava's Legislative Program Was Discussed At May's Board Of Directors Meeting.
Ava’s Legislative Program was discussed at May’s Board of Directors meeting.

Ava supports a new group of bills that protect community choice, make energy bills more affordable, accelerate decarbonization, promote local development, and increase transparency.

Nearly a decade ago, Ava Community Energy (then known as East Bay Community Energy) was formed under a single foundational document. 

Our Joint Powers Agreement (JPA), which went into effect on December 1, 2016, lays out Ava’s fundamental mission in the form of four overarching goals: securing electrical energy supply for our customers, addressing climate change by reducing energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, promoting electrical rate price stability, and fostering local economic benefits and local power development.
With those core objectives in mind, at its May 2025 meeting, the Ava Board of Directors approved updates to the agency’s Legislative Program – the long-standing document that guides Ava’s priorities for advocacy at the state and federal level – and took positions on a total of 14 bills currently being considered in the California legislature.

“Ava has worked since its inception to develop strong and positive relationships with the elected officials who represent our service area and beyond,” said Sam Sadle, Ava’s Principal Legislative Manager.

“We believe Ava brings a valuable perspective to the energy policy space, and so our Board makes it a priority to evaluate and weigh in on legislation that really matters for us and our customers.”

Sam Sadle, Principal Legislative Manager at Ava Community Energy

Each year, California lawmakers introduce thousands of bills pertaining to any number of policy issues, a varying portion of which directly impact Ava’s operations and customers. At the same time, legislation coming out of Washington, DC can drastically change the national energy landscape. Ava’s Legislative Program forms the basis of our efforts to sift through this fast-moving and often complex policy sandbox, bringing to life the goals stated in our JPA.

Sacramento’s 2025 legislative landscape offers no shortage of bills on a wide range of familiar hot-button issues: affordability, permitting reform, ratemaking process accountability, and regional energy market expansion, to name a few. Using our Legislative Program as a guide, Ava has distilled down this year’s full universe of legislation into a short list of priority bills, each of which we believe directly impact our agency. 

“Our goal is to always take a collaborative approach when it comes to policy advocacy,” said Ava CEO Howard Chang. “That means engaging our state’s legislative leaders both directly and through our trade association, CalCCA, to come up with practical solutions that have the widest-reaching benefits for our customers.”

This approach has been especially critical as new members have joined the legislature in recent years who are much more familiar with the CCA model. Among them is Senator Jesse Arreguín, the former Mayor of Berkeley and a founding member of the Ava Board of Directors.

“We’re pleased to see a growing number of legislators who understand our issues and the energy space more broadly. I think that’s a testament to the impact CCAs are making here in California.”

Howard Chang, CEO of Ava Community Energy

Below are Ava’s legislative positions for 2025, organized by the general policy principle each supports.

Making Electricity More Affordable

AB 729 (Zbur) – Support

The California Climate Credit, which is applied to customer gas and electricity bills each spring and fall, is a powerful tool that California uses to reduce energy costs for customers across the state. This bill would shift the credit so that it aligns with periods when statewide energy use is the highest. Rather than payments in April and October, customers would receive the electricity credit in August and September when air conditioners are typically working overtime, providing financial relief when it’s most needed.

SB 254 (Becker) – Support

This multifaceted bill is the legislature’s comprehensive energy affordability package for 2025. This bill would, among other things, increase the California Climate Credit allocation for low-income California Alternate Rates for Energy (CARE) and Family Electric Rate Assistance (FERA) customers, establish a new state fund to reimburse Californians for policy-related rate impacts, create a new state Clean Energy Infrastructure Authority tasked with accelerating clean energy infrastructure deployment, and increase investor-owned utility (IOU) ratemaking and wildfire mitigation plan transparency. Ava believes that this bill would implement a host of positive reforms that support shared Ava and state goals of decarbonizing our electricity grid, increasing reliability, and putting downward pressure on energy rates.

Accelerating Decarbonization

AB 39 (Zbur) – Support

Accelerating decarbonization and promoting local development are two major priorities that Ava shares with its 18 member jurisdictions, many of which have adopted their own Climate Action Plans. As the name suggests, these plans establish climate-related goals and identify ways to reduce community emissions and waste across a variety of sources. This bill aligns with those priorities by requiring all California cities and counties with more than 75,000 residents to adopt similar local electrification, decarbonization, or community energy plans by January 1, 2030. Those plans must identify opportunities to expand electric vehicle (EV) charging, building decarbonization, renewable distributed energy resources (DERs), and critical grid infrastructure upgrades needed to accomplish the transition to a cleaner future.

To meet the state’s fast-growing demand for electricity while upholding its climate and emissions reduction goals, California will need to build a significant amount of new renewable energy resources at a rapid pace. Ava has been working hard to accelerate the clean energy transition by purchasing power from new wind, solar, geothermal, and battery storage projects, and supports policy solutions that help these resources come online faster. This bill would support local jurisdictions as they navigate the high volume of energy project applications by requiring the California Energy Commission (CEC) to establish a centralized pool of clean energy project siting and permitting experts for those jurisdictions to utilize.

SB 282 (Wiener) – Support

Switching from a gas-powered furnace or water heater to an electric heat pump system is one of the most impactful steps anyone can take to curb household emissions, but doing so is an expensive and lengthy process. To address these very real hurdles to electrification, this bill would take meaningful steps to streamline the application, permitting, and certification processes for residential heat pump water heaters and HVAC systems, including creating a standardized statewide permitting checklist and requiring cities and counties to develop an electronic automated permitting process based on that checklist. These solutions align closely with Ava’s mission and the work we’re doing with our member jurisdictions to automate local permitting processes using the SolarAPP+ software.

SB 283 (Laird) – Support if Amended

Following the major fire at a battery energy storage system (BESS) facility in Monterey County in January, the legislature has made battery safety a priority this session. This bill, whose author represents the communities directly impacted by the fire, takes a balanced approach to tightening fire safety standards while not restricting new BESS development. The bill would require all BESS facilities to comply with the most recent National Fire Protection Association fire safety standards (NFPA 855) and be inspected by a local fire department before operation. Ava supports the intent of this bill and is working with the legislature to ensure these requirements only apply to utility-scale battery projects (as opposed to standalone residential batteries) and to adjust the bill’s effective date to ensure it applies only to future BESS facilities on which construction has not yet started.

SB 698 (McNerney) – Support

For nearly two decades, the CEC has maintained lists of solar equipment that meets minimum safety and performance standards to support solar incentive programs. This bill would build upon the existing Solar Equipment Lists Program by expanding it to include DER equipment with rating standards for distributed solar and storage systems and EV service equipment. As Ava works to increase the adoption of DERs in our service area, we appreciate the state’s leadership in creating consensus and providing assurance on top-of-the-line products and technologies.

Promoting Local Development

AB 222 (Bauer-Kahan) – Support if Amended

The artificial intelligence boom and the associated growth in data centers to house large language models (LLMs) has led to a sharp rise in the estimated demand for electricity in the years to come. In order to better understand the energy needs associated with LLM creation and operation, this bill would require LLM developers to publicly disclose certain energy data related to their AI applications to the CEC. It also gives the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) the authority to ensure that costs recovered by a utility for connecting a new data center are not unfairly shouldered by ratepayers who do not directly benefit from the data center. Ava supports increased transparency into LLM energy use and looks forward to working with the bill’s author to adjust the disclosure language to allow for maximum time for CCAs to adjust to expected energy loads.

SB 314 (Padilla) – Support

As Ava continues to build out our network of public EV chargers, we appreciate smartly crafted policies that make it faster and easier to bring chargers online. This bill would allow EV chargers that are self-certified by the manufacturer or installer to be used commercially until the state-mandated inspection can occur. It also provides certain exemptions from some state laws for chargers only available to certain individuals.

Increasing Bill Transparency and Understanding

AB 44 (Schultz) – Support

Every two years, the CEC is required to publish an integrated energy policy report (IEPR) assessing California’s energy landscape and providing certain policy recommendations. This bill would require the CEC, as part of its next IEPR, to work with load-serving entities (LSEs) like Ava to define and publicize methodologies for load modification protocols with the goal of helping LSEs adjust their electrical demand forecasts and improve grid reliability. Ava is already working to implement flexible demand tools through our growing portfolio of DERs and supports establishing a more formal set of protocols for LSEs to achieve these resource adequacy (RA) reductions.

SB 541 (Becker) – Support if Amended

Current California law requires the CEC’s IEPR to include a recommended statewide target for electricity load shifting to reduce net peak electrical demand. This bill would require the CEC, as a part of each IEPR, to establish load-shifting targets allocated to each retail electricity supplier (including Ava) based on estimates related to its relative share of statewide load and load-shifting potential. It also requires the CEC to work with the CPUC to identify barriers to meeting these estimates and develop a local avoided cost metric. Ava’s commitment to achieving meaningful load shifting capacity aligns closely with the goals of this legislation. We look forward to working with the author to make improvements to the bill’s language, including clarifying the responsibilities of CCAs concerning these requirements and how a retail electricity supplier’s load-shifting potential would be measured.

Other/Operations

AB 259 (Rubio) – Support

As a local agency, Ava is subject to Brown Act public meeting requirements. Currently, the Brown Act allows members of “legislative bodies” of local agencies (e.g., the Ava Board of Directors) to participate in meetings remotely through teleconferencing until January 1, 2026, subject to specific open meeting requirements. This bill would extend these “alternative teleconferencing” rules for another four years through January 1, 2030. This extension would ensure Ava board members retain the flexibility to attend board meetings remotely as needed.

SB 239 (Arreguín) – Support

This bill would extend Brown Act alternative teleconferencing rules for “subsidiary bodies” of local agencies through 2030, allowing Ava board members to participate in meetings remotely for each of the board’s three subcommittees. Although SB 239 is no longer moving forward this legislative session, Senator Arreguín has incorporated his original language into SB 707 authored by Senator María Elena Durazo and has come on board as a coauthor.

AB 453 (Stern) – Support if Amended

Since 2001, the CPUC has administered the self-generation incentive program (SGIP), which offers financial incentives for utility customers to install demand-side renewable energy generation and battery storage systems. This bill as originally drafted would have extended SGIP past its current expiration date of January 1, 2026, through the end of 2027, allowing customers to access SGIP incentives for key distributed generation and storage technologies for another two years. Unfortunately, this language was removed from the most recent version of the bill. As Ava continues to enroll customers into our growing VPP program, we support preserving incentive opportunities for all customers to participate and are seeking to have the two-year SGIP extension reinserted into the bill.