Fremont Chooses 100% Renewable Energy

Ava member cities are continuing to go green, with more than half committing to 100% renewable energy from sources like wind and solar. 

Fremont is the latest and largest to make the commitment. The Fremont City Council voted in June 2024 to make Ava’s Renewable 100 the default supply option for the entire city, with residents transitioning in August of 2025 and businesses a year later.  

“Fremont has a long history of environmental leadership, and we remain committed today,” says Fremont Mayor Raj Salwan. 

All of Ava’s member jurisdictions have the power to choose which service plan becomes the default for their residential, commercial, and municipal accounts. Fremont and other cities like it opt for Renewable 100 to minimize their carbon emissions. Other communities choose Bright Choice, Ava’s lower-cost plan. Both decisions reflect elected officials prioritizing what their communities need most, and highlight the foundational benefit of community choice energy: providing customers with options for where their power comes from and the rates they pay for it. 

For Fremont, climate goals are important, but so are cost and choice.

Fremont was recently ranked by WalletHub as the 11th greenest large city in America in 2025. Its original climate action plan set a goal of a 25% reduction in community-wide greenhouse gas emissions from a 2005 baseline by 2020. The city met its target early, so its updated plan—Climate Ready Fremont—aims for a 55% reduction by 2030, with a long-term goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.

“Transitioning our community to Ava’s Renewable 100 service plan will result in one of the largest greenhouse gas reductions of any action outlined in Climate Ready Fremont,” Mayor Salwan says. 

“Residents and businesses keep their existing plan options, ensuring they can choose the plan that best suits their needs. Renewable 100 provides an easy, yet impactful way to take meaningful environmental action at home or at work.”

Over half of Ava member jurisdictions now set Renewable 100 as their default option: Albany, Berkeley, Dublin, Emeryville, Hayward, Piedmont, Pleasanton, and San Leandro had previously switched. Fremont is the largest of those jurisdictions, with 79,000 residential accounts and a population of 230,000.

Fremont and Ava put extra effort into public engagement before the city made the switch, with mailers, social media posts, paid ads, and newsletter announcements, as well as informational booths at the Fremont Pride Festival, Earth Day, and Festival of India.

“We want customers to understand all the options they have with Ava,” says Annie Henderson, Ava’s Chief Customer Officer. “We don’t just offer clean power, we offer customers more choice. They can choose to stay with Renewable 100 or pick Bright Choice, or even go back to PG&E.”

This greater awareness, and perhaps the widespread inflation squeezing many household budgets, led many customers to opt to remain on the previous default plan, Bright Choice. Still, over 85% of residential customers have stuck with Renewable 100 so far. Only about 100 customers chose to opt out of Ava entirely and go back to PG&E.

“We count that as a win, whatever they choose,” says Henderson. “Local elected officials choose the starting point for their constituents, but individuals and households can always decide what best fits their priorities and budget.”

Renewable 100 is currently priced at ¼ cent per kilowatt-hour higher than PG&E, which raises the average residential bill in Fremont by about $3–$6 per month compared to Bright Choice and $1–$4 more per month compared to PG&E’s standard service. This premium can change year to year—seven years ago, Renewable 100 cost 1¢ more per kilowatt-hour. Likewise, Bright Choice has ranged from a 1% discount to PG&E to the 5% we see today.

Low-income households on CARE, FERA, and Medical Baseline programs—about 10,000 customers altogether—were not automatically transitioned to the more expensive plan. 

In all, 53,850 Fremont households are now using all-renewable electricity, boosting the total number of Ava Renewable 100 customers to 216,370, or 31% of all residential customers. This makes Ava one of the largest green power providers in the country. 

“When fully implemented, Fremont’s opt-up will add another 207,000 megawatt-hours of renewable energy to the California grid,” says Marie Fontenot, Ava’s Senior Vice President of Power Resources. “That is about equal to 120 megawatts of solar capacity, and will cut carbon emissions by the equivalent of 50,000 cars.”

Based on the latest reporting, Ava’s overall power supply is already at 62% renewable energy, plus 34% from zero-emission large hydropower dams (which is not counted as renewable energy under California regulations). While state law requires electric retailers to have a fully carbon-free power supply by 2045, Ava plans to hit that target in 2030.