Ava Community Energy Introduces Critical Municipal Facilities Program Bringing Solar Resilience Projects to Four East Bay Cities

Media Contact: Bobby Peña, 916-730-5191, bpena@bp3.com

Oakland, CA – Ava Community Energy’s Critical Municipal Facilities (CMF) program is bringing solar and battery storage to essential city services in Berkeley, Fremont, Hayward, and Livermore. These systems are located at eight city sites that are vital to city infrastructure and the communities they serve.

In partnership with these cities and across the eight project sites, Ava has installed 500 kilowatts of photovoltaic (PV) solar panels and 1.32 megawatt-hours of battery storage, which is capable of generating 778,000 kilowatt hours of local renewable energy in the first year alone.

These systems serve facilities our communities depend on most, including fire stations, community centers, food banks, equipment yards, and city council buildings. These projects are designed to keep critical services running during power outages, reduce reliance on grid power, increase local clean power generation, help keep electricity affordable for the cities, and in some cases, provide resilience for community residents.

“Ava is pleased to work with our municipal partners to provide these solar and battery storage systems,” said Howard Chang, CEO for Ava Community Energy. “Investments like this advance our goals of expanding local clean power generation across our service territory, strengthening community resilience, and helping create good union jobs.”

Through these first Ava-owned power generation assets, Ava is able to assist cities in reaching their climate action goals, while allowing for flexibility in how each city uses their systems,  whether it is reducing grid consumption during peak load hours, maintaining operations, or providing community resilience support in the event of a grid outage.

The new solar and battery storage systems at the City of Hayward Corporation Yard and Fire Station #1 are important additions to Hayward’s clean energy infrastructure,” said Erik Pearson, Environmental Services Manager. “Through our partnership with Ava, these systems provide greater resilience and more predictable energy costs for the City over the life of the projects.”

The first CMF ribbon cutting was recently celebrated at the City of Hayward Corporation Yard.  The eight project sites include:

–        Berkeley Allston Corporation Yard

–        Berkeley Live Oak Recreation Center

–        Fremont Age Well Center

–        Fremont Tri City Volunteers

–        Hayward Corporation Yard

–        Hayward Fire Station #1

–        Livermore City Council Chambers

–        Livermore Maintenance Service Center

Chang concluded,  “As a Community Choice Aggregator (CCA), Ava is uniquely positioned to help our member cities reach their climate action plan goals, and build the generating assets that ensure access to clean energy at competitive rates over the long term. These projects are a great example of the value and possibility of the CCA model, and a testament to the hard work and collaboration of all involved.”

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About Ava Community Energy

Ava Community Energy (Ava) is the not-for-profit public power provider for more than 2 million residents and businesses in Alameda County and San Joaquin County. As one of 25 community choice aggregation (CCA) programs operating in California, Ava is part of the movement to provide energy choice while expediting local and state-wide climate action goals. Ava is committed to creating a brighter future in our communities and beyond by providing clean power at competitive rates, reinvesting in our member communities, and developing programs that make it easy for customers to discover and adopt clean energy solutions. To date, Ava has saved customers more than $183 million and contracted for nearly 2.5 gigawatts of renewable energy generation and storage.