CCAs Band Together in Buying Club to Scale Up and Save Money

EBCE and seven other community energy providers in Northern California have joined together to create California Community Power. The CCAs will combine their buying power to procure new clean energy and reliability resources at lower prices, helping cut emissions in a cost-effective way.

The eight CCAs forming California Community Power represent 2.6 million customer accounts and 6.6 million people across more than 140 municipalities spanning from Humboldt County to Santa Barbara County (see map). In all, the eight CCAs serve about as many customer accounts and as much electricity as PG&E, making it equivalent to the 15th largest electricity retailer in the US.

The member CCAs include: Central Coast Community Energy, East Bay Community Energy, MCE, Peninsula Clean Energy, Redwood Coast Energy Authority, San José Clean Energy, Silicon Valley Clean Energy and Sonoma Clean Power. CleanPowerSF is pursuing membership.

California Community Power will create enhanced negotiating power, larger renewable and storage project procurement, shared risk mitigation, and increased opportunities for innovation.

“I’m excited that we can work together with our fellow CCAs to drive down the cost and speed up our transition to clean energy,” says EBCE board chair Dan Kalb.

EBCE procurement director Marie Fontenot adds that the regional market for new supply has many buyers. “A relatively small buyer like EBCE can be less attractive to developers,” she notes. “But California Community Power will be one of the biggest buyers of new generation and capacity in the region, especially given the aggressive clean energy goals of many of the member CCAs. We think the joint venture will help deliver the best deals.”

EBCE and other CCAs have set climate goals that are more aggressive than the state mandate to achieve a 100% clean energy grid by 2045. Many CCAs already meet or exceed state mandates for eligible renewable resources and some have set targets to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2030, or match supply with load on a 24/7 basis with renewable or carbon-free generation. California CCAs have done this while saving their customers tens of millions of dollars annually on their utility bills, developing thousands of megawatts of new wind and solar power projects, and developing and offering innovative energy programs.

Under the new joint structure, individual members are not obligated to participate in every procurement or joint project. Each CCA will be represented by their CEO or other designee on the board of directors, which will operate as a public entity with open and transparent meetings. The opt-in structure safeguards members from additional liabilities so there is no added risk for the members. Each CCA maintains its community-driven, local autonomy to meet the needs of their customers and region.

More information will be available on the California Community Power website (cacommunitypower.org), which is currently under development.