EBCE Launches With Half A Million Customers

EBCE set a record when it started serving 500,000 residential customers in Alameda county in November, making it — at least temporarily — the largest community choice aggregator (CCA) in California. (Clean Power Alliance in Southern California will take that mantle in early 2019 when they launch.)

The switchover itself set a record — the largest single switch of customers from an investor-owned utility to a CCA. The handoff went smoothly and residential customers begin receiving charges from EBCE this month. This is in addition to the 50,000 non-residential accounts that EBCE has served since June 2018.

But we are still spreading the word about EBCE’s cleaner and greener power, making sure our new customers are aware of the change. One way we are doing that is through town hall events we hosted in Livermore, San Lorenzo, Hayward, and Fremont.

But we are planning more, including a Spanish language event with the Unity Council and a Chinese language event in Oakland’s Chinatown. To learn the exact dates and locations when they are announced, sign up for our email list.

To celebrate our kickoff, we hosted a launch party on December 3 at Impact Hub Oakland. Notable guests included our board members Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin, Oakland City Council Member Dan Kalb, Emeryville City Council Member Dianne Martinez, and our board chair and Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty. (See his Faces of EBCE profile to learn more about Scott.)

The gathering heard short speeches from the chair and vice chair of our Community Advisory Committee, Anne Olivia Eldred, from the California Nurses Association, and Megan O’Neil, with the Local Clean Energy Alliance.

California Energy Commissioner David Hochschild also came. “Our mission at the CEC is to make California’s energy system clean, reliable and affordable,” he told the group. “We look forward to working with EBCE as a partner in achieving that goal.”