Community Choice Energy, one of the five working groups of the Berkeley Climate Action Coalition, is focused on bringing more renewable energy options to Berkeley and the East Bay. This working group has been active for the past year, developing plans for a Community Choice Aggregation program.
What is Community Choice Aggregation?
Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) programs allow local governments to choose their energy sources while continuing to use PG&E’s established grid and transmission lines. The benefit of these programs is to provide more renewable and/or local energy mix choices to customers, while keeping utility bills comparable to what PG&E customers pay. In Marin County, which established it’s CCA program in 2010, residential customers payed $93.51 per month for 50% renewable energy mix, compared to $89.66 for PG&E’s 20% renewable energy mix. Marin Clean Energy, the non-profit that administers Marin’s CCA, has also been able to jumpstart small-scale energy generation projects in Marin, boosting local green jobs. Read on for details about CCA prospects in the East Bay, and how you can get involved.
What about CCA in the East Bay?
With San Francisco and Sonoma set to bring their own CCA programs online next year, advocates in the East Bay have been working to get the ball rolling for the cities of Berkeley, Oakland, Albany and Emeryville. One possible route, an EBMUD-led CCA for their service area, was nixed in December when the EBMUD board rejected the plan. It is now up to these individual cities to decide their next step. To read more about this decision, and the options on the table for cities, read this article in the East Bay Express, or this article in the San Jose Mercury News. The Community Choice Energy working group welcomes participants to help with this effort in Berkeley! To get involved, contact Debra Berliner: debra@ecologycenter.org, (510) 548-2220 x 240.
[Photo by gregoirevdb]
