By Jason Fordney
California regulators are set to vote next month on a proposal that community choice aggregators (CCAs) be subject to the resource adequacy requirements of electric utilities.
The California Public Utilities Commission’s approval would require CCAs to comply with resource adequacy rules “in order to ensure that sufficient energy supply for customers is being procured by the appropriate utility.”
The proposal modifies the timelines for the creation of CCAs so that they are coordinated with the annual CPUC and CAISO resource adequacy and reliability programs. It would require CCAs to submit to a process that includes a timeline for submission of implementation plans; a ‘meet and confer’ requirement between the CCA and the incumbent utility that can be triggered by either; a registration packet including a CCA’s service agreement and bond; and a commission-authorized date to begin service.
It also calls for “universal access” to CCAs, equitable treatment of all customers and compliance with state laws regarding aggregated service. All prospective and expanding CCAs would be subject to the requirements for implementation plans received after Dec. 8, 2017.
CCAs are growing rapidly, creating some controversy over the stranded costs for regular utility customers. California legislators expressed surprise last summer when they were told that utility customers will be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term energy contracts procured by investor-owned utilities for customers who have departed for CCAs. (See California CCAs Spur Worry of Regulatory Crisis.)
The idea has been embraced by cities surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area that promote CCAs as “green” electricity programs. It was municipalities in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas that lobbied for CCAs in response to a failed deregulation effort that in part caused the Western Energy Crisis of 2000/01. AB 117, enacted in 2002, allows local governments to form CCAs by aggregating retail customers and securing electricity supply contracts to serve them. CCAs also exist in Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Illinois.
Pacific Gas and Electric, which has opposed CCAs, argued to state lawmakers in August that about $180 million has been shifted from CCA customers to IOU customers — an amount it said will grow to $500 million by 2020.
California CCAs include Apple Valley Choice Energy, CleanPower San Francisco, Lancaster Choice Energy, Marin Clean Energy, Peninsula Clean Energy in San Mateo County, Redwood Coast Energy Authority, Silicon Valley Clean Energy and Sonoma Clean Power.
