Council to Look at Green Power for El Cerrito

As part of a long-term effort to reduce the community's carbon footprint, El Cerrito is considering a public power system that would bypass PG&E's standard electricity sources in favor of exclusively green power.

The City Council on Tuesday will hear a presentation from Marin Clean Energy, a state leader in implementing alternative energy purchasing, also known as "community choice aggregation," or CCA.

"We scheduled this presentation at this time for information only," said Melanie Mintz, the city's environmental services manager. "CCA comes up often as cities discuss ways to meet their Climate Action targets and will be one of the potential measures identified in the upcoming draft Climate Action Plan, to be released in October/November for review."

El Cerrito has been working on a Climate Action Plan to develop ways the city government, residents and businesses can help curb greenhouse gases. The council last year approved goals of reducing greenhouse gases in the city by 15 percent by 2020 and 30 percent by 2035, using 2005 as the base year.

Alternatives to exclusive reliance on PG&E can range from a city or county taking over the entire power system or just part of it, such as chosing the suppliers. In the latter case, PG&E remains responsible for delivering the power and customer service, including billing. 

In El Cerrito, PG&E handles all three main areas: power purchase, transmission and customer service. At the other end of the spectrum is Palo Alto, for example, which runs all three areas of its power system.

In the Marin Clean Energy community aggregation plan, Marin Clean Energy handles the purchase of power, while PG&E continues to maintain transmission lines and provide customer service. This allows Marin Clean Energy to buy energy produced by solar, wind, hydro and other green sources and to offer customers a choice between 50 percent renewable power or 100 percent renewable power.

By contrast, PG&E offers a 20-percent renewable power plan, according to a Marin Clean Energy comparison contained in a report in the council meeting packet. The report is attached to this article.

The Marin Clean Energy program currently serves about 95,000 customers.

Community energy control has been an issue in a number of California communities since the passage in 2002 of AB 117, which strengthened the power of local jurisdictions to adopt community choice aggregation.

In San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors last week approved a CleanPowerSF program to allow the city to buy green energy and offer 100 percent renewable power to customers at a premium. Mayor Ed Lee returned the legislation unsigned, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday, but the 8-3 supervisors vote was enough to override a veto.

Customers may opt out of community action plans if they chose.

Scheduled to deliver the council presentation at the regular 7 p.m. Tuesday meeting are Dawn Weisz, executive director of Marin Clean Energy, and Adam Lenz, sustainability coordinator for the City of Richmond. 

"This is just an informational presentation, but it helps bring the dialogue to El Cerrito," according to a memo to the city's Environmental Quality Committee from Maria Sanders, an environmental analyst with the city.

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