California and other states need a way to capture the environmental and economic benefits of community solar. Other states have found a way. California’s CCE industry should ask the California legislature to consider allowing California CCEs to use all or a portion of annual CPUC mandated PCIA charges to put local renewable projects on an equal economic footing with projects that require new high voltage transmission capacity to deliver electricity locally. This will increase CCE capacity and flexibility to address local energy resilience needs and to provide equitable access locally to the environmental and economic benefits of solar electricity.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has been tasked by the Colorado legislature to recommend whether and how to implement Community Choice Energy (CCE).
California’s CCE experience has been rich in diversity and local/state decarbonization impact. California CCE generation portfolios are on track to become fully decarbonized in the next few years. The California CCE model was conceived and adopted two decades ago. It exploits economic options available at the time but allows little flexibility to capture economic, environmental and energy resilience benefits of local supply and infrastructure investment.
Nevertheless, Colorado and other states can adapt and expand California’s CCE model to facilitate 21st century energy policy implementation. Specific adaptations can result in greater reliance on local renewable electricity sources and electrification of local transportation. By adopting them Colorado can take CCE to the next level of public benefits and impact.
If Colorado adopts community choice, it should set a high bar for future local energy collaboration and fair cost responsibilities. This will give Colorado communities a much better way to meet energy and climate challenges of the 21st century.
California has ramped up a seventy-six billion dollar investment in all types of solar generation capacity over the past decade. California’s retail solar industry enabled half of the total investment. Rooftop solar has been a bright spot for California’s renewable energy transition even as state regulators and California utilities continue to make other energy democracy enablers - community choice, community solar, community microgrids - hard or impossible to finance.
Regulators are now considering rule changes that impose punitive “grid access” fees on rooftop solar adoption, plus drastic reductions in compensation for electricity that feeds into the grid from rooftop solar arrays. The future of energy democracy in California hangs in the balance.
[1] The proposed CPUC decision is not accompanied by case studies indicating how it will work out for ratepayers.
Expansion of local renewable supply is key to more timely, just, and safe state and national renewable energy transitions. US cities and counties should encourage private investment in local solar energy production because it enables faster local decarbonization and energy resilience; it also strengthens local economies in many ways. Community solar and renewable fuel production makes local energy transitions not only timely but also equitable. Local decarbonization and energy resilience progress requires technically and economically informed planning, which in turn requires greatly expanded collaboration among local governments, energy utilities and local businesses, including energy equipment contractors and retailers, fuel distributors, and major local employers.
Climate action and adaptation is a relatively new local planning consideration. It can strengthen local economies, create local jobs, increase county and city tax revenues, and improve essential services. Local planning is essential because of major local differences that cause big deviations from statewide average energy usage patterns, transportation infrastructure, renewable resource opportunities, environmental concerns, and demographics. One action plan does not fit all.
Collaboration between local governments and energy utilities to remove barriers and enable investment in local renewable supply is limited or lacking in most of the US. Meanwhile, many communities, states and countries now recognize and acknowledge the escalating global climate emergency. In a nautical context, the response to emergencies is “all hands on deck”. An all hands on deck response to climate emergency will require local government engagement in energy projects and programs.
Electricity distribution asset ownership would allow communities to enjoy the benefits of public power and have more robust options for local decarbonization and climate adaptation. In California, many communities already enjoy the benefits of public power, based on decisions taken in decades past. Headwinds to future decisions for public power include asset prices in the same range as local jurisdiction annual budgets. More subtle and perhaps more daunting barriers include the need to provide for a seamless transition from private to public power while managing transformative technical and market change.
Europe is changing its energy service game to enable both local climate action and collaboration. Meanwhile, NGOs and energy consultants in Europe and the US are stepping up to the task of collecting and disseminating program statistics and organizing them according to program goals and project types.
Renewable Energy Communities. Are 21st century energy utilities natural monopolies, public service providers, enablers of community renewable energy, or all the above? We think all the above.
The EU seems to agree.
For-profit California electric utilities charge high prices and take minimal climate action. Three state-regulated for-profits, PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E, charge two to three times more for the electricity they deliver than large city regulated counterparts charge. The giant for-profits aim for carbon neutrality in 2040 or 2045. Large locally regulated electric utilities, SMUD and LADWP, aim for carbon neutrality by 2030 or 2035.