California community choice aggregators form joint powers authority

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
February 10, 2021

Eight community choice aggregators (CCAs) in California are joining forces to form a joint powers authority (JPA) that will allow the CCAs to combine their buying power to procure new, cost-effective clean energy and reliability resources, the CCAs said on Feb. 8.

The CCAs forming the JPA, which is called California Community Power, represent 2.6 million customer accounts and 6.6 million people across more than 140 municipalities spanning from Humboldt County to Santa Barbara County.

The CCAs serve a combined annual load of 32,600 gigawatt hours, which represents about 40% of PG&E’s annual electric load.

The member CCAs include: Central Coast Community Energy, East Bay Community Energy, MCE, Peninsula Clean Energy, Redwood Coast Energy Authority, San José Clean Energy, Silicon Valley Clean Energy and Sonoma Clean Power. CleanPowerSF is pursuing membership.

The CCAs said that additional benefits of the new JPA include enhanced negotiating power, larger renewable and storage project procurement, shared risk mitigation, and increased opportunities for innovation, as demonstrated by the first, major joint procurement for 500 megawatts (MWs) of long-duration energy storage.

The long-duration Request for Offers seeks a minimum 10-year contract for grid-charged technologies to come online by or before 2026 with a discharge period of at least eight hours. The solicitation is currently in the project evaluation stage.

Under the JPA structure, individual members will not be obligated to participate in every procurement or joint project.

The CCAs said that the JPA structure safeguards members from additional liabilities so there is no added risk for the members.

The American Public Power Association has initiated a new category of membership for community choice aggregation programs.