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| San Diego is close to the large geothermal energy resources at the Salton Sea |
San Diego on Thursday took another step in the lengthy process of establishing a community choice aggregation market for city residents and businesses, as the city's Sustainable Energy Advisory Board voted to send a feasibility study completed in July to the city council with a recommendation to move forward on its action points.
Under community choice, a city government or nonprofit takes over the role of buying and selling power, while the local utility maintains control and maintenance responsibility for transmission of that power, collecting a fee for doing so. Residents who wish to opt out of the program and continue buying power directly from the utility have an option to do so. Advocates say that such a choice puts downward pressure on electric costs while increasing the amount of renewable power on the grid at a rate faster than utilities are currently ramping up reliance on solar, wind, and geothermal generation.
Community Choice Aggregation in California - An Opportunity for the Geothermal Industry [July/August 2016 Bulletin] by Paul Brophy, Past-President, Geothermal Resources Council, and Vice-Chair, Business Operations Committee, Sonoma Clean Power.