USA, California: Community Choice Aggregators Playing Larger Role in Golden State’s Rapidly Evolving Energy System

Dissecting the Role of Community Choice Aggregators in California’s Integrated Resource Plan (Greentech Media)

Last week, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) unanimously approved a major decision in its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) proceeding. Launched in 2015, the IRP is the state’s first effort to guide the procurement of a long-term generation mix that will cost-effectively hit the state’s greenhouse gas and renewable energy goals while maintaining grid reliability.

The most notable part of the CPUC’s decision may be just how much of the state’s future generation will come from entities that barely existed 10 years ago — community choice aggregators, or CCAs. According to the CPUC, by 2030, investor-owned utilities (IOUs), along with a presumably minor contribution from electric service providers (ESPs) serving the state’s commercial-industrial customer Direct Access market, “propose to invest in approximately 1,000 megawatts of new resources by 2030.” Meanwhile, “CCAs in aggregate propose more than 10,000 megawatts.”

The California Community Choice Association (CalCCA) highlighted this 10-gigawatt figure in its press release on the IRP decision this week, calling it “a major vote of confidence in the critical role CCAs are playing in California’s rapidly evolving energy system.”

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Community Choice Aggregation in California - An Opportunity for the Geothermal Industry [July/August 2016 Bulletin] by Paul Brophy, Past-President, Geothermal Resources Council, and Community Advisory Committee, Sonoma Clean Power.