-May 2,2020-
Power authority plans 2 month rate cut
The Board of the Monterey Bay Community Power Authority is expected to vote to change their name to Central Coast Community Energy reflecting a growth in the membership of cities and counties along the Central Coast of California. The new name will be approved at a JPA board meeting June 3, 2020 and in place after September.
As of December 2019 the joint powers authority had enrolled the counties of Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz and the cities of Capitola, Carmel, Gonzales, Greenfield, Hollister, Marina, Monterey, Morro Bay, Pacific Grove, Salinas,San Juan Bautista, San Luis Obispo, Sand City, Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, Seaside,Soledad and Watsonville.
Monterey Bay Community Power (MBCP) is a Community Choice Energy agency established by local communities to source carbon-free electricity for Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties and now parts of San Luis Obispo county while retaining PG&E’s traditional role delivering power and maintaining electric infrastructure.
The authority describes itself as a locally controlled not-for-profit it says provides cleaner energy at a lower cost, supporting low-income rate payers, and funding local renewable energy projects.
Southern expansion
Early next year the authority plans an expansion into Santa Barbara and SLO Counties to include a wider service area – the County of Santa Barbara, cities of Arroyo Grande, Carpinteria, Del Rey Oaks, Goleta, Grover Beach, Guadalupe, Paso Robles, Pismo Beach, Santa Maria and Solvang.
Altogether the authority has grown to 32 member agencies across the Central Coast says spokesperson Shelly Whitworth.”We are thrilled to continue our expansion..” she adds.In their two years of operations there has been over $17 million in customer savings claims Whitworth, based on lower rates than PG&E.
Rate cut in works
Looking to give residents and businesses an additional break on their power bill due to the widespread impact of the COVID-19 crisis the non-profit authority plans to allow customers to pay a reduced amount for their electrical generation in May and June amounting to a cut of 50%.Also customer bills for those two months will be reduced an additional fraction by the CPUC those months.The rate cut will be on your May and June bills.
New power agreements
The board recently signed several new renewable power agreements, 2 geothermal and two solar projects including energy storage.
Geothermal will now be 11% of the load- boost on the authority’s ability to replace so called peaker plants with continuous energy supplied by these 24/7 geothermal operations.
-Approved in January 2020: Ormat Mammoth Casa Diablo IV geothermal PPA is to receive 7 MW of geothermal renewable energy from a new construction project with a 10-year term, located in Mono County, has a not to exceed amount of $42,400,000 and will serve about 1% of the local power load
-Approved in April 2020: Coso geothermal PPA is to receive a share of an existing 130 MW geothermal project with a 15-year term, located in Inyo County, has a not to exceed amount of $496,000,000 and will serve about 8% of the local load.
-Approved in April 2020: First Solar Rabbitbrush Solar plus Storage PPA is to receive 60 MW of Solar PV renewable energy plus use of a 12 MW lithium-ion battery energy storage system from a new construction project with a 15-year term, located in Kern County, has a not to exceed amount of $97,000,000 and will serve about 3% of the local load.
-The fourth approved power agreement(PPA) was the result of the Battery RFO. Recurrent Energy offered to upsize the RE Slate battery at an attractive price and was thus selected as part of this competitive process. Given that this project was being shared with SVCE under existing PPAs, they were brought into the subsequent negotiations.
Approved in February 2020, Recurrent RE Slate Solar plus Storage PPA is to receive 67.5 MW of Solar PV renewable energy plus use of a 33.75 MW lithium-ion battery energy storage system from a new construction project with a 17-year term, located in Kings County, has a not to exceed price of $145,000,000 and will serve about 3.5% of the local load.