Tenacity pays off for SLO Clean Energy

Some day when you turn on your computer and it is powered by locally generated 100% renewable energy, you will have Mladen Bandov, Eric Veium, Scott Mann and June Cochran to thank. After years of hard work, these four tireless and dedicated members of the SLO Clean Energy Leadership Team have finally gotten the attention of San Luis Obispo city leaders, who voted unanimously last week to pursue exploring Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), a program that allows communities to purchase alternative energy for their citizens as an option to what is currently being offered by the local utility company. SLO joins Morro Bay, who approved exploring a CCA in 2013.

CCA legislation was passed in California in 2003 and the first operating CCA launched in Marin County in 2008. Sonoma County’s CCA went online last year and other counties in California exploring the concept include Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Diego and Santa Barbara. SLO Clean Energy has been touting the concept to SLO County leaders and city councils throughout the county since 2012. At the suggestion of the local Sierra Club chapter, Ecologistics invited experts in the California CCA movement to participate in a panel discussion at the 2012 Central Coast Bioneers Conference about the benefits of CCA. Those experts stayed on to speak to community leaders at meet-ups arranged by SLO Clean Energy.

A SLO CCA wouldn’t replace PG&E as your electricity provider. Instead, residents of communities that have adopted a CCA model would be allowed to choose between purchasing their energy from the CCA or from PG&E. SLO Clean Energy would be working hard to procure up to 100% clean, renewable energy as an option for customers. The energy would cost approximately the same as what you could get from PG&E, and any profits generated would stay in the community to begin building local solar and other alternative energy projects and creating green jobs rather than going into the pockets of utility shareholders. PG&E would continue to deliver the energy to your home or business and would continue to perform billing and collection functions.

For more information about SLO Clean Energy and how you can help make locally controlled clean energy a reality in our communities, click here