Open Season

The Marin Energy Authority's Open Season procurement process is underway until March 1 2013. They are accepting applications for renewable electricity (compliant with the CEC's Renewables Portfolio Standard) production in the following buckets:

• 28,000 MWh in 2014
• 50,000 MWh in 2017
• 44,000 MWh of unbundled Renewable Energy Credits (REC) in 2014

Biomass power producers may be able to negotiate a higher purchase price with MEA than with IOUs.

Marin Energy Authority

The Marin Energy Authority (MEA) is the not-for-profit public agency formed by the County of Marin and all of Marin's cities and towns. The MEA was formed to provide residents in the Marin County area the ability to define electricity procurement for the service area. This means that all decisions about power procurement (renewables portfolio, rates, etc) are made by MEA through a public process and not by the Investor Owned Utility, in this case, Pacific Gas and Electric. MEA administers a "utility company", Marin Clean Energy (MCE) program.  MEA serves 90,000 ratepayers and will expand to 120,000 with the inclusion of the City of Richmond in 2013. MCE is California's first Community Choice Aggregator.

Whats a CCA you might ask?

According to the California Local Government Commission:

Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), as defined by AB 117, permits any city, county or city and county to aggregate the electric loads of residents, businesses and municipal facilities to facilitate the purchase and sale of electrical energy. Prior to AB 117, individual customer participation in electric load aggregation programs required their positive written declaration indicating their choice to participate (opt-in programs). In contrast, CCA under AB 117 provides for aggregating customer loads within city or county boundaries, but each customer is given an opportunity to leave their community's aggregation program and thereby continue to be served by the incumbent distribution utility (opt-out program). If a customer makes no negative declaration, that customer is served through the CCA program. This is a major departure from previous aggregation structures as it frees the aggregator from the need to market the program and ensures wide-scale customer participation.

In short this means that PG&E is still responsible for delivery and billing but MCE contracts with power producers to meet the MEA's procurement targets. MCE has a nice overview of the system:

MEA's current procurement portfolio is over 50% renewable, with the bulk coming from hydroelectric generators.

MEA estimates that its rates for residential customers are less than for customers opting out of the CCA.