By Khalida Sarwari
There were a lot of different voices offering opinions on the city of Saratoga’s involvement in the newly formed Silicon Valley Community Choice Energy Partnership at a Saratoga City Council meeting in late January, but the voices were in sync. Still, there weren’t enough voices from the community.
Mayor Manny Cappello made that observation following a presentation by Melody Tovar, an expert on the group whose mission is to buy clean energy to deliver to local homes and businesses via PG&E transmission lines.
“Where does the community stand relative to the various options that we have before us?” Cappello asked. “With that type of information, from each of our residents and each of our cities that are engaged in this program, I think as a JPA we can then implement a program that serves the concerns and the interests of our community.”
Those who’ve done their research on the community choice program are convinced there are numerous benefits and few drawbacks to joining the partnership, advocates say. Community choice programs allow cities and towns to purchase renewable or low greenhouse gas-emitting energy at competitive rates. Once power is purchased, it would be delivered by PG&E, which means customers would still receive a PG&E bill with community choice charges bundled in. PG&E would continue to maintain and repair power lines and provide customer service.
All else aside, the most advantageous aspect of the program is that it gives residents a choice, said Vice Mayor Emily Lo. Residents and businesses could opt out of the program and return to PG&E at any time.
“Even though the electricity grid and service remains with PG&E–and depending on the scenario chosen, we may or may not see a considerable savings–it’s about choice,” Lo said. “I think our residents would like to see that choice being offered to them, in addition to having the opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
It was a point highlighted also by Cupertino City Councilman Rod Sinks during the public hearing.
“We are better off bringing competition to PG&E,” Sinks said. “We get a much better result. Competition is a healthy thing. We’re not talking about taking on the wires, just the sourcing of electricity.”
The partnership was formed following the state’s mandate that municipalities achieve a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Saratoga Councilman Howard Miller pointed out that the community choice concept helps achieve that goal faster and more efficiently.
“It does, through sort of market forces, what the government is trying to legislate to the utilities, which is to move to greener energy,” Miller said. “This gives us the ability to not have to wait for PG&E to figure out how to source and or build greener solutions.”
With the council’s unanimous vote on Jan. 20 in favor of pursuing the consumer choice option, Saratoga joins the cities of Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Morgan Hill and Mountain View in moving a step closer to joining the partnership.
The group was formed last year with seed money from Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Mountain View and Santa Clara County that was used to determine the program’s viability. Saratoga’s initial share of the cost will be $150,000.
To learn more about the partnership, visit svcleanenergy.org.
Link: Mayor asking where residents stand on Community Choice plan
