The Clean Energy Alliance rolls out a rate relief program for its customers in North County – San Diego Union-Tribune

The board of the Clean Energy Alliance, the community choice energy program serving seven municipalities in North County, voted 7-0 on Thursday to adopt a $10.6 million rate relief credit for its customers.

The move comes in the wake of a sharp increase in state-mandated exit fees that the Clean Energy Alliance will pay San Diego Gas & Electric in 2026. The credit goes into effect on Feb. 1 and runs through the rest of this year.

“I think this is a very challenging time” for customers, said board member María Nuñez, who’s also on the San Marcos City Council. “I continue to receive a lot of concern from residents and how difficult it is for them to try to pay their necessities, their high rent and their utilities.”

The Clean Energy Alliance is one of 25 community choice aggregation, or CCA, entities that have sprung up across California in recent years that purchase power for their respective municipalities.

The California Public Utilities Commission requires CCA customers to pay a fee each month to the traditional utility in their respective areas — in the Clean Energy Alliance’s case it’s SDG&E. The exit fee is formally called the “power charge indifference adjustment,” or PCIA.

The PCIA is assessed to offset the costs the incumbent utility has spent over the years on things such as building power plants and developing renewable energy projects. The fee is charged on a per kilowatt-hour basis, and customers can see the amount they pay by looking at their monthly bill, under the listing “PCIA.”

SDG&E has increased the Clean Energy Alliance’s PCIA rate by 4.8 cents per kilowatt-hour this year, across all of its rate classes.

To help soften the blow, the rate relief credit approved by the board Thursday will reduce the per-kilowatt rate for residential customers enrolled in the alliance’s Clean Impact program by 3.8 cents per kilowatt-hour.

CEA’s lowest priced offering, Clean Impact pledges to have a power portfolio comprised of 50% renewable energy sources. SDG&E’s renewable mix is 41.4%.

The credit works out to a savings of $13.07 per month, compared to what Clean Impact customers would have paid had the measure not been put in place.

The credit, however, does not apply to customers in CEA’s two other higher-priced offerings — Clean Impact Plus, which pencils out to 50% renewable and 75% carbon-free power, and Green Impact that boasts 100% renewable energy content.

Clean Impact Plus is the agency’s default program and the overwhelming majority of CEA customers are enrolled in it.

If customers want to opt down to Clean Impact, they can do so by going to the CEA website at thecleanenergyalliance.org/clean-impact/.

“It’s as easy as a couple of clicks, or they can call our customer service center,” said Greg Wade, CEA’s chief executive officer. Customer service can be reached from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays at (833) 232-3110.

A slide presentation at Thursday’s meeting broke down the credit’s financial impacts.

By CEA’s reckoning, customers who get all of their services from SDG&E — called “bundled customers” in utility parlance — and consume an average of 361 kilowatt-hours per month pay $174.25 this year.

With the rate relief credit, Clean Impact customers in Oceanside and Vista will save $2.80 per month compared to SDG&E’s bundled customers and those in Escondido and San Marcos will pay $2.16 less.  Customers in Solana Beach will save 10 cents, while those in Carlsbad and Del Mar will pay the same as SDGE’s bundled customers.

While the price differentials are small, Wade pointed to the fact that Clean Impact’s 50% renewable standard is almost 9 percentage points higher than SDG&E’s. “I think that’s our messaging,” he said. “A 50% renewable product, and we’re moving in the direction of cleaner energy ,and we have other programs customers can take advantage of.”

Establishing the credit, CEA staff projected, will not crimp the agency’s bottom line or hinder its creditworthiness.

“We’ve been able to develop a rate relief program that addresses the most vulnerable members of our service territory, while also maintaining a strong financial position,” said CEA board chair Katie Melendez, who’s also on the Vista City Council.

The board also approved a 6.9% rate reduction for CEA’s 261 agricultural customers, regardless of whether they are enrolled in the Clean Impact, Clean Impact Plus or Green Impact programs.

The Clean Energy Alliance serves more than 255,000 customer accounts in Carlsbad, Del Mar, Escondido, Oceanside, San Marcos, Solana Beach and Vista.