Five years since launching, the Clean Energy Alliance gave an update to the Del Mar City Council on June 2 about enrollment statistics, affordability and programs to reduce carbon emissions.
Since it began serving residences and business, CEA has grown to seven member cities including Del Mar, Solana Beach and Carlsbad.
Clean Energy Alliance has 867 customers in Clean Impact, 254,619 in Clean Impact Plus, and 1,463 in Green Impact, for a total of almost 257,000 accounts.
The Clean Impact Plus plan, which is the default that customers are enrolled into, offers customers 55% renewable and 75% carbon free energy.
Across all seven cities in the Clean Energy Alliance, there is a 93% participation rate. Residential and business customers were automatically enrolled in the default CEA plan, with options to switch to the Clean Impact or Green Impact plans or opt out altogether and remain with San Diego Gas & Electric. About 88% of CEA customers are residential.
“The thing I also want to highlight here is that we have one of, if not the highest solar photovoltaic system absorption not only in the county but in the state,” said Greg Wade, CEO of the Clean Energy Alliance. “Twenty-three percent of all our customer accounts are enrolled in a solar program net energy metering. That’s a really high percentage, and we are seeing in the middle of our day, during particularly springtime, where we have zero load being served because we are so high in solar absorption.”
On affordability, the Clean Energy Alliance Board of Directors approved rate relief measures in response to an increase to a state-mandated Power Charge Indifference Adjustment rate.
“One of the keys there was we wanted to retain as many customers as possible,” said Del Mar City Councilmember John Spelich, who also represents the city on the CEA board. “We didn’t want people opting out of CEA because CEA is actually driving toward an investment-grade credit rating in the next three years, and that makes a big difference in what it costs you to buy electricity going forward, so it was really crucial to hang on to those customers.”
Other features include a recently implemented incentive finder tool that connects customers with programs that can help reduce carbon emissions.
Wade also highlighted other CEA projects, including battery storage.
“From the inception of Community Choice Aggregation programs, there was a criticism that CCAs don’t build their own energy,” Wade said. “While we don’t build it, we certainly contract and create the new building of renewable energy resources.”