First CA county where residents & businesses can choose clean electricity (Marin Clean Energy Program), 2010
Marin County, CA
Marin Clean Energy Rates Cost Comparisons. Photo from Marin Clean Energy.
HOW IT CAN BENEFIT YOU
The largest source of pollution from greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in the U.S. is from burning fossil fuels for electricity.
Many Californians switched to clean energy providers when California deregulated the energy market in 1997. After the energy crisis of 2000 to 2001, California did not allow consumer choice. In 2002, it allowed Community Choice Aggregation (CCA). Marin Clean Energy (MCE) was California’s first CCA program, which started in 2010.
Marin residents and businesses are automatically enrolled, and choose 50% or 100% clean energy, 100% clean energy from local solar panels, or stay with PG&E which only has 27% clean energy.
A small business might save $135 annually.
MCE will pay you above market rate if you sell power from your solar panels. That's what San Rafael Airport did when they put 5,000 solar panels on 48 existing aircraft hangar rooftops. And so they became the largest solar power project in Marin County, thanks to the MCE Feed-In-Tariff (FIT).
MCE powers buildings with solar, wind, bioenergy, geothermal and hydroelectric energy from northern California, Oregon and Washington.
WHY IT'S A LEADING PROGRAM
MCE was Calfirnia's first CCA program.
GOAL
Watch a short video on how MCE creates green jobs in CA, reduces pollution, and saves water.
WHO CAN TAKE ACTION
Residents and businesses.
OUTCOME
Because of MCE, customers:
- Supported more than 2,400 green, union jobs in CA.
- Reduced enough pollution that is equivalent to eliminating electricity use for 5,422 homes for a year.
- Saved over five millions gallons of water since 2013.
As of May 2015, it serves 125,000 customers in Marin County, parts of Napa County, and the cities of Benicia, El Cerrito, Richmond and San Pablo.
ISSUES & BARRIERS
In 2010, PG&E spent $35 million to halt CCA through Proposition 16. The measure would have required CCA programs to get a two-thirds vote of approval from citizens. It was defeated.
BUDGET TO COORDINATE THE PROGRAM
MCE uses no tax dollars. The MCE Implementation Plan can tell you more about their organization structure and budget.
CONTACT
Omar Pena, Project Coordinator, Marin County, (415) 507-2797, opena@marin.cc.ca.us
LAST UPDATED
September 11, 2015