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Highlights this month include: Stockton to join EBCE in 2024, our first ever social media cooking contest, Resilient Home participants delivering energy back to the grid during the heatwave, and an exciting new energy efficiency program. Plus, you’ll be receiving your California Climate Credit on your October bill. |
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 Photo: City of Stockton.
Following unanimous votes by the City Council and EBCE's Board of Directors, Stockton will join EBCE
The Stockton City Council voted unanimously to join EBCE at their September 13 meeting, and EBCE’s Board of Directors voted unanimously to accept the City of Stockton into their Joint Powers Authority at their meeting on September 21.
Stockton will become EBCE’s second-largest city – after the City of Oakland – when it officially initiates its community choice program in 2024. To date, EBCE serves more than 1.7 million residents and businesses throughout Alameda County and the City of Tracy.
“Not only is community choice energy an example of democracy at work, but it also provides a sustainable, ongoing channel of resources into our city,” said Stockton City Councilmember Dan Wright. “This is about more than just lowering emissions; this will boost our economic development and resilience for the long term.”
The addition of Stockton advances EBCE’s mission to scale renewable energy and further diversifies its customer base so it can support more low- to medium-income households, many of which can benefit from the range of programs EBCE offers to provide incentives for adopting clean energy options. EBCE is poised to see an annual load increase of 20% and an increase in accounts by 17% with the addition of City of Stockton customers.
“EBCE works closely with our communities in the East Bay and Central Valley to power everything better,” said Nick Chaset, CEO at East Bay Community Energy. “We hope this inspires more municipalities, in California and beyond, to form or join local community choice energy programs that bring the advantage of lower prices, greener energy, and more equitable energy access.”
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We’re launching our first ever Clean Cooking social media contest to spread the word about induction cooking! It's easy to participate, and you might just win an induction cooktop.
You can learn more about the contest and see complete rules and guidelines here.
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Photo: Resilient Home solar-plus-battery system.
During last month’s heatwave, EBCE customers delivered 55 megawatt-hours to the grid during peak usage
For the past two years, EBCE and Sunrun have been installing new solar + battery systems and enrolled more than 1,000 single-family homes in Alameda County and Tracy into EBCE’s Resilient Home program. Resilient Home customers are compensated for dispatching their battery energy in a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) that reduces EBCE’s peak demand, improves the resilience of the local power grid, and insulates customers from the impacts of power outages.
According to data from Sunrun, a leading home solar, battery storage, and energy services provider, the company delivered 1.1 gigawatt-hours of energy back to California's grid during peak demand hours of 4-9 p.m. from September 1-8, including 55 megawatt-hours from nearly 1,000 solar + battery system customers in EBCE territory, underscoring the incredible value distributed energy provides.
For context, 1 megawatt-hour is roughly the amount of electricity used by ~330 homes during one hour. 55 megawatt-hours, as were delivered back to the grid from solar + battery systems in EBCE’s service territory, therefore roughly equals the power needed for 18,000 homes in one hour.
In addition to this energy delivery back to the grid from solar + battery systems and backup generators, Californians rallied together to conserve during Flex Alerts which allowed California’s grid to operate smoothly. If you’re not signed up for Flex Alerts, learn more here.
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It's been 20 years since California Assembly Bill 117 passed! AB117, written by State Assemblymember Carole Migden, allowed communities to create publicly-operated, not-for-profit Community Choice Aggregation programs. Watch the video celebrating California's CCA story here.
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 Photo: Reviewing your energy bill.
A credit of $39.30 will be added to your October energy bills
Every Spring and Fall residential customers (and qualifying small businesses) will see a line item on their energy bill called the “California Climate Credit.” The October credit is usually an electricity credit, and the April credit is often for natural gas. This credit is your share of a state program that requires power plants, natural gas distributors, and other large industries that emit greenhouse gasses to buy carbon pollution permits. The program is part of the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (Assembly Bill 32), which was instituted to reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The credit is delivered to you by your utility company, though the money comes from the state. Every eligible EBCE customer will receive the same amount ($39.30 in 2022), regardless of energy usage, and the credit is the same amount regardless of whether the customer is on EBCE service or not. The credit will be applied automatically to your bill.
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Executive Committee | 10/28 at 12pm
Financial, Administrative, and Procurement | 11/4 at 10am
Marketing, Regulatory, and Legislative | 11/4 at 12pm
Community Advisory Committee | 11/14 at 6pm*
Board of Directors | 11/16 at 6pm*
*Please note: Board of Directors Meetings & Community Advisory Committee Meetings are now held in a hybrid format.
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