By 4-0 vote, panel pushes Benicia closer to joining Marin Clean Energy

Benicia City Council unanimously agreed Tuesday night to take the next steps necessary to join the Marin Clean Energy community choice aggregation power supply agency.

They didn’t take the responsibility lightly. But Councilmember Alan Schwartzman, who said he had had many questions about the move, concluded, “What’s the worst thing that could happen? We would end up back at PG&E.”

That remark, coming at the end of lengthy public, staff and Marin Clean Energy (MCE) testimony, brought laughter and applause from the audience. “I’m fine with taking the risk,” Schwartzman added.

Vice Mayor Tom Campbell said he had had concerns, too. “I go into something asking, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’”

He said he walked into Tuesday’s meeting pondering how he would vote. On one hand, he said, if the MCE model is good, “it will be around.” He crunched the cost numbers on his own, comparing projected rate increases by Pacific Gas and Electric with what could be annual changes in MCE rates.

He said he weighed the risks of switching Benicia’s power companies from the investor-owned utility PG&E to MCE, which answers to consumers and members, and “I couldn’t find anything that stops me from doing this. You can opt out. The city can get out of it,” he said. “I couldn’t find anything wrong with it.”

Schwartzman, Campbell, Christina Strawbridge and Mayor Elizabeth Patterson approved a resolution formally petitioning for MCE membership, and introduced an amendment endorsing the MCE Joint Powers Agreement, both required steps before the city’s membership is accepted.

Councilmember Mark Hughes, a former PG&E executive, recused himself and did not attend the meeting.

The Council already had taken some initial steps toward MCE membership. It approved a Community Sustainability Commission recommendation to spend $18,000 in Valero-Good Neighbor Steering Committee Settlement Agreement money to apply for membership and pay for the agency’s study to determine whether it could supply electricity to the city at comparable or lower costs than PG&E at no detriment to its current members.

The assessment showed MCE it could purchase and supply power to all its members if Benicia was added to the roster.

The Council also asked staff to obtain independent examinations of the matter from Benicia’s point of view to determine what risks the city would face if it joined MCE. A $30,000 grant of Valero-GNSC money paid for those analyses, too.

One consultant, Davis Wright Tremaine, said the city’s risks were limited, if not nonexistent, primarily because rates for both MCE and PG&E could change.

But obtaining power from MCE’s sources, touted as more sustainable and renewable than the sources used by PG&E, wouldn’t invalidate Benicia’s existing agreement with PG&E for net energy metering (NEM) service for Benicia’s solar photovoltaic array electricity generation, Tremaine wrote.

MRW and Associates and SAGE Renewables, which also looked at the matter, agreed with MCE that membership would benefit Benicia so long as the community choice agency’s rates remained competitive with PG&E’s.

Its report said Benicia can expect between $40,000 and $80,000 in annual excess NEM bill credits for the solar photovoltaic accounts. The MCE policy for paying excess NEM credits would remain in effect in the short term, but could change in the future.

Meanwhile, PG&E’s proposal to cap the rate Benicia currently is on at its solar sites may result in a loss of value from the energy generated by the solar sites, the consultant reported, and MCE may make similar changes to its own rate.

Both consultants said MCE rates are likely to remain less than those of PG&E, and currently the rate difference is large enough that low-income individuals, whose bills are subsidized by PG&E, would experience no increase when the city’s power comes from MCE.

While most of the nearly full Council Chamber audience favored making the change, the Council also heard from those opposed.

The Independent Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245 sent a letter Sept. 4 urging Benicia call for an environmental analysis to comply with California Environmental Quality Act regulations.

Claire McFadden, speaking as a member of the Benicia Chamber of Commerce and its Benicia Industrial Park Association (BIPA), read a letter from the organization’s board opposing membership.

The letter said the change to MCE as a power source and Benicia’s role as a member “is ill-defined, and the legal risks haven’t been analyzed.” It questioned the source of some of the power MCE purchases.

The Chamber said the public and commercial interests had insufficient time to review the MCE Joint Powers Agreement, and the public had too little time to offer comments.

But individual Chamber members said they support the change.

Jack Ruszel, whose business is in the Industrial Park, is a member of both the Chamber and BIPA. Neither conducted a membership poll, he said; if tad they would have learned that “the Industrial Park thinks this is genius. It’s a no-brainer.”

He said the public had plenty of time to examine the power source alternative, and that meetings on the matter had been well publicized. “People need to wake up,” he said.

Tony Shannon, a Web page designer and Chamber member, said he trusted MCE to make sure he had power.

“Without electricity, I can’t write code,” he said. Saying he favored MCE membership, he added, “Anyone who is not in favor can opt out.”

Even those who had further questions about how MCE might pay for their solar panels’ power generation urged the Council to favor membership.

Charlotte Morris said the move was “fiscally and environmentally clever.”

For Mayor Patterson and members of the Community Sustainability Commission, one important change in joining MCE would be a 6,800 metric ton reduction in Benicia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

That much carbon dioxide would be a column 27 feet by 27 feet by 35 miles, CSC Chairperson Constance Beutel said.

“It’s the single biggest reduction of carbon dioxide,” she said.

In addition, customers would save a collected $1.5 million, which Beutel said would grow through the years.

If the process continues, Benicia power customers would be switched automatically to MCE. Those preferring to stay with PG&E would be able to do so, but must state their preference.

Bills would look the same, except for one line mentioning MCE. PG&E would maintain power lines and other infrastructure.

“This is your moment,” Beutel told the Council before it voted to proceed.