Mayor: No cause for ‘anger, hostility’

Since 2012, the Benicia Community Sustainability Commission has been trying to tell power customers about Marin Clean Energy as its default electricity provider and the city’s chance to look into community choice aggregation, Climate Action Plan Coordinator Alex Porteshawver said.

After Council decisions beginning last year that led to Benicia’s membership in MCE, most local power customers are being enrolled in MCE’s 50-percent renewable energy purchase program. The rest either have identified themselves as wanting to remain with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) or have enrolled in MCE’s “Deep Green” option of 100-percent renewable energy purchases.

The community choice aggregation (CCA) agency purchases or generates energy from renewable sources on behalf of its customers and puts that power onto the electricity grid. PG&E still handles distribution, billing and repairs.

MCE and other agencies have been trying to inform Benicians about the incipient switch of power sourcing, from commission and Council meetings to symposia on energy, postings on the city’s website, public airings of the city’s intent and subsequent vote to join MCE, advertisements, appearances at the weekly Benicia Certified Farmers Market and a series of mailers sent directly to customers.

A citizens panel, the Community Leader Advisory Group, also meets monthly, Allison Kirk, MCE account manager, said.

She told the Council on Tuesday that MCE has spoken, emailed or posted to websites or social media sites to share the information with the Benicia Industrial Park Association, Arts Benicia, Benicia Chamber of Commerce, the Community Sustainability Commission, Benicia Unified School District, Benicia Senior Center, the unveiling of the city’s first public art piece “Wind, Water, Land” at Benicia Community Center, Benicia Mini Maker Faire, Benicia League of Women Voters, Benicia Main Street, several Neighborhood Watch groups, Benicia Public Library, Benicia Historical Museum, Benicia Rotary Club, Benicia Soroptimists, Benicia Moms, Benicia Education Foundation and Benicia Friendship Club.

She said MCE has also provided information for WattzOn, the city contractor for power and water analyses and recommendation to home and business owners to reduce consumption and save money.

But one resident, Dennis Lowry, an active member of a group called Benicians Against Marin Clean Energy, said he spoke with 1,000 people, and 70 percent did not know what MCE is.

Councilmember Christina Strawbridge said she also has heard constituents say, “We didn’t know about this.” That puzzles her. “We had 14 meetings before we voted,” she said. But she worried that talks at public assemblies and Community Leader Advisory Group meetings aren’t well publicized. “I think it’s important to let citizens know,” she said. “That information is important.”

The Council has heard regular reports from Kirk about MCE’s outreach since the agency sent its first notice in February advising customers that by May, they would be enrolled in the CCA agency’s 50-percent green program unless they choose PG&E or the “Deep Green” MCE option.

Two other pre-enrollment fliers have been mailed. The fourth is an enrollment notice, which won’t be received by those who have chosen to stay with PG&E.

Kirk said the fourth notice also provides clarification of what she said is misinformation being given the public.

State law requires community choice aggregators to be the default service provider for power customers. “This is why Benicia customers are automatically enrolled in May, unless they opt out,” she said.

By May 4, she said, MCE had received 2,234 requests by those who want to stay with PG&E, a percentage of 17.18, she said. Total Deep Green enrollment had reached 130. The switch affects 13,000 customers, she said.

By comparison, two other new member cities have a much lower opt-out percentage, Kirk said.

Of 10,388 customers in San Pablo, 633, or 6.29 percent, said they want to stay with PG&E, with 25 choosing the Deep Green option. In El Cerrito, with 11,495 accounts, 910, or 7.92 percent, want PG&E to continue its service to their addresses, and 389 want their power source to be Deep Green.

Kirk said MCE’s power purchases are from predominantly greener sources. “I still see ‘PG&E is cleaner.’ It’s not,” she said, citing the most recent verifiable statistics, from 2013, since 2014 numbers haven’t been verified.

She said even if nuclear and large hydroelectric power generation are added as “green” sources, MCE still is ahead.

She said MCE and PG&E buy power from plants and put it on the grid. “The difference is the source we buy from,” she said. “MCE buys more power from renewable sources that do not emit harmful pollutants.”

She said MCE has more than 193 megawatts of new California renewable energy under development for customers, and also is developing a 10-megawatt solar project in Richmond.

In addition, MCE provides energy-efficiency programs tailored to each member community, Kirk said, and its customers are eligible for PG&E energy-efficiency programs, too.

“We are only expanding your options,” she said.

Lowry said his group wasn’t meant to be negative about MCE, but that it objected to how the agency was brought in, by Council instead of public vote, as the default power provider. He said the organization corrected one item it had explained erroneously, and disagreed that a second, classifying hydroelectric and nuclear sources as renewable, was a mistake.

He said Benicians Against Marin Clean Energy offered to pay for 600 inserts to be sent out, has mailed its own fliers, particularly in the Southampton residential area, and has handed out others in person.

At the farmers market, he said, MCE representatives approached those speaking with BAMCE members to discourage them from rejecting MCE. He told the Council BAMCE table attendees didn’t visit the MCE table.

Mayor Elizabeth Patterson said community choice aggregation was authorized by California to speed up greenhouse gas emissions reductions, to increase competition in hopes of reducing costs and to save money, because CCA agencies are nonprofits that can reinvest any money back into renewable energy, while companies such as PG&E are investor-owned and pay stockholders.

She said she has heard some harsh words, calling Benicia’s membership in MCE a “sneaky backroom deal.”

“That’s puzzling to me. We took our duty seriously,” the mayor said, reminding other Council members the city paid for a third-party examination of the arrangement before the Council voted.

“Why the anger and hostility?” she asked, saying that when PG&E became the city’s default power supplier, there was no choice available to residents or city officials.

“These are positive things to be celebrated, not demonized,” she said. Those who oppose MCE, she said, “can opt out.”