Outreach to electricity customers expected to include more meetings, newspaper notices, Climate Plan coordinator says

Benicia City Council may see a draft of Marin Clean Energy’s information outreach plan Feb. 17, Climate Action Plan Coordinator Alex Porteshawver said.

Originally, Porteshawver said, she thought the Council might see the draft earlier that month.

The information outreach will describe to residents and business owners how they’ll be affected by the change from Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) to Marin Clean Energy (MCE) as the city’s primary source of electricity.

MCE is a community choice aggregation program, a system that lets cities and counties join, or aggregate, in the purchasing of power so they can secure energy contracts on a communitywide basis.

It’s an alternative to such investor-owned companies as PG&E.

Through a series of actions, including public hearings and two-vote ordinance adoptions, the Council chose to pursue membership in MCE, the first community choice aggregation program in California.

A grant from the Community Sustainability Commission’s share of the Valero-Good Neighbor Steering Committee settlement agreement fund underwrote the city’s application and initial study, and another grant paid for an additional independent study of the process, benefits and possible risks to joining MCE.

Under legislation approved in 2002, MCE was formed in 2010. It gives its customers the opportunity to choose whether the power bought on their behalf comes from 50-percent or 100-percent renewable sources.
Consideration of that membership is one of the goals of the city’s Climate Action Plan.

Benicia electricity customers will be switched automatically to MCE unless they choose to remain with PG&E. They’ll get the opportunity to decline the change, or “opt out” of being MCE customers, this winter and spring.

The information and outreach program will provide those living and operating businesses in Benicia with a toll-free number that will operate around the clock from February to June 2015, and they’ll be told how to opt out online.

In addition, customers will be mailed five “opt-out” notices with information on how to remain PG&E customers.
Until the change to MCE is made, the opt-out decision is free, Porteshawver said.

After May 1, 2015, those who decide to stay with PG&E will have to pay MCE $5 for home service or $25 for business and industry service.

Porteshawver said additional outreach will be made to several community groups, through The Herald and at meetings.

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