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Marin Energy Authority reports initial CCA rollout of ~9,500 customers, describes billing and marketing challenges
Summary
Marin Energy Authority interim director Dawn Wise told San Francisco commissioners MEA launched service in May, serves about 9,500 customers (phase 1), and faced aggressive marketing by PG&E, billing errors and legal threats but has a 26.5% renewable mix and a 20% opt-out rate.
Dawn Wise, interim director of the Marin Energy Authority, told the joint LAFCO–SFPUC meeting that MEA began serving customers in May and completed a phase 1 rollout to roughly 9,500 customers, about 20% of Marin County's load.
The MEA approach and results: Wise said MEA offers two default products—a 25% California-certified renewable "light green" product and a 100% "deep green" product that carries a roughly 1cent-per-kilowatt-hour premium. MEA has adopted a net energy metering tariff that pays small producers "retail rate plus 1¢" and plans a feed-in tariff and local incentives, including five electric-vehicle charging stations funded by the authority.
Operational hurdles: Wise described a heavy marketing campaign by the incumbent utility that included misinformation, a threatened CEQA legal challenge to a power-purchase agreement, and billing handling issues because PG&E still manages billing on behalf of the program. Those billing problems included double charges for some balanced-payment customers; Wise said those issues caused some customers to opt out but that overall opt-out has remained near projections at about 20%.
Finance and phasing: MEA began operations with a roughly $1,600,000 startup loan to cover working capital and expects to pay down that loan by the following summer. Wise recommended a phased rollout to work out operational and financing kinks; MEA plans a phase 2 targeting an additional ~70,000 customers by January 2012.
Quote: "We're now serving approximately 9,500 customers," Wise said. "We actually have a 26.5% renewable mix, which we're very proud of."
