http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_27339239/marin-clean-energy-beating-pg-e-price
Marin Clean Energy beating PG&E on price
By Richard Halstead
Posted:   01/16/2015 08:47:46 PM PST3
Marin Clean Energy's prices for electricity remain lower than Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s with a PG&E rate hike this month.
The bill for a typical PG&E residential customer using 500 kilowatt hours of electricity per month increased about 6 percent — an additional cost of a little more than $5 per month.
Jonathan Marshall, a PG&E spokesman, said the increase in electric rates that took effect Jan. 1 was "driven by improvements in our electric distribution and generation system, introducing more smart-grid technology into our system to reduce the severity and frequency of outages."
A typical residential customer of Marin Clean Energy pays $86.92 per month, $3.06 less than a similar PG&E customer, according to figures supplied by Marin Clean Energy and acknowledged by PG&E. An average commercial customer of MCE, using 1,550 kilowatt hours of electricity per month, pays $259.43, which is $6.46 less than a similar PG&E customer.
MCE customers also have the option of getting electricity supplied from 100 percent renewable sources by paying an extra penny per kilowatt hour, which would amount to $5 per month for the typical residential customer.
"Marin Clean Energy rates were lower than PG&E in 2014, and we ended up saving customers more than $5.9 million," said Jamie Tuckey, an MCE spokeswoman.
Advertisement
MCE plans to increase its prices in April; it re-evaluates rates once a year. The size of this year's rate increase will be discussed at MCE's board of directors meeting on Feb. 5. In April 2014, MCE hiked rates 7 percent.
"Despite a proposed rate increase, we expect MCE to still be the lower-cost option for electric customers in our service area," Tuckey said.
She said the proposed rate hike in April would help pay for the renewable energy that MCE will be contracting to buy from a host of new renewable energy projects being built throughout its service area.
"We've got a little over 175 megawatts of new renewable energy projects that are being built in California for our customers," Tuckey said.
MCE plans to complete construction of its own 2- to 5-megawatt solar plant at the Port of Richmond by the second quarter of 2016.
MCE is a joint powers authority consisting of the county of Marin, all 11 of Marin's municipalities and the city of Richmond. It is the first successful attempt in California to launch a new, public model for providing electricity to residents. MCE was founded to jump-start the use of renewable energy sources by stimulating demand; it offers customers the opportunity to buy electricity that is supplied by 50 to 100 percent renewable sources.
Marshall said renewable sources accounted for about 24 percent of PG&E's energy in 2014. State regulators prohibit PG&E from counting as renewable energy the electricity it receives from large hydroelectric and nuclear power plants.
"PG&E delivers some of the nation's cleanest electric power, with approximately 55 percent of the electricity we provide to our customers coming from carbon-free resources," said Brittany McKannay, another PG&E spokeswoman. "PG&E continues to work hard to add more green resources to our power mix as affordably as possible for our customers."
MCE serves as the retail electricity provider for its 125,000 customers, who continue to also pay PG&E for transmission and distribution of their electricity. About 80 percent of the available customers in Marin and Richmond are served by MCE, Tuckey said.
During the first five months of 2015, MCE will begin offering service to customers living in unincorporated Napa County and the cities of Benicia, San Pablo and El Cerrito. Under the state's community aggregation law, customers in those communities will be switched to MCE unless they choose to opt out. MCE expects to pick up about 40,500 new customers, assuming a 20 percent opt-out rate.
"Our customer base has been growing over the last year," Tuckey said. "That's not because of the expansion into new communities. It's because people who previously opted out of the program have decided to sign up. We've seen a lot of that over the last year."
Tuckey attributes the growing numbers mainly to MCE's lower prices, and to people's growing confidence in MCE now that it has been operating for a few years.
http://www.marinij.com/opinion/ci_27364234/editorial-power-marin-clean-energy-is-competition