Marin IJ Editorial: Marin Clean Energy’s power to the people Posted: 07/13/16, 11:18 AM PDT | Updated: 12 hrs ago Economies of scale reap rewards for ratepayers of Marin Clean Energy, Marin’s homegrown public power agency that is reducing its rates by an average of 9 percent, starting Sept. 1. A large reason for this good news for consumers is the agency’s recent expansion, adding customers beyond Marin’s boundaries, including unincorporated Napa County and the cities of America Canyon, Benicia, Calistoga, Lafayette, Richmond, Napa, St. Helena, Walnut Creek, Yountville, El Cerrito and San Pablo. The expansion of its customer base — topping 260,000 in September — is providing MCE with a competitive edge when it comes to signing contracts with clean-energy providers. It has been able to buy more power at lower prices. Another big contributor to the lower rates is a drop in the cost of creating large-scale photovoltaic cells needed to harness solar power. Its leadership has wisely used the savings to lower rates. MCE was started in 2008 with a two-fold goal, providing a public power agency that would offer Marin ratepayers an alternative to Pacific Gas and Electric Co., and growing a market for renewable energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The September rate cut offers MCE ratepayers a savings over what they would pay switching back to PG&E. MCE’s growth has been a success in helping communities meet their state-mandated reductions in greenhouse gases. Its new rates and achievement of that goal should set a competitive target for PG&E, which has worked at providing its customers greener electrical power. Unlike PG&E, whose rates are set by the state Public Utilities Commission, MCE’s are set by its board of directors. The board meets in public. As it has grown with the addition of more municipalities, the importance of its outreach in terms of advising ratepayers of proposed rate changes, both before and after the board’s consideration, is also growing. Critics’ predictions that PG&E’s power and size would enable it to undercut MCE’s rates have not been realized. PG&E opposed and fought the creation of MCE. But MCE’s best argument then, as now, is that it can provide ratepayers cleaner and greener power at lower rates than its competition. It is a powerful combination. So far, MCE is doing a good job proving its critics wrong.