What is Our Total Electric Bill?

This particular Patch is focused on Ossining and Croton, which have together just under 15,000 households (HH)–including the Villages of Ossining (circa 8,300 HH), Croton (circa 2,900 HH), and the Town of Ossining outside those villages (circa 3,700 HH).

Pop quiz: How much do you think these roughly 15,000 households might have paid Consolidated Edison collectively for electricity during the past twelve months: (a) $9.5 million; (b) $12 million; (c) $18 million; (d) $28 million. 

The sobering answer is the electricity portion of the community’s 15,000 household approaches $28 million paid to the utility. The average a household spends on electricity is about $2,000 per year at present in our area. 

Other parts of the country that have high electric rates (California, New Jersey, Massachusetts) or deep concern about air quality and lowering pollution have taken a proactive approach in this era of utility deregulation. It may be time for New Yorkers to follow suit.

The approach is called Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) and offers an opportunity for communities to once again choose their electric provider and the source of their electricity.

You might say, “Hey, don’t I get flyers all the time now from companies that want to me to switch to them for electric or gas?”

Yes, but buyer beware. The last time I sat down with the actual rate I would lock in with new “supplier X” it was 35% higher than what I was already paying Con Edison, once I read the fine print. And how many individual home or business owners want to sift through all the fine print?

Here is how Shawn Marshall, Vice Chair of the Marin Energy Authority (CA), describes a better approach in a recent report:

“Community choice aggregation (CCA) is an energy procurement model that allows local governments to pool, or aggregate, the electric load of their residents, businesses and institutions in order to purchase electricity on their behalf. The reasons to pursue CCA vary by community, but chief among them are lower electricity costs, cleaner energy supply, greenhouse gas reduction benefits and the development of local generation assets to boost economic development in the region.”

We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Six states (California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Rhode Island) have adopted laws that enable local governments to band together to pursue joint energy supply and demand solutions.

For example, Megan Matson, Co-Founder, Strategy and Policy Director of the Local Energy Aggregation Network, reports the California has very robust activity, with entire counties participating. California counties, like Marin, using CCA have been able to increase renewable energy to whopping 33% of supply, way ahead of expectation.  

Illinois has 15 cities issuing requests for proposals for energy supply that meets their criteria for price and clean energy sources with 20 more cities voting on this in 2012. The Illinois cities already using a CCA collaboration have saved 25% with CCA negotiation.

Massachusetts has 21 towns that have adopted a regional approach, the Cape Light Compact, that is serving nearly 200,000 customers to negotiate lower electric rates.

Ohio has 9 counties engaged serving 500,000 customers, saving $127 million for customers since 2000. New Jersey’s program is new, but is one we could learn from.

Rhode Island has 36 cities and towns aggregating their buying power to find better, cleaner power for their municipal operations and facility loads.  

“While currently available only for municipal facilities, the Rhode Island program saved its member cities and towns $2.69 million in the first four months of 2006,” reports Matson.

In a nutshell, Matson says, "CCA allows cities and counties to aggregate their residential, business and municipal electricity loads, and to purchase power–and generate power where allowed by state CCA law–on their behalf. All transmission, distribution, repair and customer service functions remain with the incumbent utility.”

The latter point is important. In the case of Ossining and Croton, if New York State adopted CCA, Con Edison would still own and operate the power lines.

In short, New York seems ripe for adopting a state Community Choice Aggregation law that would enable local governments to collaborate toward procuring cleaner and less expensive energy supply. 

“CCA isn’t a conservative or a liberal thing–it’s a tool that reflects the values of its region,” explains Matson, who is making a stop in Albany soon to promote this concept.