You spoke up for Local Clean Energy on March 21st, 2018!

On March 21, around 30 community members from across Alameda County spoke up for local clean energy at the board meeting of East Bay Community Energy, the County’s new Community Choice energy program. East Bay Clean Power Alliance organized the action and coordinated a ‘human slide show’ presentation to support the nearly complete Local Development Business Plan (LDBP). The LDBP represents a first-of-its-kind initiative by a Community Choice energy program to create a roadmap for developing local clean energy resources that benefit our communities. 

  • Stay tuned for more ways to support this critical initiative and ensure that EBCE upholds its commitment to local development for community benefits! 
  • Check out the latest work products released by the LDBP team and submit comments by April 20.
After an inspiring show of community support, the Board meeting took a turn when members from all but the city of Fremont voted to allow two cities, Hayward and Albany, to automatically opt all of their commercial and municipal customers up to the premium product, “Brilliant 100”. This vote represents a violation of the public’s trust and is an alarming step. 
 
The move to enroll all customers in a city in a product that is more expensive than the default product will anger many,  clearly discriminates against small, local businesses and lower income customers, and constitutes an abuse of the automatic enrollment mechanism of the Community Choice program. Second, the “Brilliant 100” premium product is neither 100% renewable nor brilliant, offering just 2% more renewable energy than the default at 40% renewable and 60% large hydro. In cities across the country citizens are calling for a just transition to 100% renewable energy. A 40% product hardly measures up to that goal and calling it “brilliant” makes a mockery of authentic efforts to address climate change. The backlash to this move and the confusion it will cause has already popped up in media coverage.
 
As the program moves towards residential enrollment this fall, advocates will continue to stress the danger and inequity of automatic premium enrollment. Stay tuned for how to support.