A growing number of cities in California are developing community-choice aggregation plans. They anticipate that it will save money, increase use of renewable energy, and enhance energy security for local businesses and customers. "I expect to see some programs in 2007 and 2008," said John Dalessi, Navigant associate director. "If those are successful, I expect you'd see more." Furthest along in the move to aggregation is San Francisco. It will ask wholesale power producers whether they are interested in supplying the city. "If there is interest, the city next will issue a request for proposal," said Sean Casey, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission manager of regulatory affairs for power. Start-up costs for San Francisco are expected to range between $8 million and $12 million, a lot of which will be spent before energy sale revenues begin to roll in, Casey said. Across the bay, Oakland is preparing a detailed community-choice aggregation implementation plan, according to Carol Misseldine, a senior staff member in the mayor's sustainability program office. The plan is expected to go to the city council this summer. "Our initial attraction to this was renewables," said Misseldine. However, she added, "We would save $300 million over 19 years. It's a positive cash flow even in the first year." As part of its plan development, Oakland is weighing whether to team up with neighboring Berkeley and Emeryville to form a joint power authority that would administer a community-aggregation program, said Misseldine. While the city might rely on power contracts initially, it would like to build its own generation facilities in the long run. They would most likely be financed with bonds. In Southern California, Chula Vista will draft an implementation plan for community aggregation with the help of a stakeholder task force over the months ahead, said Michael Meachem, city director of conservation and environmental services. Meachem said that the city plans to purchase power on the market. It also hopes to invest in small-scale distributed-generation technologies as the program progresses. Los Angeles County also is considering aggregation, according to Cynthia Wooten, Lumenx Consulting principal. She suggested that the Southern California Public Power Authority could sell electricity to Los Angeles County at a lower rate than Edison, making a move toward aggregation economical. Santa Monica is interested too, in order to use more renewable energy and achieve energy security, said Susan Munves, city energy and green building administrator. However, the city is waiting to see how things work in San Francisco and Chula Vista before moving ahead.
