nothin Community Power Pitch Stalls | New Haven Independent

Community Power Pitch Stalls

Sam Gurwitt Photos

Brad Macdowall (left) sees cleaner, cheaper energy. Marjorie Bonadies (right) sees added debt.

Is it time to ask the state to pave the way for more local control of power in order to bring lower rates and greener electrical currents? Or are more details first need exploring?

The Hamden Legislative Council took up those questions Tuesday evening in its second hours-long discussion on a resolution asking the state to allow the town to pursueCommunity Choice Aggregation (CCA).

For the second time, the motion ended the evening tabled, failing to advance out of committee to the full council, but remaining in the pipeline for consideration at the next meeting.

Hamden followed New Haven in debating a resolution on CCA, with council Members Brad Macdowall and Justin Farmer leading the charge. The New Haven Board of Alders passed its resolution on Dec. 2, after it passed unanimously in committee on Nov. 18.

In Hamden, the path to approval has proved a little trickier.

Under CCA, communities, usually cities or groups of towns and cities, can band together to choose where their power comes from. Rather than letting the utility, in this case United Illuminating (UI)), determine where power comes from, CCAs take control of power-sourcing. A governing body, usually a nonprofit agency, chooses where the power in its service area comes from. There is usually an opt-out option for residents who can choose to continue the utility to source their power.

Proponents say CCAs give towns more local control of their power, and allow them to choose greener sources and provide lower rates for customers.

CCA is possible in Connecticut only if the General Assembly passes enabling legislation. Both New Haven’s and Hamden’s resolutions simply urge the state to look into that enabling legislation.

Sixteen people showed up at Tuesday night’s Hamden council meeting to speak in favor of the resolution. One spoke against it. Some council members remained unconvinced that CCAs really are as good as they appear. They voted 4 – 3 to keep the item tabled, rather than bringing it onto the floor to pass it.

Macdowall filed the resolution with the council at the beginning of December. It first came to the floor of the council at its Jan. 6 meeting, when the committee reviewing it voted to table the item until it could get more information.

Local Power”

Throughout the evening, the council heard about the possible benefits of CCA.

Community choice aggregation is really about local power,” said local energy Engineer Michael Uhl (pictured above), whom the council invited to give a presentation. And what that ultimately results in is greater affordability, local jobs, local choice, and more resilient infrastructure.”

Across the U.S., he said, CCAs have generally reduced energy spending by between 2 and 20 percent. In Massachusetts, they have reduced energy spending by on average 19 percent over the last five years. They can opt for greener energy sources, and many end up using more green energy than state regulations require, he said. They can also allow localities to offer additional resources and opportunities that a utility would not.

CCAs who move beyond just providing cheaper power very quickly move into providing added services. Things like providing electric-vehicle charging infrastructure, back-up places for people to shelter in, micro-grids — things that provide value to the community that is not the same value to a large industrial utility,” Uhl told the council.

Nine states currently have legislation enabling CCAs: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey, California, Illinois, Ohio, and Virginia. (It has not yet been implemented in New Hampshire or Virginia.) A handful of others, including Connecticut, have considered or are considering legislation.

CCA legislation varies from state to state. In general it draws on the buying power of a pool of residents, represented by a non-profit agency, to buy power for its members. For example, if Connecticut enacted enabling legislation, Hamden could join its neighbors like New Haven or other towns in a CCA. Residents would be able to opt out, in which case UI would continue to make the choices on energy sourcing for them, unless they wanted to do it themselves.

DEEP State Opposition

The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), said Council President Mick McGarry (pictured above), has indicated that it does not support CCA. I’m concerned about DEEP’s position on this,” he said. I find it troubling that they’re not fully on board.”

DEEP has not actually seen potential legislation, Uhl replied. He said he could not speak for the department, since he does not know their position.

DEEP will not make a statement about CCA until the legislature actually has a bill before it, said Macdowall. Though bills were introduced last year, they did not make it to a public hearing, so DEEP did not have a chance to review the legislation and offer its take.

Former Councilman Eric Annes spoke against the resolution the first time it came before the council. Annes works as an attorney for DEEP’s Bureau of Energy and Technology Policy, but he said he was speaking only as a private citizen.

He said that CCAs are extremely complicated and could present a number of problems. If implemented perfectly, he said, he could support it, but there are a lot of ways to do it wrong.

Eric Annes.

For instance, it could create a good deal of risk for either the utility or the CCA. If a town or group of towns enroll residents in a CCA, the utility has to be ready to provide electricity to people if they decide to come back to the utility, and vice versa. The utility, or the CCA, might have to build that risk into their price, he said.

Uhl, however, said that the scenario in which a large number of people un-enroll from a CCA is unlikely. The opt-out rates in other states vary between 5 and 15 percent, he said. He said that people often think about the situation in terms of all or nothing, but that’s not how it would look in reality. With multiple CCAs in a utility’s area, if people in one of those CCAs un-enroll, that doesn’t mean people in another one will.

If one CCA fails, it’s not like the others fail… The amount of load the utilities would actually receive back to them is so minimal that I’m surprised people are spinning their wheels on it,” Uhl said.

Annes also said he’s not sure that it will actually be cheaper, or that it will result in greener energy sources. Furthermore, a lot of suppliers advertise low rates to attract buyers, and then jack them up in the second year. There have been a lot of problems with Connecticut residents who have opted to choose their own suppliers finding themselves suddenly hit by higher rates. The same thing could happen to a CCA, though, as proponents have said, CCAs would have consulting experts who could help them avoid fraudulent or misleading offers.

You could have a statute that handles all of these things. But we’re not talking about a statute. We’re supporting an idea,” he said. He suggested the town wait until there is actually legislation on the table before voicing support.

Bonds?

Residents lining up to speak for CCA.

Once Uhl had delivered his presentation, Councilwoman Marjorie Bonadies, one of three Republicans on the council, began a line of questions.

What percent of energy in the U.S. is generated by wind and solar? she asked.

It was a rhetorical question.

I never ask a question without knowing the answer,” she said after Uhl paused. The answer is between 5 and 10 percent, she told him.

How can we purchase more of a smaller amount of energy and say it’s going to cost us less?” she asked.

Buying more renewable energy can save money, Uhl replied, because renewable energy often costs less as it doesn’t require paying for fuel. Though laws and agreements in Connecticut may complicate the picture, in other states, renewables have outcompeted fossil fuels on price, he said.

Bonadies continued: So we would need to build a lot of infrastructure modernizing the grid for more resiliency, so it’s a lot of infrastructure building?”

Kind of,” Uhl began.

Bonadies cut him off, and asked him to keep his answer short.

They’re looking to build what makes sense for matching their energy needs and their customer demands,” he replied.

CCAs could float bonds, Bonadies continued. All we have to do is pass an ordinance and these entities, the CCAs, can sell bonds on the town’s behalf… If you opt out, if you don’t want to be a part of a CCA, you are still on the hook for that debt that the CCA incurs.”

Some funding can be separated and covered just by the municipality, explained Uhl, while municipalities can also shoulder some of it if they decide to take on a larger project. However, CCAs usually bond only when they are buying assets, and not for startup or for organization. Since these assets generate revenue, they are attractive to investors, and usually have very good terms. With revenues in the millions, lenders are usually willing to give good rates on a few hundred thousand dollars-worth of a project.

We are not obligated to hold or support any of that debt,” Macdowall said, summing up Uhl’s explanation of debt.

While their colleagues remained ambivalent, Macdowall and Farmer urged them to consider passing resolution.

The item on the floor tonight is a resolution of intent that I think our community members have emboldened us to say yes” to, said Farmer.

Others remained unconvinced. Bonadies asked for a presentation from an expert opposed to CCA.

There is an incredible amount of urgency on the resolution, Macdowall told his colleagues. He said he had intended to get it through the council by the Feb. 5 start of the legislative session. That goal is now unlikely.

When it came to the vote, first the committee had to vote to add the item to the agenda because of a minor error in the way the agenda had been crafted. The committee would then vote to take it off the table. The vote to add the resolution to the agenda failed, however, effectively leaving the item tabled. It will return for the third time at the next meeting, scheduled for Feb. 3.

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