Sonoma Clean Power plans accelerated rollout to all customers this year

Sonoma Clean Power, the public electricity supplier, is moving to enroll all of the remaining customers in its jurisdiction by the end of this year, extending service to nearly 150,000 additional accounts on a much quicker time scale than the three-year rollout initially envisioned during the agency’s development.

The more aggressive timeline would take in household and commercial accounts in the five participating cities - Santa Rosa, Windsor, Cotati, Sonoma and Sebastopol - plus the unincorporated areas of the county. The move reflects what officials say is a broadening interest among prospective customers in the power program and an optimistic outlook within the agency about expanding the scale of its launch.

The power authority began serving about 17,000 commercial accounts and 6,000 residential accounts in May, and community demand for the program has held strong since then, officials said.

“We were getting a large number of phone calls from people saying ‘Why are you making me wait?’” said Geof Syphers, CEO of Sonoma Clean Power.

The public venture, billed as a competitively priced alternative to PG&E, is built on the assumption that customers - who can opt out - prefer a program designed to rely more heavily on renewable energy and shrink the county’s carbon footprint. It aims to serve about 220,000 accounts, or about 80 percent of PG&E’s electricity customers in the county, at full rollout.

Under a revised timeline developed in recent months, the remaining customers in the agency’s jurisdiction were set to be enrolled this coming February, a change from the initial plan that stretched the rollout to the start of 2016. On Thursday, board members moved the step to this December while also giving their support for the inclusion of all customers from Petaluma, Rohnert Park and Cloverdale that would come into Sonoma Clean Power’s jurisdiction if those three holdout cities decide to join.

The Cloverdale City Council is expected to consider joining the agency later this month.

Sonoma Clean Power staff studied the feasibility of a quicker launch this year in the face of a pending legislation that officials and agency supporters said fundamentally threatened the future of community-based power ventures. Assembly Bill 2145 contained a provision that would have changed the way such programs, including Sonoma Clean Power, enroll new accounts, requiring each new customer to sign up rather than having them automatically enrolled with the choice of opting out.

The legislation, supported by PG&E and its main electrical workers’ union, recently was amended in the state Senate to remove that provision. Had that not occurred, Sonoma Clean Power officials had been contemplating a quicker rollout to ensure that most of their customers were in the mix by the time it went into effect.

Even with that threat out of the way, Syphers said it still made sense to move forward with the accelerated rollout to capture the customers that want participate in the program. He said the expedited timeline would not add costs for the agency’s ratepayers, who currently enjoy a 4 to 5 percent discount on electricity compared to the rates charged by PG&E.

Syphers said the agency is negotiating a new contract with its main supplier, Constellation Energy, to deliver electricity to the larger second phase of customers.

The agency has a three-year contact with Constellation for the initial phase of customers. Procurement, customer service and marketing plans also are in place to expedite service to the second wave of accounts, Syphers said, adding that it will cost Sonoma Clean Power about $350,000 in lost revenue to bring on new customers at the beginning of winter, when the cost of retail power is cheaper and usage is reduced.

Santa Rosa City Councilman Gary Wysocky, the lone board member to vote against the proposal, said the agency should pay down its debt first before incurring more expenses.

“We’re not out of the bank loan yet,” he said. “I’d rather be more fiscally prudent to build those reserves. I think we’re giving away too much too quickly.”

The agency owes a total of $5.3 million on its startup loans and line-of-credit financing.

The board also voted to start a program to purchase power from small renewable energy generators within Sonoma County. The so-called feed-in tariff is expected to eventually cost the agency $600,000 per year and provide 5 megawatts of power, or less than 2 percent of its peak load.

The cost of the program is built into the agency’s current rates.

The subsidy is designed to encourage the expansion of local renewable energy projects, largely in the form of solar panel installations at area businesses.

The board voted to limit the program initially to $300,000 per year, though that amount could double after the addition of some incentives to encourage biomass projects and local labor agreements tied to construction of the energy projects.

Officials expect the bulk of the power to come from solar projects attached to rooftops or parking lots, although 14 different fuel types are eligible, including biomass and wind projects. The projects are limited to 1 megawatt in size, and Sonoma Clean Power will lock such power purchases into fixed 10- or 20-year contracts.

The agency will pay a base rate of $95 per megawatt hour, with bonuses for smaller projects, as well as those on previously developed sites and those built by local businesses. A tax credit for businesses that install renewable projects is set to expire at the end of next year, and Sonoma Clean Power officials said the feed-in tariff program will offer another incentive to promote new local renewable projects.

“The county is going to be very excited to realize one of the dreams of creating renewable projects here in Sonoma County,” said Supervisor Susan Gorin, chairwoman of Sonoma Clean Power.

You can reach Staff Writer Matt Brown at 521-5206 or matt.brown@pressdemocrat.com.