Rohnert Park set for decision on Sonoma Clean Power

Rohnert Park is set to decide today whether to become the seventh city to join the county’s startup public electricity provider, Sonoma Clean Power.

Staff members for the county’s third largest city are recommending the City Council vote to join the agency, citing significant savings the city would enjoy over the cost of power provided by Pacific Gas & Electric.

“I think this report is very positive and it matches what I’ve been hearing from the council,” said Sonoma Clean Power CEO Geof Syphers.

If the city joins, that would leave Petaluma as the lone hold-out. Healdsburg owns its own electric utility and is not part of the program.

Rohnert Park postponed a decision on the issue in 2013, citing questions about how much residents would save, the default nature of the program, and concerns about the city’s own fiscal emergency.

More than a year later and six months after the agency began serving customers, some of those questions appear to have been answered.

“I think the financial uncertainties are considerably reduced in people’s minds,” said Councilman Jake MacKenzie, who predicted the council will vote to join the agency. “They certainly are in mine.”

Residents, businesses and the city government will save approximately $530,000 per year if the council approves joining the agency, according to city estimates. The savings for the city government alone is estimated to be $47,000 per year, the report said.

Under its lowest-cost option, CleanStart, Sonoma Clean Power electricity rates are running 4 to 5 percent below those of Pacific Gas & Electric, according to the agency. Rates for its 100 percent renewable product, EverGreen, are about 13 percent higher than PG&E basic rates.

Some concerns appear to remain, however. A city staff report suggests that while the agency’s communications generally have been accurate, some opt-out notices the agency is sending to customers are “misleading.”

The notices claim the agency is providing cleaner energy “right from our own backyard,” when in fact just 15 percent is currently locally generated, the staff report found.

In addition, some of the notices suggest solar is a more significant source of power than it really is, the report found. The dominant image in a recent mailer is a photo of a large solar panel array. In fact, solar represents just 1 percent of the current power mix, the report found.

Syphers said he’s been in touch with the city staffer who authored the report, Assistant City Manager Don Schwartz, and has “largely addressed his concerns.”

The agency is trying to strike a balance in its opt-out notices between official notifications and promoting the benefits of the program, Syphers said.

Emphasizing local power generation is legitimate, Syphers said, given that contracts for geothermal power from The Geysers complex on the Sonoma-Lake county line represent 15 percent of the power mix today and will increase to 25 percent over the next several years.

The agency is also committed to solar energy generation, with contracts in place to purchase 3 megawatts from local solar projects by 2016 and another 70 MW from Central Valley solar projects by 2017, Syphers said.

Nevertheless, since those projects aren’t yet online, the agency will adjust its marketing messages to more accurately reflect the current power mix, he said.

“On his (Schwartz’s) recommendation, we have removed mentioning solar in our notices and marketing at this point,” Syphers said.

The report also expresses concern that some of the notices resemble “junk mail.” Syphers said questions have been raised about whether the postcard style mailers the agency sent out during October were distinguishable from political advertising. But he noted the agency sends four mailings alerting potential customers of the opportunity to opt-out of the program before they become automatically enrolled. The agency also held a public meeting in Rohnert Park on the issue in September, he said.

If approved by the council, Rohnert Park’s 18,000 accounts would be automatically enrolled and given their chance to opt-out in the spring of 2015, with power delivery scheduled for the summer, Syphers said.

This third phase of enrollment would also include accounts in Cloverdale, where the City Council voted in July to join the agency, and Petaluma, should it vote to join. The City Council takes up the issue Dec. 15.

All told, the agency expects to be serving 142,000 accounts in December out of 220,000 eligible accounts in its service area. To date about 12 percent of eligible customers have been opting out of the program.