Community Choice Aggregation at MCE - Jenna Tenney

Today we’re joined by Jenn Tenny, Communications Manager for the MCE (originally Marin Clean Energy), a relatively new kind of government organization called a CCA, which stands for Community Choice Aggregation. CCA’s allow individual consumers to choose where they get their electricity, even if it’s delivered over transmission lines that are owned by a single, monopoly utility company.

As a journalist and am MCE customer, Dina Rasor followed MCE's progress for many years, including writing an article about them in Truthout in 2014.

As MCE’s Communications Manager, Jenna works to share messages of MCE’s mission and achievements in the community through various public engagement and press opportunities. These initiatives include not only making renewable energy more available to consumers, but also providing assistance to individuals installing more efficient appliances such as heat pumps and LED lighting, as well as reducing power usage during peak demand hours through their 4 to 9 program.

Prior to her time with MCE, Jenna worked at the California Academy of Sciences and the Bronx Zoo as a public educator. Jenna has a B.S. in Marine Biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an M.A. in Climate and Society from Columbia University.

Transcript

Greg Williams: 0:10

Welcome to another episode of climate money watchdog where we try to help everyday listeners understand how the federal government spends money to mitigate climate change and protect the environment. My name is Greg Williams and I became interested in waste, fraud and abuse and government spending. When my co host Dean eraser gave me my first job at the project on government oversight or Pogo a long time ago. Dina founded that organization in 1980, and has gone on to investigate and write about wasting government, wasting government spending in many different media, as well as the courts here claiming money watchdog we're a private nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, which means that we accept no advertisers or sponsors. And we depend entirely on our listeners contributions. Today, we're very fortunate to be joined by Biogen attente, communications manager for the Murrin Clean Energy Organization, which is a relatively new kind of government organization called a CCA, which stands for Community Choice aggregation. CCA is allow individual consumers to choose where they get their electricity from, even if it's delivered over transmission lines that are owned by a single, perhaps, monopolistic utility company. At marine energies community, I'm sorry as Marine. As Morin clean energies, communications manager, general works to share messages of MCs mission and achievements in the community through various public engagement and press opportunities. Prior to her time there, Jenna worked at the California Academy Academy of Sciences and at the Bronx Zoo as a public educator. Jenna has a BS in marine biology from UC Santa Cruz, and a Master of Arts in climate and society from Columbia University. Deena you're an MCE customer and you've written about CCs in the past. Why don't you share some of these experiences with our listeners before we get started with Jenna?

Dina Rasor: 2:14

Okay, yes, I when I interviewed the communications person at MCE, eight years ago, it wasn't Jenna. She came in a couple of years later, but they had just gotten started. I think it was 2014 and they actually got started in 2010. And so it was this you know, they were the first ones to to start up in the state of California and I will let Jenna explain the explain the legislation and and the thing behind it. But I lived in I live in El Cerrito which as marine clean energy and I guess you just call yourselves MCE now because you've got so your way out of Marin County. As they began to expand, I'm sort of startled at how fast they expanded. And now they have like 37 different counties or cities, communities and over a million customers but so I'm so else Rita voted themselves in, I was delighted, and we were I was able to it was, it's amazing when you look at your power bill, and it's in the same bill and pg&e pays for the electrons to go through the wire and M C. E either buys or creates the electricity. And so it's a it's been a, I'm gonna be interested in asking her some questions about that. And then I want to then short not too long. After it first got started in 2010. This was a this California had passed the law that allowed this to happen. pg&e didn't like this because you have to opt out of the CCA or MC, you have to know if you're, if you're a new customer, and you want to stay with PG and a you have to tell say you want to stay with PGD. Otherwise you automatically go to MC and PG did not like that. And so they put did a proposition 16 As we probably get an idea that we do a lot of propositions in California and it was backed by PG and E and that was they were trying to put in some poison pills that would not allow the would not allow the them to work. Well. You had to get you know, you had to get something like I forget now but you had to get it. Maybe she can pass it in but it was basically that you had had to have a certain percentage of the customers vote to opt in and And it was kind of it was written to be a poison pill so that the CCS didn't get going in California. And I the thing that I like to bring up and this is something that the climate people will possibly really like, since you have been there done that, pg&e paid $46 million to get this proposition on the, on the ballot. And this was about a year, or a year or two before robot about the time MC was starting 2010. And since then, Jenna will explain this more. But since m is C E is considered a public organization, a public organization, they weren't allowed to lobby or raise money or do anything about it. But a bunch of environmentalists raised $100,000. And they beat them not by a little not by a squeaker but by five or six points. And so I always I love to tell that kind of David and Goliath story. But anyway, pg&e Since then, I guess, has been actually realizing that they accepted their lot, and that they have to deal with these CTAs, which are kind of exploding. And I also wrote an article about MC for truth out and then I wrote an article later, about five other states that had started this and that was eight years ago. And I'm just really startled on how successful it's been. Now that said, I'm gonna let Janice do the talking. She knows a lot more about it. And I really appreciate her being here. Can you explain to our listeners, how MCE got started, how much it's grown over the past 12 years. And the law behind the getting it started?

Jenna Tenney: 6:53

Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. So MCE started really way back in the late 90s, early 2000s. And there was this movement for advocates around the state really saying, We know that climate change is a problem. And we want to take action now. And California as we know at that time was going through the energy crisis. And there were had been rolling brownouts and blackouts, and the state had attempted to deregulate to create more diversity in the market. But the way that it was done sort of just didn't really work out. And so there was this alternative model, which allowed for a highly regulated market, but with more competition in it. And that was really the impetus for Community Choice in California, Massachusetts, and Ohio had already done this. And it had been working pretty well for them for several years at that point, and California said, Hey, maybe maybe we can do this too. And we can get more renewable energy. So there was a really big push from advocates around the state to make this possible in California, because at the time it wasn't. And in 2002, legislation was passed Assembly Bill 117. That allowed for Community Choice to exists. It allowed for local governments to work together to create a joint powers authority, which is the structure most often used for water districts and waste districts. And these cities, counties and towns can pool their resources to create a new entity that can better serve those communities in the case of MCE and Community Choice aggregation that was to provide electricity. There were other programs that tried to get started before MCE, and you describe some of the David and Goliath story behind that. And the difficulty is really of getting started. And MCE eventually was able to break through that. And in 2008, we formed our agency and in 2010, we started serving customers. And at that time we were serving, I think we launched to about 12,000 customers in the County of Marin, very, very small 12,000 customer accounts and today we're now serving approximately 580,000 customer accounts are around 1.5 million people in 37 communities, all of Marin County, all of Napa County, most of Contra Costa County, 15 of the 20 jurisdictions there and about half of the communities in Solano County as well. So it's been a wonderful opportunity. I've been with MCE about six years now and been able to help a lot of those communities make the decision to join MCE and have access to a local electricity provider who is governed by those local elected officials from those communities we serve and really invest into our customers and creating a pathway towards a cleaner energy future. And that's, that's really what we're all about is making sure that everyone has equitable access to renewable energy and clean energy technologies that are going to improve their quality of life and fight climate change along the way.

Dina Rasor: 10:20

Okay, um, what you know, PG and E's been around I think, was 1905. They've pretty much a monopoly on it, large areas of the California is LA has Edison and stuff, but a large mount since 1905. And then so that was a really entrenched bureaucracy that mean, they own all the lines, and they obviously own the power, own power plants and all this kind of stuff to make the electricity. So why How did MCE become better at approving or producing or buying renewable energy? Because I should explain you've got this thing where you have light green, where there's only a 50% renewable, but you have deep green, which is 100%. Renewable and wanted to. And I'm just when I first interviewed him eight years ago, when I did the article, I said, Where are you getting all this energy? I mean, this is before the whole Solar thing and what really worked or anything else. And at the time, I was told, Well, that was the it was the wind power and Washington and Oregon, which they had started up and had so much extra. But now I see that you say that most of it comes from California. So how did you get get? How did the small organization who now have, you know, a million and a half customers make an energy, especially renewable energy cheaper, and better and faster than then pg&e?

Jenna Tenney: 11:54

Yeah, that's a that's a great question. So when we first launched, it was the the folks of the County of Marin and the other jurisdictions had gone to pg&e and said, Hey, we really want more renewable energy, can you can you give that to us? And pg&e said, No, unfortunately, we can't give you a special higher renewable energy content. And so they were like, alright, well, we're gonna we're gonna do it ourselves then. So that was how MCE specifically got started. And at the time, when we launched, I think we were providing around 27% renewable electricity, and pg&e was providing around 12. So pretty, pretty big jump. At the time, we had kind of a difficult time finding suppliers who were willing to work with us. We were small, we were unknown, the first in California, but we were able to find someone who would work with us and get that renewable power. As time has gone on, we have employed a number of different strategies to source that power. And yeah, the bulk of it is now California and state. And we also for our light green service option, which has been 60%. Renewable since 2017. We do have a large portion of large hydro resources in there from the Pacific Northwest. So it's only 60% renewable, but it's 90% greenhouse gas free. So that's that's pretty neat to

Greg Williams: 13:19

find. Let me clarify a point there. You're you're saying you're not categorizing hydro as renewal.

Jenna Tenney: 13:25

In the state of California, large hydro electric resources are not considered renewable. small hydro is so under 20 megawatts, but anything above that is considered carbon free are a greenhouse gas free, but it's not renewable. Gotcha. Yeah. So we have, as the number of CCS have grown, we've had some additional opportunities to partner with other CCA. So that has created some really interesting opportunities recently. But we have what is called our feed in tariff program. And that program offers incentivize rates for development of renewable projects in MCE service area. So we have about 48, a little bit over megawatts of renewable energy in our service area that we've built through that program. And those projects have prevailing wage requirements, local higher requirements 50%, local higher, and they now also have pollinator friendly ground cover requirements. So there's an ecosystem benefit there as well. So that's one of the ways that we have added renewable energy. We have also, you know, there's been a really big market for renewable energy as more CCS have come online, and so there's been more and more developers who are seeing ccaas as a great opportunity for them to build and sell those resources. And when what we're seeing now is more and more customers are departing pg&e service And the other investor owned utilities. And so when those customers switch over to a Community Choice Program, there's more demand for renewable energy. And those contracts are being entered into at it sort of in a position where pg&e doesn't need to do that anymore. They're not buying a whole lot of new additional resources, because those customers are departing for CCS. So basically, when we got started, we were able to find those renewable energy resources at lower prices, and kind of lock those in. And so we've been able to have that consistent access to renewable energy. And then there's also a new market. So last year, MCE, and two other CCA partners work together. And we launched the first California Green Climate bonds, where we did a municipal prepay bond structure to actually prepay contracts for renewable energies, which significantly lowered the cost of those contracts for our customers, because we're able to pay them, you know, 10 years in advance. And so that's a totally brand new financing model. It's been used in the US for a really long time, but primarily for natural gas. So being able to use it for renewable energy to lower the prices and increase access is, is really unique and

Dina Rasor: 16:22

special. And in your you've got the light green, and the dark green, and I remember when I remember is that dark green was five, about $5 more a month to do. But I'm wondering now, if that's kind of even itself out. And also what what percentages of our solar? And do you know how much percentage is of it? Our Solar by being on businesses or people's roofs like mine? Yeah. And also you also what I what I liked about it when I was looking into the solar is that you guys pay me paid better. And PG needed but just give you credits, and MC MCE actually, you know, gives you money. And so it was well there. And I just want to know if that's the same. By the way, I really have to bring this in, because this is sort of an amazing thing. The reason that people could even start thinking about solar in the late 1970s was the at that time Governor Jerry Brown, the firt first term of Jerry Brown, when he was young, the young Jerry Brown, really ticked off a lot of people, but he said if you put solar panels into your house, the utilities have to buy it, they have to buy it. And that was that really caused an enormous thing. And I was in college, and there's but then when Jerry Brown, the older Jerry Brown when he had a second his second term, many years later he he expanded that and worked on that and you know, now I'm old and he was old. He but it's an amazing thing that that started when I was in college that in the ENERGY STAR things. So California was really far ahead. And that's why people say was California too much solar is because you have all the sun and well no, it's because since the late 1970s It's been subsidized that the pg&e had to buy it though boy did they not like that, but they had to buy it. So everybody started putting solar panels up. But what percentage now is solar versus wind versus what ever?

Jenna Tenney: 18:38

Yeah, so our we have our light green option which is 60% renewable and then our deep green option which is 100% renewable and we actually have a third service option called Local Sol and the difference really between deep green and local Sol is that deep green is 50% solar and 50% wind and local Sol is all locally sourced solar power from a farm up in Novato. So we give our customers essentially those three different options and deep green is still so the way that it works is it's one penny per kilowatt hour more so the average customer the the stat on that is 500 kilowatt hours a month so that would be an extra$5 If you're someone whose bill is is less than that you'll pay less if if it's if it's more than you'll pay more. But that has really paid for actually half of the premium from from that so if you're if you're someone who is the average right you pay $5 $2.50 of that has gone towards MCs local renewable projects and programs fund which has helped pay for things like our Evie charging infrastructure programs, our Evie rebates, our low income solar, and a lot of that is approximately $800,000 from that Mind went to the startup costs for a project that we built in the city of Richmond. So our deep green customers are paying for renewable energy, but they're also paying for new renewable energy projects and new infrastructure investments in within MCE service area. So it's a really cool program in that way.

Dina Rasor: 20:23

Okay, so are you? Are you still looking to expand into other communities? Or at one point when I read it? And they said, Well, we're not going to get that big. But it it did it? Obviously the demand was there. You know, are there other localities are on the fringes of your edge of your service that are thinking about it?

Jenna Tenney: 20:48

Um, yeah, so we are pretty much planning to stay within our four county footprint. So there's a handful of communities in Contra Costa and a handful in Solano that are still have the potential to join MCE if they were interested. So we have had some conversations with those jurisdictions. And we really try to encourage getting a good understanding of of how MCE works and what we do and the value that we bring into the community and have the City Council really feel secure in the decision to move forward. So those jurisdictions haven't made any decisions yet. But we're, we're always open to to working with them. There are now 23, maybe 24 CPAs, across California. So we actually are lucky to kind of be surrounded by a lot of other programs that are serving their communities. And that's really kind of the benefit of Community Choice programs is that you do have a smaller footprint than pg&e, which covers, you know, a huge portion of the state. We're able to develop programs that are really unique and specific to those communities that we serve. So no plans right now for expansion but we're we're pretty much planning to stay with that our for county service area at this point.

Dina Rasor: 22:09

So just to reiterate, so people understand is basically you make the electricity and pg&e delivers it so PGA because become more and more a delivery system on there. I I live in El Cerritos the grid is horrible. It looks like third world country wiring. I mean, it really is bad. But I just wondered, I know that the customer pays pays pg&e for the use of their lines. But do you guys have to pay pg&e at all to use the lines?

Jenna Tenney: 22:44

We don't. So the lines basically, I always sort of described the electric grid as a bathtub, right? So all of the little power sources are spigots feeding into the bathtub, they're feeding water in and when you turn on a clean water spigot, it means there's less room in the bathtub for dirty water to be in there. Right? So you have to let some of that dirty water go out. So pg&e really they're they're maintaining the bathtub, they're making sure the water is gonna get wherever it needs to go. And MCE makes sure that their and our partners our sister agencies are making sure that clean water is coming into the bathtub and it makes all of the water in the bathtub cleaner overall. So that's kind of how we we talk about clean energy but it the the way that everyone is paid for their services is the same way that they were before. But instead of paying pg&e for the the actual generation of the electricity, the source of it, you're paying MCE instead.

Dina Rasor: 23:41

So the in the customer base, you have 1.5 million or you said half a million households. How many people are left in your district? That's that opted out for pg&e. What percentage do you know,

Jenna Tenney: 23:55

our overall enrollment percentage is around 87%. So

Dina Rasor: 24:01

wow, that's bigger than I thought.

Jenna Tenney: 24:03

Yeah, that's that's definitely the benefit of having an opt out program. We we do really extensive messaging to communities when we enroll them. And we continue to do that. So when a new community joins, we send four mailers out to them. We put advertising into the local newspapers, radio, we often do billboards and things like transit, you know, bus stops and stuff like that. So that folks are really hearing about it. We work with the City Council, town council or county board of supervisors depending on what the jurisdiction is. And we also work really closely with local community organizations. So we you know, Rotary clubs or senior centers or schools we want them to know about MC E and know what we're providing and be able to make the decision if they if they don't want to go with MC if they want to remain with pg&e. So we our opt out rate is is a little bit higher than some of the other ccaas. We've been doing this the longest. And so folks are pretty familiar with with who we are at this point. But we were very happy with that. 87%. And in our newer communities where Community Choice is a little bit better understood, it's closer to a 90% enrollment rate.

Dina Rasor: 25:21

Okay, and, and so the looked at my questions, and then forgot what I was gonna ask. But anyway, I just I wanted to talk about also what I thought was one of the things that you already talked about this already is you don't just buy and you know, encourage people to put solar panels, you actually have these programs. And I saw one of the programs, which I'm incredibly impressed with, and don't know why we don't do this over the whole state of California. And that is you start putting canopies over parking lots, where you park the cars. And so anybody who's lived in California knows that when you get into a car in the middle of the summer, and you got shorts on you're gonna get your mitts, it's that hot. And because the sun is so intense here, but it actually cools the cars down so they don't have to use as much fuel. It has the solar panels on top. And then it has Evie charging at the at either end, the one I saw was either end so that people can come and charge their cars. How have you done? I just saw one of your programs, what have you done that kind of thing more? And what else are you doing with businesses and other things with your own money to try to generate more solar?

Jenna Tenney: 26:50

Yeah, so our feed in tariff program is really the primary primary pathway for those local renewable projects. Solar carports are a great way to get more renewable energy and you can if the if the project is large enough, you can sell it to MCE those those projects are what we call urban infill and they're great because they're not taking arable land and putting solar panels on it right it's space that as you as you mentioned, we're already putting cars there. Right my husband is a big believer in leather seats but I have spent my whole life in California I believe in cloth and I think I think those the solar carports are great for a variety of reasons and yeah, so our our San Rafael location has a solar carport structure that also has 10 Evie charging ports underneath it and so we are able to charge during the day with 100% solar power coming straight from those panels so when you plug in your your Eevee you're getting 100% clean power and our Evie charging infrastructure program is offers rebates for for evey charging at workplaces and multifamily properties so that we can really help increase the availability of EB charging for rooftop solar. Other than the feed in tariff program. You know, you mentioned the payment structure for that earlier we do pay twice the wholesale rate which is twice what pg&e pays on any excess solar generation. The the plan has changed a little bit we now in California have such a high amount of rooftop solar that MCs focus has shifted a little bit more towards the Evie charging component and also battery storage. It's a really important component for California and the electricity grid.

Dina Rasor: 28:52

Okay, what other kinds of programs have you done outside of the solar? What have you done any any other programs where you're generating your own electricity or is it mainly mainly solar not, I assume not wind?

Jenna Tenney: 29:08

Not not locally, locally, it's mainly been solar. And we earlier this year just signed our first contract for a local solar plus storage project. Wind is a little bit trickier. Just it does require generally a lot of land and some some folks don't really like to have wind in their area. So a lot of our wind comes from areas that are kind of farther out. As as we all know, the Bay Area's very populated very, very home heavy. So in our service area, it's been a lot of urban infill and solar projects like that. But in terms of the other projects or the other programs that we offer, we have our Eevee charging infrastructure rebates we have low low income vehicle rebates, EB rebates for the cars themselves. We have operated a low income solar program for a number of years, that program just recently closed. During COVID, we offered a bill discount program for residents and then a kind of different tiers for residents. And then also small businesses as well that qualified, we have a whole suite of energy efficiency programs. And one of our like, cool new, very exciting programs is we're working with a number of organizations out in Richmond, to get a virtual power plant going, working with homes that need to install new energy efficiency upgrades, and distributed energy resources. So things like solar electrification of appliances, and be able to use all of that to support grid health. I think most folks are familiar with the flex alerts we had about a week ago, where we were asking people to conserve energy. The idea there is we have a set of resources in a community that can be aggregated and turned on or off to help support electricity needs during things like extreme heat events or other things like that. So that was super high level, but we have a whole variety of programs that we're trying to reach people with really what what they ultimately need.

Dina Rasor: 31:25

So the people who aren't in California, probably might have read about a newspaper, but we had this heat dome over us, you know, similar to the the freeze that Texas had, you know, it's just something that just puts the strain on the grid. And, you know, the Gavin Newsom at all got on there and said, Hey, everybody, can you not use electricity as much between four and nine, otherwise we're going to have to might have some brownouts or blackouts. And I think everybody was pretty amazed. I don't think I was because, you know, especially in Northern California, but the state just dropped, you know, it was amazing to look at the chart after that was done and four o'clock came along, and people just got off their electricity. I mean, they stopped washing their clothes, using their dryer and all that kind of stuff. And it actually dipped, and there was no emergency. I mean, it had, you know, resolved itself the next day. Everybody's like, how did that happen? People in Texas are like, how did that happen? Well, because we're all we all knew that if we all did a little bit on our part that everybody else would benefit. And I think that's something I feel when we do that with water, too. And I think that that's one of the reasons I like living in California. We at least try.

Jenna Tenney: 32:46

Yes. Pretty, pretty spectacular to see that especially we're HOTTEST. Yeah, we you say the thought is Heatwave, I think I think we always hope, right. And we have seen with Flex alerts in previous years that people have really stepped up. And this year was just really unique. And that, you know, we broke 1000 Heat waves across the western heatwave records across the Western US. So this was really sort of an above and beyond situation. And California, really, everybody stepped up. And that was really awesome to see.

Dina Rasor: 33:21

Of course, we in the Bay Area with our fog, the hotter it gets inland, the more the fog hangs to the coast. And so we've had the coolest summers, except for one a couple of days because Sacramento's at 112 or 117, some ridiculous thing, and it pulls the plug in. So it was actually a cool summer for us. Okay, so are you planning to ask the State of California federal government for new climate money grants, expand your work, you know, if so, what kind of grants and that kind of thing and what what do you think, you know, there's this, obviously, this new pot, two new pots of money from the infrastructure bill and from the inflation Reduction Act, that it's going to put a more environmental money in than it's ever been before. And that's of course, one of the reasons we started this conversation because I have my I watched the Pentagon waste a lot of money. And I just know that when you have a lot of money shoved in someplace fast, there's there's fraud. But are you guys planning to do get government or state, federal government or state grants?

Jenna Tenney: 34:30

Yes, I know our team is still evaluating everything that comes along with that and they're still really deciding, you know, federal government is still deciding where all of that money is gonna go. But for MCE, our priorities right now are battery storage. It's a really vital component of getting us to 100% clean energy and helping alleviate those concerns with grid outages. So that's that's a really big one for us. Electric vehicles as well with Gov Newsom mandates for EVs. We were it's really important that we help meet those demands both for vehicles but also for the Evie charging, because the charging is really one of the biggest barriers that that range anxiety and what am I next going to hit a charging station? And how do I handle that. So that's something that's really important to us. And we're also looking at ways to continue to support to support customer equity, right. So for us, we have a Healthy Homes program that we've been running for a while. And it is really a holistic approach to energy efficiency, recognizing that current energy efficiency programs, maybe don't take into account some other things that would really improve the quality of life for folks. So example, if you're going into someone's home, and you're upgrading light fixtures or water fixtures, maybe you're doing, you know, a heat pump installation to replace an outdated heating and cooling system. There may be other small things, maybe they need some pest management, maybe it's someone who could use a wheelchair ramp or there's, you know, some other kind of smaller things that are health and safety upgrades in the home. And that's really what that program looked at is integrating all of these solutions in a way that's going to going to really improve the quality of life for these folks. So we would love to continue to expand that program, especially in some of our underserved communities where the housing stock really hasn't seen the attention that it that it needs to have seen. And then lastly, we are really exploring innovative technologies. I mentioned our virtual power plant earlier. And this is a small test project in Richmond, but we'd love to see that grow across our service area, and also green hydrogen. So green hydrogen is hydrogen fuel that is made using renewable resources, most often that solar. And California now at this point has so much solar in the middle of the day that's being put onto the grid that they're curtailing. And green hydrogen is a great resource for storage for that excess solar energy, and can be used to generate electricity or can be shifted into fuel for transportation. So we would like to see all of those applications come through. And as we're transitioning to zero emission vehicles, looking at ways to bulk up the access to hydrogen fuel as well for that as a resource. So those are kind of our current priorities. But we're seeing us just still waiting to see how things shake out in terms of funding,

Dina Rasor: 37:36

you're looking at what the federal government's putting out there, because they're really, you know, send it out, please take their money, take our money, which is, which is great. If it's, if it's done. Well, I was wondering about that. The other one question I have that popped up that I had, for us. One of the big problems in a place like Richmond is that people who live in apartment buildings or whatever one that the they don't, the renters don't get any advantage of having solar, on the roof and whatever. And the landlord does, but the other part of it is, is that one of the things that's kind of a environmental justice problem in getting people who live in, especially low income areas of apartments, is being able to find a place where you can charge your car overnight. You know, it's not like my house that can pull in the driveway, you know, you can install it in the garage, but trying to find out how to get it so that there are charging stations for people who live in rental houses, because it's really going to become one of the major ways you feel do your cars, it's easier to plug it in overnight. So have you been working on any programs like that?

Jenna Tenney: 38:52

Yeah. So our multifamily energy efficiency program has is our longest running energy efficiency program that's been operating since 2013. And we definitely deal with what you're describing, which is called the split incentive issue, right where the landlords aren't going to see the benefits of in Unit upgrades, right, the tenants are but the landlords are paying for those upgrades, or vice versa, the landlord is maybe going to raise rents so that they can install solar, which is not going to benefit the tenants necessarily, it might benefit the landlord. And so we've been we've been working with multifamily properties to figure out how we can bridge that gap. And one of the ways that we do that with our energy efficiency program is we provide direct install services to units when we are doing common area upgrades for multifamily properties. So you're kind of getting to do both. And we're offering those direct install incentives for those are those services are free. So that's a program we've been running a long time and I want to get to the Eevee charging but I see that Greg as

Greg Williams: 39:55

well. Well, I guess before we move on, I want to better understand What these direct install arrangements are? I would have thought that producing or installing additional power sources into a multifamily dwelling is not at all simple. So are you talking about additional electrical fields perhaps coming from rooftop solar? Or are these battery installations? What sort of direct installations are you doing?

Jenna Tenney: 40:27

Yeah, so direct install services primarily include easy and energy efficiency upgrades. So they include transition to LED light bulbs, low flow water fixtures, looking at if there's weather stripping upgrades that can be done pretty small, easy to install upgrades. But we do have a program our low income families and tenants program that took that a step further and has been installing heat pump water and space heating as well. And so we come into the units and we transition those and the incentives are going to help pay for the heat pump water and space heaters. And we have actually seen through that, that program that the customer is, even though most often you're transitioning their water heating and space heating from gas to electric, right, so you're essentially increasing their electric bill. They've still saved money, they've seen about an average of $172 Savings a year. And they're getting a much better quality product for water and space heating when doing that. So that's that's kind of what we've looked at for those programs. But in terms of the Evie charging, as well, I mentioned earlier, our Evie charging infrastructure program that provides up to $3,500 per port for evey charging stations, in workplaces and multifamily properties. So you mentioned you know, if you're someone who lives in an apartment, you know, probably don't have a garage, right that you can pull up to and, and plug in. And that could be folks who are renting. But it could also be folks who live in an HOA or who live in a condo who don't necessarily have the capacity, maybe they're they have open parking, so they may have a designated parking space, but they don't have the ability to install their own Eb, you know, charging station. So that is why we have focused on workplace and multifamily because studies have shown that when you install Evie charging at a workplace, the employees are six times more likely to drive in an Eevee. And in multifamily properties, that's really where that where that gap is, as you described earlier that folks aren't going to get an Eevee if they can't go home and charge it. And so having that availability and multifamily properties is a really important component of that.

Dina Rasor: 42:53

Okay, I didn't like that. One, I just thought of another way off way over my outline because I just there's so many things. But when someone when one of the problems that I saw when I first when they first talked about Evie charging, and we're going to put the 500,000 in the head of the government grants and everything. I was like, why don't you just put them in individual independent gas stations and start replacing pumps with Evie charging. And one of the things that people said to me was that the a lot of these smaller strip malls and things like that paint don't have the grid to take on that kind of you know, there was we're trying to electrify everything and whatever. And down in El Sarita Plaza Tesla has put up, I think for all the Tesla drivers, but that's because that's a big plaza Mall. And they have they have the grid, but I've been told that one of the limitations of trying to go and put things at charging or extra solar and things like this or get everybody to change their, you know, this change from gas to electricity is that the grid is is not built for that. And that, of course takes us back to our friend PGD. Um, is that a problem for you guys? And then are you working with PG and E on that kind of thing?

Jenna Tenney: 44:20

Um, so I think there's two components, there's, like literally, the grid, PG knees, you know, electricity grid, and then there's the electricity infrastructure at any particular location, right. So, in most cases, if you were to go out to right, your, your local grocery store, they're not going to have electricity running out to the parking lot, right. And so, and it's also the same way in your home if you were to, you know, add another another refrigerator, you know, as you keep adding things on you run out of space, in your, your fuse box. And so it's that type of thing that I I think is the larger issue, which is that the infrastructure for individual places like if you're a multifamily property, and you have to run it from your common area all the way through, if you have a big winding property, how are you going to get it to all of those places, and that is definitely part of it of the trenching and you have to, you know, dig up all the concrete and run the lines, and it's a break, it can be a big project. So we're really working with those properties. And that's one of the reasons we provide 3500 up to $3,500 per port is really helping it become more financially feasible for them to do all of the work needed to put these charging ports in place. As far as PG and E's grid, I can't speak too much to what they're doing. But I know that they're aware of, of what needs to be changing, and they are working on upgrading their infrastructure as well.

Dina Rasor: 45:51

And I think that's been sort of sobered on that. The frustrating thing and one of the reasons I want to get a battery is that they got they had such horrible they caused so many horrible wildfires are in the last couple of years bay by, you know, lines come the big lines coming down and stuff that they now when the wind just starts blowing a little bit in this year as they shut off all the electricity, so that it won't start welfare but and then in the electricity start off. So I think they're really starting to realize that if they're going to be the if they're going to be the delivery service, they're going to have to step up their game for this new LNG. Greg, you have more questions? Well,

Greg Williams: 46:33

the one thing I wanted to ask is just uh, if you could give us a better understanding of just how you're organized, a traditional power utility is very constrained and how it can spend its money and what it can charge. And I'm wondering how that how that differs with a CCA and others do you have to go before rate board and demonstrate that you've made expenditures that that then need to be recovered through rates? Or is there a different arrangement for for CPAs? Yeah,

Jenna Tenney: 47:06

so it's it, I would say that it is similar to what you just described. We are not regulated, our rates are not regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission, the same way that pg&e And the other investor owned utilities are. So what we do is typically on an annual basis, although sometimes it has been less often than that is we go to our board and we say, Hey, here's, here's what we've got going on. Here's our here's our, you know, our budget, here's what we have planned to spend, here's what our powers costing us, based on, you know, all this information, here's where we need to set rates. And in the past, we have, we have lowered rates, we have raised rates. So it really, you know, we look at all of the factors, and MCE, a big part of our focus is really on financial stability. And we were the first CCA to get a credit rating and the first CCA to have two credit ratings. And those credit ratings in the way that we manage our rates and our financials allow us to purchase power at more competitive rates, which in turn allows us to lower costs potentially for customers, or to reinvest those monies and other programs. So our board of directors who is our governing body for rates, they make the ultimate decision on what our rates should be, is the elected officials from the member communities we serve. So I mentioned earlier, we have 37 member communities and we have 32 board members. And that is because the jurisdictions are able to consolidate their vote if they'd like to. So Napa County and all five jurisdictions have one sitting board member that represents all of those jurisdictions. So that's why there's 32 instead of 37. But that board, we have an ad hoc rate ad hoc rate setting committee and so it will go to that committee and then it will go up to the subcommittee's or executive committee and technical committee and then to the full board for approval. So it's definitely a process. We have a ton of opportunity for public input. It's much easier to reach us than it is to reach the CPUC with questions about rate setting and things like that, so we encourage members of the public to come to our board meetings, listen in participate share their opinions. And what's nice about it also is because these are local elected officials, they are also on their city council, town council or county board of supervisors. So if somebody our board meetings are currently remote, but when they were in person before COVID, they could come to our Concord AR Sandra fell office to participate or they could just go to their city council and talk to them. They're so much easier for folks to reach out but we are regulated by our board as opposed to the state when it comes to rates.

Dina Rasor: 49:42

And just to reiterate, the board is made up of each community, each community or county or send a representative and they choose the representative.

Jenna Tenney: 49:53

Yeah, so the council sometimes sometimes they vote sometimes they just say like somebody says hey, I haven't in interest to the council says sounds great, you can go. But it does have to be someone who is an active member of the the elected official board for that committee, the governing board for that community

Dina Rasor: 50:11

that gives you better, better interaction with your customers than someplace like pee genies board, which PGD, you know, is investment is an investment organization. So they have, you know, like company. So that's what makes it much more community oriented.

Jenna Tenney: 50:29

Yes, we do not have shareholders, we are a not for profit public agency. So we're not here to make money. We are here to serve our communities. And we rely on our board and our community members to tell us what they need so that we can better serve them.

Dina Rasor: 50:49

Okay, well, what else would you like to add? I mean, we've covered a whole bunch of areas, is there some area you think that some other place that you think that is different? And your thing, then, you know, people across the country who are all cursing, their utilities is pointing? There's a lot of that a lot of a lot of people upset about their utilities?

Jenna Tenney: 51:12

Yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's hard. Right now, I think there's a lot shifting, I think, for those of us talking about climate change, right, where we're seeing that we're seeing these extreme heat storms, this is the second one. And breaking all of those heat records, we're seeing the effects of climate change. And it is in fact, impacting the way that we are able to use electricity. And so MCE, we're really looking at climate change, as as the major problem that we need to solve climate change is the problem that is causing a lot of these, what seemed like individual issues, and we want to address that. But then we also want to look at the ways that it is actually impacting individuals, whether that's my powers going out, or I'm no longer able to drive a gas powered vehicle, or, you know, in the case of events, like the extreme heat storm that we had, were we're putting natural gas peaker plants online, where we're pumping fossil fuels into the air so that we can keep the power on and we are really looking to address that so that we don't have to do that. And so that communities that have been historically marginalized, are able to have cleaner air and water and a better experience.

Greg Williams: 52:35

So I'm curious, you've certainly created in me the impression that when you need more solar or wind power, you just go out and get it or you funded or you encourage development via incentives you seem to have. Or, again, you've given me the impression that you, you have this limitless supply of renewable energy. And yet at the same time, there are stories in the press about things like keeping Diablo Canyon in operation longer, or as you put it, additional gas peaker plants, so why why do some organizations both inside California and elsewhere, feel this need to rely on these these non renewable technologies to create power when you seem to have as much as you like? Well, I will

Jenna Tenney: 53:30

say that there is not an unlimited supply of renewables, right, they need to be built the same way that any other type of resource would. So you know, CPAs are looking out into the market and saying, Okay, we have to purchase power for 2030. What's out there? What are we going to have built what's going to be online by the end, right. So that's, that's part of it is making sure that you're planning out far enough that you do have these resources actually built and online, and serving power when the time comes. The the major issue, though, is that solar has for a long time been the primary source for renewables. Wind is a really big component. But as I mentioned earlier, large hydro is not considered renewable. So we're looking really heavily at wind and solar. And both of those resources are intermittent. You only have solar energy when the sun is shining, and you only have wind when the wind is blowing. And they do pair pretty well together. So as sun is this as the sun is going down in the evening, the wind is ramping up and so you get kind of solar goes down, and then wind later in the evening starts to pick up. But that's why we talk about this gap in four to nine because all of the solar has come online, offline. People are going home, they're making dinner, they're they're doing their laundry, they may be plugged in their electric vehicle, and so the need for electricity goes up, but there aren't any really renewables available on the grid at that time to meet that need. And so that's where I Things like Diablo Canyon and natural gas resources come online because they're 24/7. They're what's considered baseload resources. So MCE is really looking at bio energy as the next step for baseload resources. But that's also why we're so heavily focused on battery storage, because it allows us to shift that solar load and still use those renewables.

Greg Williams: 55:25

Okay, so what are your deep green customers do between four and 9pm? Today?

Jenna Tenney: 55:31

That's a great question. So I'll go back to the bathtub analogy, right. So the way that power accounting works as you look at it over the course of an entire year, so if you sign up for deep green, we say, okay, we know that over the course of the year, you're using X amount of electricity. So we're gonna go out and make sure that we purchase that same amount of electricity from completely renewable energy 50%, wind 50% solar, over the course of the entire year. And that's how power accounting works. But it doesn't necessarily address that gap that we're talking about now. And so that's where baseload resources baseload renewables, specifically, and battery storage, are, where all of that comes into play.

Dina Rasor: 56:17

Do you have a question? No, I think I've probably had everything answered, although I think the the battery thing is the next big thing, because you know, my solar panels go like crazy, and I'm selling it back. And then in the evening, I'm buying back electricity. So if I had my own my own batteries, which I'm going to get to, because sometimes pg&e just turns off the power and own the Sierras, is going to be the way that you can even get out without having to rely on fossil fuel, oil and kind.

Greg Williams: 56:54

So maybe one last question I'll ask is, do you have some time in the future that you would anticipate having enough battery storage within your production network, that you could say to a deep green customer, you will never consume anything but or probably can't say that period. But do you have a point in time, the future when you can imagine saying we have enough both base and intermittent load, all in renewable, supported by batteries, that we can provide as much power as people need, regardless of the hour of the day. That's,

Jenna Tenney: 57:33

that's the ultimate goal. That is the ultimate goal is that you have all of these solutions, working in tandem so that we can reach California's goals for being completely greenhouse gas free and completely renewable. So yeah, we were working towards that goal the same way as the rest of the state. And that's, that's going to be a combination of of all of these things, looking at distributed energy resources and aggregating them into a resource that you can turn on and off, making sure that individual customers, large commercial customers, municipalities, and the large industrial size, power plants all have access to some type of storage resource, green hydrogen I mentioned earlier. So these all of these things have to work together in order to get us where where California wants to be. And I think we can do it. I think these, these new infrastructure investments and the IRA are a great step in that direction, right, those getting access to those funding resources, and MCE is just a piece of that puzzle. And I think we all need to be we all are and we all need to be working toward that ultimate goal.

Greg Williams: 58:47

All right, well, that's probably a great note on which to end unless either view as anything else you want to add. So I will thank you once again for joining us again, our guest is Jenna Tenny. Who is who is representing what used to be called marine clean energy and now just MCE and we hope to see you again sometime in the future.

Jenna Tenney: 59:12

Thanks so much for having me.

Dina Rasor: 59:15

Thank you