CCAs Challenge California PUC on RA Ruling
CCAs Challenge California PUC on RA Ruling
RTO Insider
July 27, 2023
A group representing California’s community choice aggregators is asking regulators to reconsider a decision that blocks CCAs from expanding if they have had resource adequacy deficiencies in the past two years.
The California Public Utilities Commission on July 5 issued the decision, which adopts local capacity obligations for 2024 to 2026 and refines the commission’s resource adequacy program.
The California Community Choice Association (CalCCA) filed a rehearing request Wednesday, saying the decision contained numerous “legal errors.”
CalCCA argues that the CPUC exceeded its jurisdiction over CCA implementation plans and impaired customers’ right to aggregate their loads with a CCA. The commission failed to act in a nondiscriminatory manner by prohibiting expansion of CCAs and electric service providers, but not investor-owned utilities, CalCCA said.
“The CPUC has given itself new unauthorized powers to needlessly discriminate against CCAs and prevent their growth,” CalCCA Executive Director Beth Vaughan said in a statement. “The decision literally blocks communities from exercising their legal right to aggregate and provide customers with a choice of energy providers.”
California has 25 CCA programs in operation, serving more than 14 million customers. The CCAs buy electricity for participating communities, in place of investor-owned utilities, with an emphasis on clean energy.
Read more here: CCAs Challenge California PUC on RA Ruling.
