What is Finger Lakes Community Choice?
The City of Geneva, Town of Geneva and Villages of Brockport, Honeoye Falls, and Lima have partnered with Joule Community Power , a division of Joule Assets, Inc. to establish a community choice aggregation (“CCA” or “community choice”) program that provides access to renewable electricity at competitive rates.
The program empowers the community to pool local electricity demand in order to leverage the collective buying power of residents and small businesses in effort to secure more favorable terms on their electricity supply and community solar contracts, protect consumers, and choose renewable generation sources. The program has two components: community choice electricity supply and a first-of-kind community choice solar program.
The first-of-kind community choice solar offering launched in Fall 2021 in Brockport and Lima delivers guaranteed electricity bill savings (derived from NY State incentives for renewable generation) while reducing NY State carbon emissions—without requiring participants to install solar panels or sign a contract. This groundbreaking community solar program represents and important milestone towards achieving the NY State Climate Action Plan mandate to reach 70% renewables by 2030.
The participating communities with active contracts through the program include the Town of Geneva, and Villages of Brockport, and Lima. The prospective communities with no active contracts through the program include the City of Geneva, and the Village Honeoye Falls.
Our Vision
To provide residents and businesses in New York’s Finger Lakes region access to cleaner and cheaper electricity. We seek to empower communities to support clean energy generation and become energy independent through renewable energy and local energy choice.
Renewable energy
Lower price
Consumer protection
Our Mission
To launch a community choice aggregation (CCA) program in the Finger Lakes region in order to secure clean, less expensive electricity for residents and small businesses. We seek to amplify the electricity savings achieved through CCA and promote clean energy generation in NY State through community solar.
Our Offerings
COMMUNITY CHOICE ELECTRICITY SUPPLY
COMMUNITY CHOICE SOLAR
Those who take advantage of the Finger Lakes Community Choice Electricity Supply offering pay a fixed price for their energy supply.
Those who take advantage of the Finger Lakes Community Choice Solar offering, without signing a contract or installing solar panels on their homes or property, will access the benefits of solar. They also help in the fight against climate change and reduce NY State carbon emissions by supporting local renewable energy generation and, in exchange, receive guaranteed savings on electricity.
What is Community Power?
Community Power is a concept and “toolbox” intended to put energy decision-making authority in the hands of communities rather than the State, transferring power to municipalities and enabling local autonomy. Community Power ensures that even the smallest communities are equipped with the legislative framework and tools to become active leaders in the transition to clean energy. The tools currently available in the Finger Lakes region are the community choice electricity supply and community choice solar.
What is Joule Community Power?
Joule Community Power is developing a clean energy future by bringing the power of choice to municipalities across New York State, empowering local decision-making, enabling access to cleaner and cheaper energy, and making it easier for New Yorkers to transition to renewable energy. Through community choice aggregation (CCA), Joule helps municipalities join together to aggregate the buying power of residents at large enough scale to negotiate more favorable terms of their energy contracts, decrease electricity costs, designate renewable generation sources, choose clean energy, increase consumer protection, select a default energy services company, support local renewable generation, and deliver the benefits of solar, or other renewables, to entire communities. Joule launched the first and only community choice solar program in the country, bringing the benefits of solar to entire communities. Having created the blueprint to guide communities through a smooth and empowering process that moves energy consumers away from fossil fuels to clean energy, Joule aims to scale its Community Power model across NY State and beyond. s of December 2022, Joule provided access to clean energy and community solar to more than 800,000 NYers in 52 communities.
Joule Community Power is a division of Joule Assets, Inc.
Learn More about Community Choice Aggregation in NY
The Public Service Commission (PSC) authorized CCA April 21, 2016. The PSC continues to regulate CCA with the support of the Department of Public Service (DPS). Information including CCA program rules can be found here on the DPS website.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) created a toolkit to support the development of CCA. The toolkit can be found here on NYSERDA’s website.