Your Community, Your Choice
No two communities are the same. Each has its own voice, personality, ideals, and values. As such, municipal energy programs can’t be one-size-fits-all designs. Rather, these programs must be tailored to reflect the needs of the communities and wants of those who reside therein. Finger Lakes Community Choice (FLCC) enables municipal leaders to leverage the purchasing power of residents and small businesses to negotiate more favorable terms for their default energy offerings. This community choice aggregation (“community choice” or “CCA”) program empowers municipalities to provide access to cleaner and cheaper energy for their residents and small businesses. Not only do community choice programs brings communities together, but participating residents also save money on electricity while supporting clean, renewable energy.
Let’s look at how NY State defines CCA—a policy that allows local elected officials to choose from where a community gets its energy. It allows local governments to work together through a shared purchasing model to put out for bid their combined electricity demand, thus enabling municipalities to determine default energy offerings (e.g., electricity supply and community solar) on behalf of residents and small businesses.
For years, NY State residents have been able to choose their own electricity supplier. However, most still don’t and, as a result, they buy energy from the State-determined default supplier. Through community choice programs, municipalities are taking back control from the State so that they could make their choice about what’s best for their own communities. And, their available options are growing in both number and quality.
A NEW OFFERING
When most people think about CCA, they think about energy supply contracts. For the first time in the U.S., however, community solar will be offered within the framework of community choice, presenting an entirely new and exciting offering!
Like most new things, community choice solar evolved from what has come before. It arose from a desire to maximize benefits by expanding accessibility to what’s already available. To understand community choice solar, we must first understand community solar.
Community solar gives residents and small businesses an opportunity get involved in the clean energy movement and benefit from solar energy without the hassle of installing solar panels. This grants access to the approximately 50% of all homes that are unable to host panels. It also enables renters to benefit from solar in the same way homeowners and business can. Once enrolled, residents are subscribed to a nearby solar farm and are assigned an allocation that generates enough renewable energy to match nearly all their typical annual electricity usage. The farm generates clean, renewable energy that’s fed into the power grid. In return, subscribers receive solar credits that are applied to and reduce their electricity bill. The solar farm manager bills 90% of the credit value, guaranteeing annual electricity bill savings.
Now, imagine a community solar program for the ENTIRE community. That’s community choice solar.
Community choice solar delivers benefits beyond those offered by typical community solar programs. By enrolling residents by default, the program becomes accessible to an even broader population because it eliminates the requirement for participant credit checks. In that way, it allows ALL residents to gain the benefits or solar. Community choice solar removes several additional enrollment barriers. Not only do subscribers get to skip the often cumbersome signup process—that usually requires an email account and access to a computer—they won’t have to pay a second bill for solar or sign an individual contract. In fact, municipalities can effectively leverage shared buying power to negotiate more favorable terms with solar providers, allowing entire communities to benefit from local solar. You can think of it as a community-based, customizable clean energy plan.
In addition to the benefits derived directly from community choice solar, working with Joule delivers even more value. Program administrator Joule has established a community solar program that gives back to communities making the shift toward clean, locally-sourced energy by allocating $50 per participant to local sustainability projects. Community choice solar is a simple program that provides substantial benefits.
THE PIONEERS
The Villages of Brockport and Lima have been at the forefront of establishing a milestone community choice program that includes both energy supply and community solar. The two villages are poised to offer cleaner and cheaper energy to their more than 3,000 households. Honoeye Falls and the Town of Geneva intend to soon join the endeavor in effort to deliver the same benefits to residents.
Brockport Mayor Margay Blackman stated,
We have been continually trying to find ways to try to save our residents money, and one of them has been through true renewable energy. We converted to municipal solar in 2019 and have been waiting for the opt-out community solar program that Joule has offered. So we're really thrilled to now be a part of it."
Mayor John Wadach of Lima said,
“Implementing community choice aggregation has been a goal that the Village of Lima has been working on for four years. We are excited to bring renewable energy at a cost savings to our residents. Although our residents will not have to take any action to receive the savings on their National Grid bills, those of us on the Village Board know how much work with State regulators and utilities that Joule undertook to make this a reality.”
Community choice programs that include opt-out community solar combine the best elements of what’s available to municipalities and their residents. Through local energy choice, entire communities can support local renewable generation while accessing guaranteed electricity bill savings and benefiting the environment. It's also a great way to bring communities together and set them on a path to energy independence.