PG&E'S REGIONAL 'CLEAN ENERGY' BILLING SCAM

The Letter to Editor that is linked below, appears in Marin’s only newspaper, the Marin Independent Journal.

This letter relates to the front-page story covering Marin Clean Energy’s (MCE’s) new 10.5 MW solar farm in Richmond (click here to read Marin IJ article). That story neglects to mention that California is far overbuilt on solar power, which is exported at zero prices and ‘negative prices’ (this is when California must pay the recipient of the electricity to take it) to Arizona while also creating management problems of California’s electric grid, managed by CAISO.

Solar is relatively inexpensive to construct compared to wind, enabling Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs) such as MCE to advertise that they are doing good things for California, while queuing up to be far short of contracting for renewable energy, per SB350 requirements — 65% of energy must be sourced from renewable generators with contracts that are at least 10 years in length.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Eminent Domain

Does anyone know what happened to eminent domain in CCAs’ Joint Powers Authority (JPA) bylaws? This issue surfaced in MCE’s March 2, 2018 Executive Committee packet, but I have not seen any action by MCE to resolve the issue in any subsequent MCE meeting packets or agendas.

MCE's JPA bylaws were replicated throughout all other CCAs and that eminent domain language is everywhere.

MCE, IJ not telling whole story about clean energy

The IJ’s story about Marin Clean Energy’s new solar farm going into service neglects to 

include information that puts things in perspective.

First, when MCE’s Richmond

-

located solar farm 

is included, only one

-

half of 1 percent of 

MCE’s total load is served by its “local” solar production.

Second, MCE claims that its solar farm is dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions, 

yet the IJ neglects to report that since MCE’s business launch, nearly half of its “clean” 

power is actually green

-

washed fossil

-

fired power. Accordingly, MCE fails t

o disclose 1.2 

billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions in energy that it rebrands as “clean.” This 

constitutes what MCE claims as exceeding the state requirement for “sourcing a certain 

percentage of its electricity from renewable sources.”

Last, MCE cl

aims that it has brought many new clean energy resources to market 

compared to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. This is an overstatement. For example, MCE is 

merely contracting for available energy from a large solar farm in Kings County and a large 

wind farm 

in Kern County until PG&E and Southern California Edison begin taking 

deliveries from these resources that these utility companies bankrolled.

It is hyperbole for MCE to claim that it is out

-

greening PG&E when these activities are 

going on behind the curtain

—

Jim Phelps, Novato