RenewableNY supports Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) also known as Community-Controlled Energy as an innovative model allowing communities to form their own electricity service area and leverage their combined demand to purchase the kinds of power supply and energy services that meet their needs, goals and values. When it was first invented more than two decades ago in Massachusetts, CCA’s main objective was to keep rates down through group purchasing. In California (CCA “2.0”), programs include community-wide energy planning and investment to build resilience and grow the local economy.
CCA includes groups of towns and cities, counties, an individual city, or any combination of municipalities seeking locally based, clean energy models; one that will encourage local investment in energy resource development, create local jobs, reduce greenhouse gases, secure more stable electricity rates, and provide the impetus to modernize the electricity grid to support a sustainable and resilient decentralized energy system.
In December 2014, Governor Cuomo named CCA as one of five key energy initiatives, and New York’s Public Service Commission is currently exploring CCA as a model to meet the goals of the state’s Reforming the Energy Vision process.
RenewableNY supports the work of partner organization, Citizens for Local Power, to create a CCA "2.0" program in New York's Ulster County. RenewableNY also educates New Yorkers in other regions of the state on how CCA can be a model for creating a localized, clean energy economy.
For more information visit Citizens For Local Power