After over a year in the making, the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) will be launching an electricity service for commercial customers beginning in April.
Launched in late 2020, the power authority is Orange County’s first “community choice energy” program that seeks to provide greener energy to residents and businesses in the county. Power authority officials will in essence take over Southern California Edison’s (SCE) role as the buyer and seller of electricity, though SCE’s facilities will still be transporting the power authority’s energy to homes and businesses.
Residential customers are set to be automatically switched over in October.
Since its inception, the power authority has garnered four cities—Irvine, Huntington Beach, Fullerton, and Buena Park—to join its board, with a promise to offer residents and businesses cleaner energy. The authority’s 100 percent renewable energy plan is about 5 percent pricier compared with the SCE’s original offer of partially renewable energy.
Both residents and businesses of member cities will be automatically switched over to the new plan, though everyone can opt out at any time. The power authority expected 5 percent of residents and 10 percent of commercial customers to opt out and stick with SCE, according to its Chief Financial Officer Tiffany Law at a Feb. 8 Irvine City Council meeting.
There will be 38,859 commercial businesses eligible for service through the power authority at its launch, an Orange County Power Authority spokesperson told The Epoch Times—yet the authority said they did not have an opt-out number to share at this time.
Commercial customers in the four-member cities who have yet to opt-out will automatically be enrolled in the option selected by their respective cities. All member cities selected 100 percent renewable except Fullerton.
These business customers will be switched over in April on the day when their meters reset.
The power authority has received a fair amount of criticism, after it originally promised two-percent savings with its renewable energy, which turned out to be unattainable when the actual prices emerged.
