subject: Community Choice Aggregation: Getting Green Energy from the Grid [print this page] Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) is a new system that some states are beginning to use in regards to green energy. Massachusetts, Ohio, California, New Jersey and Rhode Island have adopted laws that allow cities and counties to aggregate the purchasing of power for individuals and enable them to acquire their energy from alternative energy suppliers. CCA's charge their customers less money than for-profit energy companies, since they buy the power in bulk. Another characteristic of a CCA is that residents are automatically part of a CCA when it's formed and they are required to opt out if they want to stay with their fossil fuel utility power. Currently, about one-million Americans are participating in CCA's and the number is growing daily.
In Massachusetts, the CCA was first established in 1997 in the form of the Cape Light Compact, a united group of cities which now serves more than 200,000 customers. They also install solar panels on schools, fire stations and libraries. The largest CCA in the country can be found in Ohio, where more than 500,000 customers from more than one hundred rural towns receive a variety of energy sources.
The CCA program is also going very well in California. More than forty local cities in California are currently implementing CCA, and cities throughout California will exceed the Renewable Portfolio Standard of California, which requires the state to operate on fifty-one-percent renewable energy by 2017!
CCA is a great example of the kind of bottom-up strategy that we need to implement if the United States is going to move into a green, renewable energy future. In order for this to work, we need to need to make the conscious effort to seek out green, renewable energy. The greater the demand, the greater the availability and the more investors will make renewable green energy theories a possibility! We have made so many advances in the area of renewable energy and green alternatives, however, we have yet to replace conventional energy with an eco-friendly source.
EnviroCitizen.org is a strong advocate for green, renewable energy alternatives. The less fossil fuel we consume, the less greenhouse gases are emitted into the atmosphere. Also, the more green energy alternatives that come to be, the less dependent we will be on depleting energy sources in general! EnviroCitizen.org encourages you to continue researching ways in which you can actively promote green energy and eco-friendly energy consumption.
Community Choice Aggregation: Getting Green Energy from the Grid
