Dive Brief:

• The New York Public Service Commission last week approved the state's third community choice aggregation (CCA) program, allowing five upstate municipalities to make bulk purchases of gas and electricity for their residents, potentially saving money and supporting more carbon-free energy.
• This newest program will serve the Central New York villages of Fayetteville and Minoa, and the Village of Coxsackie and the towns of Cairo and New Baltimore in the Capital District.
• New York's CCA program was created under its Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) proceeding, which seeks to reimagine how the distribution system works and the business models behind it. The newest CCA could begin operations during the second quarter of 2018.

Dive Insight:

The CCA movement is growing in popularity, especially in California. New York approved its first CCA in 2015, and since then they have been growing in popularity. There are now more than two dozen municipalities around the state purchasing energy for their residents.

The newest CCA program was organized by a nationwide energy consultant, Good Energy LP. It's the group's first CCA in New York, but the company has worked in approximately 250 communities around the country on similar arrangements. Good Energy will assist the new communities in choosing an energy service company to manage the CCA, which could begin operating in the first half of this year.

While a primary focus of the CCA movement is on clean energy, that is not the only option they consider. CCA programs may consider ways to support customer-sited energy storage systems and could establish distributed generation options allowing customers to sell excess power back to the program.

The program has gained traction in California, threatening the customer base for utilities. A new report estimates one-third of Californians could be obtaining their energy from alternative sources.