Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) is a quite remarkable power purchasing system that has been adopted into law in Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Illinois. One of its visionaries calls CCAs public works projects. CCA laws allow cities, counties, and some special districts to aggregate the buying power of individuals to secure alternative energy supply contracts. Under these programs, the utilities continue to maintain the power grid, respond to outages, and send monthly bills. The utilities then repay the CCAs for their generation.

Community choice aggregation began in 1995 in Massachusetts where the first CCA law went into effect in 1997. There, the towns of Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard formed the Cape Light Compact. It is still in operation today. Its inception, notes Paul Fenn, then the Director of the Massachusetts Senate Energy Committee, was galvanized by a few Cape communities and by “surprisingly few people.” Considered the founder of the CCA movement, Fenn formed American Local Power to help frame and pass CCA legislation in Ohio and New Jersey, and later California. There he has shepherded both the San Francisco and Sonoma CCA efforts. Today, Fenn’s firm Local Power is based in San Francisco.

CCAs are local non-profits. Once established, they become the default provider. And a CCA usually will hire a energy service provider to take the reigns, to purchase the power and secure the low rates promised. Green Mountain Power ran the CCA in Northern Ohio.  As of 2014, 5% of all electricity customers nationwide are served by CCAs representing over 1,300 municipalities. Today, the penetration is likely closer to 10%.

Customers who want to do so, can opt out. But consumers are keen on the CCA benefits: In every case to date, and even after paying the utilities the PCIA – the Power Charge Indifference Adjustment that repays the utility for over-market costs for generation purchased prior to the formation of the CCA – the CCAs have been able to supply power that is greener and cheaper than the current utility mix. Studies have shown that they buy and build higher renewable energy portfolios using public works bonding authorities while “meeting or beating” utility rates that are laden with nuclear and other fossil fuel resources.