Take 5 minutes for environmental justice!
- Bring your PG&E number to church. You may want to note it in your phone right now!
- During Munch Club, take 5 minutes to make the switch on one of our handy cards, iPads or laptops provided by the Environmental Justice Life Group 🙂
All the compelling details from Nathan Pierce of our Environmental Justice Life Group:
Would you like to get solar power for your home, but you can’t afford the system? Or perhaps you can’t install solar power because you are renting your home. Now you can power your home entirely by solar, without buying a photovoltaic system.
Here in Berkeley, our energy provider, PG&E, does provide the “Solar Choice” option. However, the local Community Choice Energy provides an alternative that could allow you to get 100% renewable energy for your home while investing in the creation of local energy supply and keeping the money in the local community.
Usually, consumers have no choice but to go with the local utility provider. Now, many areas in California have the option of switching their energy provider to a CCE provider. In 2002, California legislature allowed the formation of CCEs to create an alternative to the large, regional providers. Now California has 19 CCEs, serving more than 8 million customers.
A CCE is a local, not-for-profit public agency. A local governing board holds all of their meetings open to public, and makes their decisions locally.
In Alameda County, our CCE is called East Bay Community Energy. Berkeley City Council voted to join EBCE in November 2016. In fall of 2018, every PG&E customer was transferred over to EBCE. That means we now buy electricity from the local source. PG&E still delivers our electricity and maintains the lines. Our bill still comes from PG&E, but it now shows which portion of energy comes from EBCE.
EBCE has 3 levels of service. Customers were automatically opted into the base level. You can opt-up to a higher level if you want to receive a greater mix of sustainable energy. You can also opt-out if you want to continue buying electricity from PG&E.
The 3 levels of service from EBCE are:
- Bright Choice – 38 percent renewable energy and 47 percent carbon-free energy. Costs a few dollars less than electricity from PG&E.
- Brilliant 100 – 40 percent renewable energy and 60 percent carbon-free energy. Costs the same as electricity from PG&E.
- Renewable 100 – 100 percent renewable energy. Costs a few dollars more than electricity from PG&E.
Customers who benefit from the PG&E discount programs, like medical baseline, will still receive those benefits if they switch to EBCE. Customers who already installed solar, will continue to benefit from the Net Energy Metering (NEM) program.
Any household in the 11 member cities can opt-up: Albany, Berkeley, Dublin, Emeryville, Fremont, Hayward, Livermore, Oakland, Piedmont, San Leandro, and Union City.
So if you want to help reduce your impact on energy consumption to protect God’s creation, consider opting-up to EBCE’s Renewable 100 this Sunday!
