How Investor-Owned Utility Charges Drive Up Community Choice Aggregator Rates

California Energy Markets

Pacific Gas & Electric has grabbed headlines in recent months for the huge rate increases that it claims are needed to pay for safety improvements to its system.

Those increases are affecting Ava Community Energy customers, who pay Ava for electricity and pay PG&E to have it delivered. In fact, Ava customers pay twice as much to PG&E to have power delivered as they do for the electricity itself. Ava’s own charges have risen only a little, even as we expand our portfolio of clean energy and ramp up our local programs. But overall bills for Ava customers are rising, in large part due to higher PG&E charges.

In our recent newsletter, we went in depth on how rates are designed, how expenses are allocated, and what is driving rate increases. The California Energy Markets audience likely knows most of that already, so I’m going to focus on a few toplines.