More renewable energy and electricity rates lower than PG&E.

Central Coast Community Energy (3CE) has promised these to its ratepayers in Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo counties since 2018.

Through electric energy incentive programs and investments in renewable energy storage facilities, the electric utility provider promised rates as much as 6 percent lower than those of PG&E alongside its goal to deliver 60 percent renewable energy by 2025 and 100 percent by 2030.

Now serving all of SLO County after Atascadero and unincorporated areas joined in January, 3CE has kept its word in some ways, according to Chief Communications Officer Catherine Stedman. In others, it hasn’t.

Since the agency started, Stedman said 3CE has consistently delivered on promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, provide electric power at rates that are competitive with PG&E, carry out programs that facilitate the electrification of transportation and buildings, stimulate the local economy, and provide long-term electric rate stability.

While Stedman said these things technically have been delivered to its ratepayers, 3CE’s numbers aren’t what it originally projected when it comes to competitive rate savings and the grid of renewable energy.

As a community choice aggregation utility, 3CE buys power on behalf of nearly a half-million customers on the Central Coast, while PG&E continues to manage the grid. SLO County residents are automatically enrolled in 3CE services, but they have the choice to opt out and continue receiving service from PG&E.

Since its beginning, 3CE’s rate report, as of October 2024, residents who used 3CE services paid an average of $162 monthly while PG&E customers paid an average of $171.

The sustainability of these savings is unclear, as Stedman said she doesn’t anticipate those savings to continue through the end of year, thanks to a California Public Utilities Commission decision affecting both PG&E and 3CE’s competitiveness, increasing the cost of energy for both companies’ customers.

“We are going to our board in March, and we’ll be recommending a rate adjustment, and if the board approves that adjustment, it would have our customers across our service territory with between 1 to 2 percent savings,” she said. “If the board approves the new rates, then that would be going into effect in April.”

Some customers won’t see immediate savings, either, which are projected over time, Stedman told New Times in a previous interview.

In November, Stedman said that Atascadero customers wouldn’t see any additional charges if they opted to go with 3CE over PG&E.

“It’s taking the place of the charge that would otherwise be there from PG&E if they were providing generation service,” she said. “We have provided the generation service at a rate less than what PG&E has provided, and we hope to continue that.”

Now that it’s 2025, 3CE’s providing 30 percent renewable energy to its customers rather than the projected 60 percent.

According to Stedman, when the utility company entered its contracts to invest in solar and wind projects, 60 percent seemed attainable, but amid “transmission and distribution delays,” that goal seems more attainable by 2026.

“Solar and batteries and geothermal projects, all of them are facing the same challenges, which are getting your permit to connect to the grid,” she said. “Then if transmission improvements are required to deliver the energy—and they generally are—it’s the time that it takes to make those improvements.”

When it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Stedman said 3CE initially planned to purchase carbon-free facilities but has since shifted its focus to investing in new projects that add new renewable energy sources to the grid.

“So we have procured over 1,000 megawatts of new geothermal, solar, wind generation. And then we’ve also been investing in energy storage projects,” she said.

This includes storing renewable energy in batteries, she said. The safety of such battery storage facilities is at the forefront of many SLO County residents’ minds after a January fire at a Monterey County facility. A similar plant is proposed in Morro Bay and a battery storage plant was recently completed in Nipomo—both of which have met residents’ resistance.

Stedman said that 3CE is looking to invest in lithium-ion phosphate storage, as opposed to the lithium nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide batteries that caught fire at Moss Landing.

“[Lithium-ion phosphate] just performs better in terms of a safety metric,” Stedman said. “The industry, in terms of these utility scale battery projects, is moving to lithium-ion phosphate, and so I think that there’s a lot of valuable lessons to be learned, but I also know that energy storage is incredibly important to making the transition to renewable energy.”

Current 5th District SLO County Supervisor and former Atascadero Mayor Heather Moreno was on the Atascadero City Council that approved joining 3CE in 2022. She said she’s not that concerned about whether the utility company is meeting its projected goals. What she found most important in joining was providing residents with a choice between service providers.

“It comes back to choice. I think any company can only say, ‘Hey, this is what we’re aiming for,'” she said. “The people that wanted 3CE were in favor of us going with 3CE. And you know, they wanted a choice. They liked the idea that if 3CE is offering lower rates, they wanted to be able to take advantage of lower rates. If 3CE is offering incentives, they might be interested in those kinds of incentives.”

Atascadero was the last SLO County city to enroll with 3CE. Moreno said her only reservation at the time wasn’t with 3CE itself, but with the government’s ability to potentially place responsibility on the city if things went awry.

Joint powers authorities like 3CE are public entities contracted by the government and allow at least two public agencies to jointly exercise power. Under classification as a joint authority, if the public agencies fail or don’t meet the public’s need, they are liable for those mishaps.

What Moreno said she worried about most was if somehow the city of Atascadero, as an underlying municipality, would be held liable if 3CE were to fail.

Her mind was put at ease, she said, after two other joint powers authorities went defunct during COVID and legislation still held the public agencies liable for the failing—not the underlying municipalities.

“And so, I thought, OK, that gives me a little bit of peace going forward, that I wouldn’t be putting my entity, my city, the municipal government, at risk,” she said. Δ

Reach Staff Writer Libbey Hanson at [email protected].