CCAs Look to the Future

January 12 2021

A major portion of California’s distribution system is not meeting today’s electrical grid needs and goals, according to Lorenzo Kristov, a former executive at the California Independent System Operator, in a November 2019 webinar sponsored by the San Diego Energy District. Technology. Technology is circumventing regulation, he argued, and community choice aggregators could take vital roles in that transformation.

A series of webinars organized by the San Diego Energy District described the history and rapid formation of CCAs and the roles they can play in the future as communities and utilities face major environmental catastrophes which wipe out major utility transmission lines that utilities an CCAs depend on to get power to their ratepayers.

New technologies are slowly reshaping California’s power industry. Emblematic of this reshaping is the formation of CCAs (community choice aggregators) throughout the state in which they are supplying power for residents the three major utilities are delivering. There are now close to 30 CCAs scattered throughout the state.

Homeowners buying backup gas-burning generators to prepare for blackouts will do more harm than good for the environment. Enter CCAs who can work with the communities to create microgrids. Microgrids strategically located throughout the service territories CCAs serve would be able to provide the power during the blackout periods independent of the blacked out transmission system.

Kristov said at the webinar, “The things happening in San Diego and elsewhere will have an impact (on the industry). “The distribution system does not meet today’s needs and goals,” he said. And the CCAs will have a large role in shifting the distribution system. Technological changes are being driven from the bottom up, he argued.