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MCE
Stop MCE from opposing the AB1110, the truth in advertising energy law
There’s a battle going on in Sacramento as Marin Clean Energy (“MCE”) and other community choice aggregators are feverishly working to gut a perfectly good bill, whose only goal is to clearly and transparently inform consumers about what is actually in clean energy portfolios.
The truth-in-advertising bill, AB1110, forces so-called clean energy companies, such as Marin Clean Energy, to transparently disclose what they’re actually selling us.
The attached chart tells the story (click here to view).
The red bar on the left shows that most of the energy we’re sold is from Renewable Energy Certificates (“RECs”). These financial instruments may show “wind,” or “solar” or some other clean energy printed on them, but they actually conceal the underlying coal and fossil power that’s purchased, repackaged, and sold to you.
It’s not clean energy.
The second dashed bar is more insidious. It’s a different kind of certificate known as a “firm-and-shape REC.” Much of the power behind these is also coal and gas-fired power. However, firm-and-shape RECs are not explicitly disclosed in annual disclosure reports, and unwinding what’s behind these RECs takes months and requires review of more data.
Aside from trying to stop AB1110, MCE is also seeking an exclusion from regulators where it wouldn’t have to include its firm-and-shape data at all, thereby keeping consumers further in the dark.
Why does our local clean energy company resist transparency and full disclosure?
Please comment in this issue by emailing Senator Mike McGuire at senator.mcguire@senate.ca.gov or call your representative and tell him or her to support AB1110 in its current form.
Consumers deserve full transparency and information about where their power is coming from.
For more detailed information on this topic read September 2015 letter to MCE's board.
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