Author: Jim Phelps

Unbelievably, the answer is yes! It’s the oldest trick in the renewable energy bag, and it’s hidden on Orange County Power Authority’s (OCPA) Power Content Label, which is used to disguise reliance on filthy, fossil-fuel electricity generators (brown power).

This is unacceptable behavior considering Community Choice Energy (CCE) agencies like OCPA were created to outperform Southern California Edison (SCE) and eliminate fossil-fired power, not continue its hidden use behind technical definitions and euphemisms.

OCPA’s push for new members comes as Huntington Beach prepares to leave the embattled agency. 

The fact is, OCPA is not delivering what it advertises. OCPA is simply an energy trading house organized as a Community Choice Energy (CCE) agency. It competes against Southern California Edison (SCE) for the procurement of energy, while SCE continues to deliver everyone’s electricity.

OCPA’s operations are farmed out to a group of highly paid consultants who operate many of California’s CCE agencies using a template that hides sub-par results from naïve consumers. 

On the other hand, OCPA is stockpiling a massive self-survival reserve fund — growing toward $100 million — to insulate the agency from tens of thousands of electricity customers “opting-out” of OCPA.

The public has asked OCPA to release its CAISO (California Independent System Operator) settlement statements — which would show OCPA’s purchases; resales; and actual delivery of renewable products to the California electricity grid.

So far, OCPA refuses to provide these statements, which contain an accurate accounting of the granular charges incurred by OCPA when its electricity flows over the state’s power grid. CAISO settlement statements also identify much of OCPA’s purchases of system power (dirty brown power).

The following illustrates the problem: 

1. Councilmembers Treseder and Kim naively believe OCPA’s energy contracts reveal actual energy deliveries. They apparently do not know that power purchase agreements (PPAs) do not tell us what OCPA actually delivers to its customers.

2. Councilmembers Treseder and Kim also believe power content labels represent OCPA’s actual energy content. During an October 8th event, Treseder inaccurately stated that OCPA “has delivered to all four cities — all businesses and residents — 95.5% renewable energy.” And at a City Council meeting, Kim said the power content label “shows OCPA is producing renewable energy,” which is partially true, but not to the extent portrayed by the label.

Four of these “best practices” mirror unscrupulous practices notoriously employed by Enron, in the run-up to its multi-billion-dollar bankruptcy 20 years ago:

1. OCPA games the California electricity grid via Resource Adequacy (RA) for financial gain while putting its ratepayers at risk of blackouts.

2. Mirroring Enron behavior, OCPA takes the monetary savings from each Irvine ratepayer and transfers them to OCPA’s own accounts through a price-manipulation practice known as “benchmarking.”

3. Reminiscent of Enron, OCPA declines to open all of its energy books to public scrutiny, denying consumers independent verification of just how much brown power (gas-fired) is being delivered.

4. Mayor Khan sought to eliminate “greenwashing” with Renewable Energy Certificates. But, similar to Enron’s gaming, OCPA is heavily engaged in greenwashing.