Ironically, OCPA touts their non-existent “wind” energy on their website
If windmills are not producing electric power — and no one notices — can OCPA still claim credit for the non-existent wind energy? 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.
California regulators are considering halting this deceptive relabeling in a Rulemaking process, but that wouldn’t be implemented until at least 2028. That means for the next several years, OCPA’s leadership — including Irvine’s representative on the OCPA board, Councilmember Kathleen Treseder — will continue to falsely state that OCPA “delivers” 95.5% renewable energy to its entire customer base. Even OCPA’s technical consultant recently contradicted Treseder’s delivery claim. OCPA’s energy portfolio is neither 95.5% renewable nor delivered to its ratepayers.
In fact, a staggering 91,829 megawatt-hours (MWhs) of OCPA’s concealed dirty power (sold as “wind”) were delivered to the California power grid, emitting 86.6 million pounds of greenhouse gas (GHG). That’s enough brown electricity to run 13,449 Orange County residences for an entire year — about 70% of the homes in Fountain Valley, OCPA’s new target member.
OUTPERFORMING THE IMPOSSIBLE
OCPA made similar false representations when distributing thousands of post-enrollment notices that implied that OCPA’s various products are delivered directly to customers’ homes and businesses.
That’s not possible because: (1) the California power grid supplies all energy to nearly every Californian, including OCPA ratepayers. Separating OCPA’s renewable energy from the grid is akin to dumping a bucket of water into a river and claiming to remove that same water many miles downstream — there’s no such capability; and (2) according to 2022 energy data, only 36% of the total electricity flowing on California’s power grid was actually renewable energy. How can OCPA deliver 95.5% when the powerlines feeding its ratepayers only carry 36%? (Answer: It can’t!)
BROWNING THE GRID
OCPA advertises that it “greens the grid.” However, after allowing for wind and solar curtailments, resource adequacy’s carbon emissions, windfarm bird kills, non-recyclable fiberglass wind turbine blades filling our landfills, solar manufacturing pollution, and human rights violations for mining batteries’ raw materials, it’s questionable how much environmental good is being achieved … and at what cost.
Contrary to marketing about greening the grid, OCPA’s carbon-emitting biomass energy and its stealth “Unspecified Power” actually browns the grid.
Given OCPA’s willful misrepresentations and its failure to deliver what it claims to, consumers’ truest power is their choice to leave OCPA.
You can opt-out online, or by calling (866) 262-7693.
- OCPA’s Non-Existent Wind Energy Polluting the Air - April 20, 2024
- OCPA Continues to Mislead Existing & Potential New Customers - March 17, 2024
- OCPA’s Survival Depends on Concealing Documents & Overcharging Electricity Customers - November 23, 2023
