OCPA’s Survival Depends on Concealing Documents & Overcharging Electricity Customers

The Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) is in a race against time. On one hand, the agency is facing the public’s increasingly pointed questions about the legitimacy of OCPA’s supposedly clean energy products. 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).

OCPA hides behind the false claim that releasing the CAISO statements would reveal “load shaping” and could undermine its energy procurement strategy. Load shaping is a term that applies to the unscheduled purchase or sale of energy by OCPA. Shaped energy purchases are frequently gas-fired or system power (brown power) because those resources are more readily available, especially at night when solar and wind — which constitute 75% of OCPA’s total energy purchases — cannot be counted on as reliable power.

Since competitive energy suppliers can today get needed information from large customers who carefully track this expense, there’s no good reason for OCPA to withhold load shaping information from the public.
 
This brings us to the most likely reason OCPA refuses to release the agency’s CAISO settlement statements. OCPA knows that undesirable brown power and greenwashing — the rebranding of dirty brown power and selling it as “renewable” — will be exposed if the statements are released. That would likely trigger an avalanche of questions and ratepayer departures from OCPA, which would undermine the continuing growth of the agency’s reserve fund. That fund is essential to OCPA’s financial model and its pursuit of a coveted credit rating, which is required for the agency to issue bonds. Bottom line: OCPA’s future relies on sleight of hand — placating, misdirecting and controlling its currently overcharged ratepayers and potential new member cities.  
 
OCPA’s reserves — which have been accumulated by overcharging its business and residential customers — are projected to top $100 million by its fiscal year 2024/25.
 
OCPA’s website whitewashes its record and launches a “no-problem-here” narrative around its gaming of California’s power grid and the resulting legitimacy of its so-called “clean energy” deliveries. (A legal proceeding is currently underway at the California Public Utilities Commission.)
 
Sleight of hand and misdirection are in OCPA’s DNA:

OCPA also dismisses requests for information from members of its own Community Advisory Committee. This committee was supposedly established to improve communication and trust.

Irvine’s City Council should insist that OCPA’s accrued reserves — tens of millions of dollars — be returned to OCPA’s customers. The Council should then begin the process of shutting down this so-called “not-for-profit” agency.

Irvine residents can opt-out of OCPA online, or by calling (866) 262-7693.