Grover Beach gearing up to go green with renewable energy initiative

GROVER BEACH, Calif. -- Grover Beach is on its way to going green on Thursday.

On Thursday, the City of Grover Beach is shifting to clean and renewable energy starting January 2021.

This is due to the City's membership with Central Coast Community Energy, or 3CE. Central Coast Community Energy is the new name for Monterey Bay Community power.

Starting November, more than 7,800 Grover Beach residences and businesses will receive the first of several letters notifying them that 3CE will become each eligible customer’s primary electric generation service provider while PG&E continues with service for transmission, delivery and billing.

The 3Cchoice program is expected to provide customers with 60% clean and renewable energy by 2025 and 100% clean and renewable energy by 2030.

The new projects are close to $4 billion dollars in economic investment over the 10 years.

“Joining Central Coast Community Energy allows our community to receive the benefits of choice, local control, competitive rates and ways to further reduce local greenhouse gas emissions,” said Jeff Lee, Grover Beach Mayor and 3CE Policy Board Member representing Grover Beach, Arroyo Grande, and Pismo Beach. “We are excited to be able to offer Grover Beach residents and businesses an easy way that they can help address climate change while contributing to our city’s sustainability goals.”

The City says residents will not have an energy blackouts during the transition. They also assure that there will be no additional monthly costs to the accounts once the switch is made next year.

PG&E is said to continue their delivery of energy services to the city but those with the 3Cchoice program will be provided with procured and generated energy from clean, renewable energy sources including wind, solar and geothermal.

The City says the only difference that will appear on the bill itself is that 3CE will be listed next to the utility provider’s charges for electric generation.

Grover Beach residents and businesses enrolled in 3Cchoice will benefit from competitive rates and future rate predictability as 3CE transitions to its cost of service rate design in fall 2021.

Customers who are enrolled in CARE, FERA or Medical Baseline programs will still receive the same discounts and customers do not need to reapply for these programs.

Additionally, net energy metering (NEM) customers will be enrolled in one of the designated enrollment months, April 2021, July 2021 and October 2021, which aligns best with their current true-up.

3CE is moving to monthly invoicing for all NEM customers starting in April 2021 which will allow for a better billing experience as well as increased Net Surplus Compensation rates.

Residents will still also be able to access programs administered by PG&E through the public goods charge.

3Cchoice requires no action from Grover Beach residents to be enrolled.

If residents want to opt-out of receiving green energy, they may do so at no cost during the enrollment period, which extends 60 days past the January statement date.

After the enrollment period, there is a small administrative fee to assist in returning the customer back to PG&E but customers can opt out at any time.

For more information regarding this program, click here.

3CE will host informational webinars with Grover Beach residents and businesses.

To register for the webinars, click the links below:

• 11/12 Virtual Office Hours at 3 pm, click here.
• 11/19 Virtual Office Hours in Spanish at 6 pm, click here.
• 12/2 Virtual Office Hours at 4 pm, click here.
• 12/8 Public Forum at 6 pm, click here.
• 12/10 Public Forum at 6 pm (Spanish), click here.