Staff members from the Departments of Conservation and Development (DCD) and Public Works have worked independently and with staff at MCE to better understand the costs and benefits of the Deep Green 100% renewable electricity product offering. The Deep Green product offering comes at a cost premium relative to the default MCE Light Green product of around $0.01/kWh (one cent per kWh). MCE Light Green normally comes in within 1 to 2% either less or more expensive than PG&E's default 33% renewable product offering.
An MCE analysis on Contra Costa County (CCC) load indicates that approximately 40,443,282 kWh would be purchased from MCE per year. The one cent per kWh premium for the Deep Green product would result in an increase in electric utility costs to the County of $404,433/year. Utility expenses are paid by each occupying department. The additional costs related to the Deep Green product would be primarily funded by County General Fund Building Occupancy, 29%, Employment & Human Services, 14%, and Health Services – Hospital Enterprise Fund, 34%.
As can be seen in Figure 1 (attached), MCE’s analysis is that the estimated associated GHG emissions reductions would equal 5,228 metric tons of CO2e representing a little less than two percent (<2%) of the County Climate Action Plan goals.
An Alternate Perspective on Green Energy Investing by the County
The Contra Costa County Sustainability Commission is studying the various aspects of the Climate Action Plan; the Chair has indicated that the Commission would like a report on Government Operations at the Feb. 26 meeting. In response to this request for input, the Public Works Department will be presenting a proposed Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Plan to the Subcommittee on February 26th. A key part of the DER plan is the installation of the twelve photovoltaic (PV) systems totaling 5 MW that received Interconnection Agreements at end of calendar year 2017. (Please see Figure 2 attached.) In its meeting of December 19, 2017, the Board of Supervisors approved and authorized the Interim Public Works Director, or designee, to execute PG&E interconnection agreements for net energy metering of solar electric generating facilities of 1,000 kW or less for various County-olwned facilities, Countywide.
The proposed approach for installing these PV systems is through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). Figure 3 provides a breakdown of the specifics of conservative estimates of the first year savings from the PPA and first year cost associated with MCE Deep Green and Figure 4 provides the comparative cash flow over the life of the PPA. It can be seen that while a PPA which involves no cash investment from the County saves the County $412,500 in year one, with no solar MCE Deep Green would cost the County approximately $402,000.
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