Public Comment

I hope my Skeptical Voter's Slate Card has already convinced you to vote against Berkeley Measure HH. This misleading ballot measure would raise our already-high utility tax to pay for greenwashed nonsense, or…anything else the City Council chooses to spend the General Fund on. But if you’re still unconvinced, the Council will soon reveal just how wastefully it might spend your money. 

On their Oct. 27 Agenda is the remarkable Item 25, sponsored by the same Councilmember who championed HH. This would switch the City onto the most-expensive, least-competitive electrical rate available. Which would cost taxpayers at least an extra $94,000 a year. 

The really remarkable part? It would do this just when PG&E's 100%-solar option is the cheapest option available – cheaper even than conventional dirty power. Also, this item was nearly written to also force all Berkeley residents and businesses onto the same bad plan. 

So I’ve got two recommendations now: Mark your ballot No on HH. And also ask the Council and the Mayor to vote against Item 25 – unless it’s amended to instead specify only the affordable PG&E Solar Choice. 

What Item 25 currently calls for is to “upgrade” municipal electrical accounts to East Bay Community Energy’s (EBCE’s) “Renewable 100” rate, which the item describes as providing greener power “for a relatively small premium” over current rates. But in fact, Renewable 100 is a disaster, and EBCE is itself a dumpster fire. This is a “community choice aggregator” that’s somehow failed to use its purchasing power to offer green power at rates remotely competitive with its supplier…which remains PG&E. 

If you look at EBCE’s rate comparisons, they show that for virtually all ratepayer categories, Renewable 100 – the orange column on the right – is significantly more expensive than any other plan. The lowest-cost plan? For almost everyone, it’s PG&E Solar Choice, the dark-blue column second from the left. Solar Choice supplies 100% renewable energy – either 50% or 100% solar-generated, depending on how you buy it. (I’m a past Solar Choice customer, on my way back to that plan after opting out of EBCE ‘s mess.) 

EBCE’s own FAQ acknowledges that Solar Choice is the most cost-effective option: 

Why is PG&E’s Solar Choice the lowest-priced power option in 2020? 

PG&E’s Solar Choice is a voluntary program for PG&E bundled service customers, that allows them to get 50% or 100% of their electricity from solar power. On EBCE’s 2020 joint rate mailer, the PG&E Solar Choice sample bill cost is lower than EBCE’s sample bill cost for all rates except large commercial and agriculture. In fact, Solar Choice is less expensive than the PG&E standard service in 2020. … For more information, visit pge.com/solarchoice; call 1-877-743-8429; or email solarchoice@pge.com. 

If any Berkeley Councilmember were looking out for the environment and for their constituents’ wallets, they wouldn’t try to switch the City’s power purchases to EBCE’s wasteful, costly Renewable 100. They’d be advocating a switch to clean, affordable Solar Choice, as the obvious best option. (Remember that hateable PG&E remains the supplier, either way.) 

What’s going on here instead is little government (Berkeley Councilmembers) trying to prop up failed medium government (EBCE) with $94,000 a year of our taxes. Which is repulsive. 

EBCE’s failure is so sad as to seem almost willful. An aggregator’s whole rationale is to combine thousands of customers’ purchasing power to negotiate lower power rates. But if you look back at the rate comparisons, even EBCE’s “Brilliant Choice” plan – their lowest-cost, for a conventional power mix – is only trivially cheaper than conventional PG&E (left blue column). 

Meanwhile, both of EBCE’s carbon-free tiers are priced significantly higher than PG&E Solar Choice. Worse, EBCE’s middle tier – “Brilliant 100,” a mix of solar, wind, and big hydro – is closed to everyone except its existing customers, because EBCE can’t make it pay off even at the rates they’re charging. 

This is a big, sad lesson in how good intentions can slam into poor execution. But there’s no rationale for excusing this, much less subsidizing it. 

If Alameda County couldn’t competently make green power work on a regional scale, do you really think Berkeley’s haphazard little government will achieve anything meaningful for the climate with the extra 2.5% to 5% that Measure HH would authorize it to slap onto our utility bills? 

The clear answer here is no and no. No to the utility tax hike, and no to wasting $94,000/year of existing taxes on bailing out EBCE’s mistakes. 

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