Community Choice Aggregation

The concept of Community Choice Aggregation allows communities in some states of the US to act as electricity suppliers to their residents. By bundling electricity demand, better prices can be archieved. Additionally, municipal Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs) argue that they allow more local control over pricing mechanisms and composition of the electricity mix. Many CCAs explicitly offer green electricity models that go beyond the policy requirements of the states.

California stands out among the states where community choice aggregation is possible: Its retail electricity market is not liberalized. Thus, CCAs break up the previous local monopolies in the power supply and question the current regulatory framework.

In the first part, this study gives an overview of both the functioning of CCAs and the legal framework, and discusses the goals of CCAs. The second part of the study highlights the special case of California in more detail: The authors discuss the new competition in the electricity retail market, the expansion of CCAs, their relationship to the previous monopolists in the power supply as well as regulatory implications.

Further publications in the series

• Netzgekoppelte Speicher in Kalifornien – Analyse der Rahmenbedingungen für netzgekoppelte Speicher in Kalifornien (September 2019)
• Wasserstoffpolitik in Kalifornien (September 2019)
• Energiepolitik in der Region New England (Mai 2019)
• Offshore Wind Deployment in Germany, Facts and Policy Lessons (April 2019)
• Der größte US-Stromsystembetreiber PJM – Einführung und aktuelle Debatten (Oktober 2018)
• Power systems in the 2020s: What can Germany and the PJM region learn from each other? (Oktober 2018)
• Übersicht über die Energiepolitik und -wirtschaft in Texas (Juni 2018)
• Die Debatte zur Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule - Strommarktpolitik unter Präsident Trump (Januar 2018)
• Übersicht über die Energiepolitik und -wirtschaft in Kalifornien (September 2017)
• Kalifornien und Deutschland: Energiepolitische Zusammenarbeit mit den Nachbarstaaten im Stromsektor (Dezember 2016)
• Überblick über die Energieeffizienzpolitik in den USA (Dezember 2016)
• Überblick über die US-Strommärkte (November 2016)