Huntington Beach residents and businesses are going to be switched to a lower-cost energy plan with fewer renewables as the city continues its transition away from the Orange County Power Authority.
Until now, electric utility customers in the city were defaulted to being on the OCPA’s 100% Renewable Choice Plan. They’ll be switched to a lower-cost Basic Choice Plan, which uses 38% renewable energy and is advertised as 2% cheaper than Southern California Edison rates.
The Huntington Beach City Council majority voted Monday night to make the change.
In May, a split council voted to remove the city from the green power agency that it had joined in 2021. The OCPA, created in 2020, has had an embattled early history, as local governments have pulled out of it and audits have prompted the agency to make changes and shake-up its leadership.
“I do believe in renewable energy,” Mayor Tony Strickland said, “but at the same time I just really firmly believe we’re doing right by our citizens in Huntington Beach by getting out of OCPA and having professionals in Edison run it.”
The city is still in ongoing negotiations to reduce the cost of its departure from the OCPA. The Monday vote, according to city staff, will help with that as it expedites implementing the changes.
The city expects to finish its transition back to SCE by July. Councilmember Dan Kalmick said the city is going to leave millions on the table by walking away from the OCPA, money that has been paid into its reserves. The agency has addressed its early issues, he said.
“Edison is slowly but surely increasing rates,” Kalmick said. “We’re missing out on a great ability to have choice within the community at effectively zero risk.”
Kalmick added that businesses in the city won’t be able to use the OCPA to market themselves as using 100% renewable energy as part of an environmental, social and governance strategy.
Huntington Beach customers will still be able to go back to the 100% renewable choice plan until the city completes its transition to using SCE. OCPA also has an energy plan called Smart Choice with at least 69% renewables. Customers have also been able to opt out of OCPA entirely and use SCE.
Sunny Han, chief financial officer for Huntington Beach, told the council that the city pays about $3.25 million a year to OCPA for electricity, and estimated that the cost will go up by about 1% to 2% when the switch to SCE occurs.
