When we moved into our new offices in October 2022, we soon realized we had an option to purchase clean electric energy to run our lights, computers, and air conditioning. This is the only planet we’ve got and we believe it can use all the help we can give it. Clean energy is one way to think about the big picture of which we are but a small part. Thanks to San Diego Community Power’s Power100 program, 100% of our energy usage comes from renewable sources. And all we had to do was check a box.

Unless you’re someone who has looked closely at your electric bill, you may not be aware that there are two separate parts to your monthly electric charges: generation and delivery. Until recently, San Diego Gas and Electric was the only option consumers had for both generation (where our power comes from) and delivery (how it arrives at our homes and businesses). That is no longer the case for select communities in our area. Depending on where you live, business and individual consumers now have the option of ensuring that some, or all, of their power generation comes from renewable resources like solar or wind.

San Diego Community Power is a Community Choice Aggregate (CCA) program — one of dozens that have formed throughout California over the past 20 years. CCAs are not-for-profit public agencies that partner with local investor-owned utilities (SDG&E in our case) to deliver cleaner electricity to their communities. CCAs introduce healthy competition into the energy marketplace and eliminate shareholders who profit on your electricity use.

San Diego Community Power purchases electricity to cover the needs of their customers that is generated from renewable sources like solar or wind. SDG&E delivers that electricity through their existing power lines and continues to provide meter reading, billing and line maintenance to customers.

Customers receive one bill from SDG&E with San Diego Community Power’s electric generation charge replacing SDG&E’s generation charge. Natural gas services and any other utility program, power transmission and distribution fees from SDG&E are not affected — you’ll continue to receive the same service from SDG&E that you always have.

If cleaner energy generation sounds as good to you as it does to Tranquility, there are two options: 

• PowerOn is priced competitively to what you are currently paying, even though it is a significant emissions saver—it’s 50% renewable plus 5% greenhouse gas free. PowerOn is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint, simply and effortlessly.
• Power100 is 100% renewable and 100% carbon-free! Priced at only $0.0075/kWh (less than a penny per kilowatt-hour) more than the PowerOn standard service level, this option – the option we use at our Tranquility office – allows you to virtually eliminate your greenhouse gas production from electricity use.

Participating is easy, and when compared to the cost of setting up our own solar system here (small businesses don’t get the same solar tax credits homeowners do) it made sense that if we wanted to make a positive difference, this was the way to go. And it’s not just us. The San Diego Padres are one of the largest Power100 Champions in our region. For more info on why we, the Padres, and other business all think this is “good business,” you can read more here: https://sdcommunitypower.org/your-choice/power100-champions/