Irvine’s city council will soon cast a confirming vote to its December vote to unplug from controversial green energy reseller Orange County Power Authority (OCPA).
There are two issues Irvine should consider as OCPA lobbies to halt Irvine’s exit: 1) recouping its $7.5 million start-up loan from OCPA, a portion of which was used by the agency’s consultants to game California’s energy market, known as “resource adequacy,” and 2) OCPA’s propaganda efforts surrounding its vision for a solar farm in Irvine’s Great Park development.
OCPA’s record is already strewn with deception (misrepresenting the State Auditor’s call for transparency in its Improvement Plan); “renewable” energy; misrepresented wind deliveries; inducing new cities with false no-risk-to-General-Fund assurances; and OCPA’s rent-seeking request that Irvine switch into a watered-down, lower-cost, reconstituted energy product to help it remain in business after its bait & switch, which generated upwards of $100 million while sparking consumer backlash and opt outs — all while consultants and climate activists grifted off OCPA’s low-quality existence.
The Loan — background.
Irvine’s $7.5 million loan included funding OCPA’s drafting and filing of its Implementation Plan for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The document was required for approval of OCPA’s business launch; it included “meet or exceed” guarantees for delivering Resource Adequacy, the mandatory emergency power that combats blackouts of the power grid caused by OCPA’s unstable and intermittent wind and solar.
According to former OCPA board member and County Supervisor Don Wagner, OCPA made a “conscious decision” to not deliver its mandatory Resource Adequacy power — after gaining CPUC’s business launch approval — which put California’s electric grid in jeopardy of failure.
OCPA and its consultants then went to work gaming the Resource Adequacy (RA) market, avoiding in its first case $80 million in RA expenditures while paying a $1.96 million fine to the CPUC. Consequently, OCPA’s multi-violations approximated $100 million in avoided RA expenditures.
According to the CPUC, Community Choice Energy’s RA noncompliance costs were absorbed by and cost-shifted onto established power providers (in OCPA’s case, onto Southern California Edison (SCE) ratepayers). This results in SCE’s higher prices that OCPA cites when justifying raising its own electricity prices in a manipulative practice known as “indexing.”
Irvine’s city council, caretakers of taxpayers’ money, surely did not intend to loan money to a zero-integrity agency that misled everyone, including climate activists who lobby for continuance of OCPA’s renewable energy.
Great Park’s Great Deception.
To combat Irvine’s pending exit vote OCPA promotes its conceptual solar farm development in Irvine’s Great Park (GP). The concept is loaded with problematic issues that are subservient to OCPA promoters who seek to upend Irvine’s exit vote from OCPA:
GP issue #1: One percent energy.
Great Park solar farm, if constructed, only generates 1% of Irvine’s energy.
GP Issue #2: Great Park solar will not be 100% renewable, nor will its microgrid operate independent of SCE’s power grid full-time.
OCPA hopes to file for a microgrid grant from California’s Microgrid Incentive Program. A microgrid is a community-size electric distribution system. Construction costs range upwards of several million dollars.
The microgrid must be capable of operating at least 24-hours as an “island,” independent of its connection to SCE, meaning Great Park will include batteries for night and poor weather conditions.
When battery power expires, coal-fired generation and “Unspecified Power” (brown power) flowing over SCE’s wires will flow into the microgrid. Proponents pointing to Great Park as a zero-emission renewable development will be mistaken, or misled.
GP Issue #3: Environmental damage and Human Rights violations.
Irvine should avoid use of lithium-ion batteries, which have created multiple long-duration fires in northern California and San Diego. Lithium-ion is the predominant battery type used for pairing with solar.
Lithium-ion batteries incorporate cobalt, much of it mined in The Republic of the Congo where conditions include child labor, sexual assault, birth defects, abject poverty, and workers buried alive.
How is Great Park’s energy “clean” if given its reliance on outsourced human rights abuses?
Alternate battery technologies have their own problems including hourly discharge limits and potential environmental problems including leakage of, exposure to, and water table intrusion of lead, sulfuric acid, zinc, sulfur, chromium, cadmium, ethylene carbonate, and (vanadium) electrolyte. This is reminiscent of California’s MTBE that seeped into the water table after its clean air attributes were promoted as beneficial to the public good.
GP Issue #4: Great Park’s stealth cost for Irvine.
OCPA mentions the possible future sale or transfer of Great Park solar to Irvine.
Such would be a windfall for OCPA because it would off-load Great Park solar farm’s inevitable disposal and replacement costs for end-of-life solar panels and batteries, both considered hazardous waste, plus hazmat clean-up and remediation of chemical seepages, all payable by Irvine.
Irvine has been taken advantage of by OCPA. It’s a troubling development that, according to OCPA marketing literature, Irvine city councilman and OCPA board member James Mai will now deliver opening remarks at the April 28-30 CalCCA statewide convention in Irvine. It is unknown if speaking fees or complimentary tickets are involved.
It’s time for Irvine’s city council to assume its leadership role as caretaker of Irvine taxpayers’ funds and sever ties with the promises-made, promises-continually-broken agency that’s incapable of managing its own financial house (even with its gaming).
Irvine should liquidate its power contracts, claim its proportional share of OCPA’s reserve fund, enforce return of its $7.5 million loan, and pull the plug on OCPA.
Jim Phelps is a former power contractor and utility rate analyst. He served four years volunteering in the rulemaking process helping implement energy reporting legislation at the California Energy Commission, codified by the California Public Utilities Commission. Mr. Phelps is currently contributing to the Commission’s new Rulemaking for Power Source Disclosure Proposals on Hourly & Annual Accounting. He is not a lobbyist or current or former employee of the electricity industry, oil & gas industry, or California regulatory agencies.
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