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Exclusive: New Customer Choice Advocacy Organization, The Energy Choice Coalition, To Launch Soon
A new organization, called The Energy Choice Coalition (ECC), dedicated to advancing the principles of consumer choice and competition in the United States electricity industry is slated to launch in the next month or so, the organization's leadership told EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Residential solar services provider Sunnova is leading the development of The Energy Choice Coalition, citing transformative technological advancements in the electric industry, as well as developments in California and Nevada, as among the impetuses for the new organization.
"We've been seeing these trends of increased competition and that's something that we, Sunnova as a company, is very supportive of. We've always been pretty clear on that, the need to get subsidies out of energy markets, the need for various energy sources to compete on a level playing field, so we created this trade association, The Energy Choice Coalition, to help push that agenda forward", Meghan Nutting, Vice President of Policy and Government Affairs at Sunnova, told EnergyChoiceMatters.com. Nutting serves as Secretary of The Energy Choice Coalition board.
"We'd like to see even more competition in energy markets, more of a level playing field, so our basic set of principles is offering customers that competition and lower prices that are achieved through competition," Nutting said
While The Energy Choice Coalition will advocate for consumer choice, it believes different structures may work best for different states. ECC will not advocate for the national implementation of Texas-style choice, where customers can choose their load serving entity (in the form of a retail electric provider).
"We are pro-consumer choice," said John Berger, CEO of Houston-based Sunnova, who also serves as Chair of The Energy Choice Coalition board.
In those states that currently have LSE-style electric choice, The Energy Choice Coalition supports that mechanism
But, "is that the only way to do and have choice for consumers? We don't think so. We think there are many other structures out there that may be more suitable for certain states and regions than what we have here in Houston and Dallas. We don't want to close the door on any sort of structure that may have a twist on it that's not the normal retail electric, centralized power structure," Berger said
"What we want is a fair and level playing field, that could be set in many different ways, but enables consumers to have choice, to have free markets work, to constantly lower the costs for consumers, and I think there's not [only] one way to do that," Berger said
"We don't want to have the government pick winners and losers as far as technologies or fuel types, or even the way in which consumers are served. What we want is a market to be able to function and work," Berger said
Berger contrasted the current movement to greater customer choice in the electric industry to the politically driven efforts which began in the late 1990s and ended with a, "whimper."
"This one's different. This one's more fundamentally driven. This is totally fundamentally driven. And no matter what sort of political gamesmanship and other things that are played with it, we think what we're seeing, not what is going to happen, what we're seeing [now] in the market, is that consumers are going to find, one way or another, to have more choice," Berger said
"And how that's structured by the respective states and the FERC, that remains to be seen. But, no matter what happens, no matter what any politician does, consumers will have more choice," Berger said
While The Energy Choice Coalition has not finalized its geographic areas for advocacy, Berger noted that even in states which currently offer choice, The Energy Choice Coalition may need to make its voice heard.
"Even here in Texas, we've got some things that we need to change, or at least prevent from happening," Berger said, citing Oncor's proposed minimum charge for residential customers with distributed energy, which had exclusively been first reported by EnergyChoiceMatters.com on March 20
Berger said Oncor's proposal includes dramatically increased fixed charges for solar customers, and called such charges, "wholly anti-competitive."
The Energy Choice Coalition will advocate for customer choice across the breadth of technological changes
"We fundamentally think that there are new technologies that are changing, and in many cases have already changed, not only the U.S. energy business, but the global energy business," Berger said
Berger cited shale gas and fracking, solar, batteries, and eventually autonomous electric vehicles (and vehicle-to-grid) as among these transformative changes
The confluences of these changes, "are going to create a much different energy landscape for consumers, and one that is more in sync with a free market and consumer choice," Berger said
The Energy Choice Coalition has launched a website (https://www.electricchoicecoalition.org/) which further articulates its vision as stated below:
"The Energy Choice Coalition is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the principles of consumer choice and competition in the United States electricity industry. We believe that every customer should have the ability to choose their energy provider and that those providers should operate within competitive energy markets in order to guarantee that consumers are offered the lowest cost options for their electricity purchases. We support open markets that allow for competition among energy providers and better power service at a better price for customers."
"COMPETITION: Competition in energy markets leads to better services and prices for consumers by providing consumers choices and sparking innovation. It also requires companies to offer the best service for the lowest price."
"CONSUMERS FIRST: We support pro-consumer policies that offer customers more options, more services, more control, more savings, more safety and more security. Consumers should be offered a suite of competitive options for their energy provision so that they can choose which option(s) are most cost-effective and work best for them."
"SUBSIDIES: Subsidies distort markets and cause market failures, raise prices on consumers and suffocate innovation and job growth. We therefore believe that energy subsidies should be eliminated in order to allow all sources of energy to compete on a level playing field. Neither energy producers nor monopoly utilities should be given costly bailouts by taxpayers."
"GRID NEUTRALITY: The next generation grid will be a platform that interconnects millions of devices, both small and large. In order to ensure that every resource on the new grid is able to both access the grid and receive market-based compensation for the value it provides, we need grid neutrality– a fair and open electricity network. Grid access should be paid for at a compensation level that reflects previous investments by taxpayers, needed cost reductions by monopolies and competitive dynamics. And everyone should have access to it."
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May 30, 2017
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Copyright 2010-17 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Karen Abbott • kabbott (at) energychoicematters.com
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