The San Diego Community Power Board of Directors on Feb. 7 approved a rate adjustment to decrease electricity generation charges for the second year in a row.
This change will provide significant relief on summer bills while providing a year-round discount compared to customers who choose San Diego Gas & Electric for electricity generation, the California community choice aggregator noted.
“This rate change provides an average 2.8% decrease year-over-year for the Community Power portion of customer electricity bills. It comes one year after Community Power customers saw an average decrease of 17.7% to their electricity generation costs compared to their rates in 2023,” the CCA said.
The new, unanimously-approved rates are retroactive to Feb. 1.
“Community Power was founded to put people first, and these rates demonstrate our ongoing commitment to that mission,” Imperial Beach, Calif., Mayor and Community Power Chair Paloma Aguirre said. “By lowering electricity charges two years in a row and creating real savings, we’re proving that local control leads to better outcomes for working families.”
Community Power sources electricity for its customers, while San Diego Gas and Electric transmits and delivers that power to customers’ homes and businesses.
The new electricity generation charges will provide a 3% rate discount for most of its customers who are on the default PowerOn rate compared to SDG&E’s standard service. Customers who have opted into the PowerBase product will receive a 5% discount compared to SDG&E, doubling savings from 2024 and marking the largest discount provided since Community Power began serving customers in 2021.
Customers who have Community Power’s 100% renewable energy option, Power100, will be paying just 3% more than customers who choose SDG&E’s product, which had 41% renewable energy in its latest report.
While SDG&E recently raised generation prices for its customers, Community Power is simplifying and smoothing its seasonal rate changes year over year, which should lower customer bills in summer, it said.
Community Power customers who used the same amount of electricity from February 2024 through January 2025 will generally see a slight decrease in their total generation costs year over year.
“Hot summers and unpredictable weather patterns can create a rollercoaster for customer bills,” Community Power CEO Karin Burns said. “Smoothing out the price of electricity for Community Power customers provides predictability, stability and financial relief for the people we serve.”
The price decrease is possible due to careful financial planning as well as market shifts that included lower power market prices compared to previous years, San Diego Community Power said.
However, the energy market still presents challenges, it pointed out. "There is an extremely tight market on resource adequacy, which is required by the state of California to serve as a sort of 'back up' power for periods, like heat waves, when there is a higher-than-usual strain on the grid. Additionally, due to a number of market forces, short-term renewable energy prices have also increased significantly in the past few years."
Community Power is mitigating these short-term challenges by executing long-term contracts through power purchase agreements and energy storage service agreements that will help blunt the effects of market swings and create price certainty for renewable energy and resource adequacy in future years.
"To date, Community Power has entered into 17 of these agreements that will provide predictably-priced, reliable renewable energy for nearly 1.2 million homes," it said.
In 2022, Community Power’s board of directors approved a rate development policy, which acts as a guide for staff to make recommendations to the board of directors about electricity generation rates.
This standalone policy was the first of its kind for a CCA program in California. It provides the framework for staff and the Board to ensure the rate design and development process remains focused on competitive pricing and transparency, while creating necessary financial strength to bring long-term benefits to customers.
Community Power must set rates, at a minimum, to recover costs associated with the purchase of power, operational costs and debt service. Community Power’s electricity costs comprise more than 90% of its total budget.
Community Power is a community choice energy program that gives customers an option to run their businesses and homes on significantly higher levels of renewable power at competitive rates. Since 2021, Community Power has grown to serve nearly a million municipal, business and residential power customers in the cities of San Diego, Chula Vista, Encinitas, La Mesa, National City and Imperial Beach as well as the unincorporated communities in the County of San Diego.
