Californian city abandons the dream of 100% green energy
Even in the greenest California , many plans to introduce green energy are starting to be reviewed . Now the Huntington Beach City Council has voted to abandon its plan to use 100 percent renewable energy for the city. The city is known to be a favorite spot for surfers.
The city of Huntington Beach, California, is changing the plan it had in place with the Orange County Power Authority (OCPA), a non-profit organization that offers clean energy. But his recent history in the rather unfavorable media spotlight has given the city council pause.
Huntington Beach wasn't the first city to withdraw: Orange County dropped its green energy authority, citing transparency issues and a string of bad audits, as well as allegations it failed to inform citizens of the increase of electricity bills. Orange County was expected to begin receiving green energy from the authority by the end of this year. The cost of the county's withdrawal is estimated to be approximately $65 million.
For Huntington Beach, when considering a plan change, there were three choices: keep the plan on 100% renewable energy, opt for the "Smart Choice" plan, which offers 69% renewable energy, or go for the “Basic Choice” plan, which offers 38% renewable energy. The Board opted for the Basic Choice plan with a vote of 4 to 3. So you will be using some renewable energy, but much less than 50%.
The city council's change of plans drew criticism from some, while the council argued that the money saved from the abandonment could have been better used for other projects, such as enforcing homelessness laws.
Huntington Beach's change of plans follows the launch of the Department of Energy's $50 million project to help communities transition to clean energy systems, the C2C program. Money which, however, has evidently been invested either badly or without due controls. Green energies are expensive, unstable and often subject to non-transparent certifications.
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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/citta-californiana-abbadona-il-sogno-dellenergia-100-green/ on Sun, 22 Jan 2023 12:23:22 +0000.