I urge each of you to look at the attached. Tomorrow night at your City Council an agenda item is attached asking "We the people" of Carlsbad to extend multi-million dollar loan guarantees to Solana Beach and Del Mar to keep Cori Choice Energy from imploding. And yes, I will say "I told you so" because back in early 2019, I warned in post after post after post, that Community Choice Aggregation was not an enterprise to be entered into blindly.
I was publically ridiculed by the Councilwoman at her "town halls", even beat down by Cori on her official page. I offered detailed inquiries based on well-sourced industry publications. CCE has always concerned me based on my business experience. I have seen how a deregulated energy industry performs when its market forces were unleashed on a heinously regulated industry. Prices dropped, and Clean energy choices abound for consumers. Though occasionally a very mixed bag, deregulation of the airlines (Ted Kennedy was the sponsor in Congress), and the breakup of the old Bell System have resulted in cheaper plane tickets for consumers. The array of telecommunication choices in the market speak for themselves.
So why should the Carlsbad City Council prop up Coti Choice Energy? My Short Answer is, they should not. The argument that it will lower your bill is more flawed today than when I wrote in early 2019. Obviously, energy costs have wildly fluctuated on the downside this year, but with a recovery post-pandemic, it is utterly insane to assert that a joint powers deal between Carlsbad and its tiny partners will save enough money for consumers to offset the "exit fee" charged by SD G&E. The CCE program has been troubled from its start in Solana Beach, and DelMar has been threatening to bail from Cori's "Good Ship Lollipop" for weeks. Both want Carlsbad to essentially refund the 'start-up" monies they kicked into the till due to COVID-19. In Carlsbad, 13 people lost their jobs due to the same revenue challenges facing our supplicant junior partners including vanished TOT and sales taxes.
The last time the Cori choice energy bunch met, they were busy building their infrastructure, adding administrative load into the folly. Also on the agenda was an item that would have San Diego's Community Aggregate buy the electrons for the local "Clean Energy Alliance." That would beg the question of why would you as a taxpayer or consumer want to pay for the added expense just so Cori could be (as usual) the bride at the wedding, or in this case the corpse at the funeral? If you are Cori the answer is simple, for in an alliance with San Diego she is a bit player. Only in this way could she be the star of the show,
Last year the best case scenario you were presented projected at best the cost of a tall latte at La Costa Coffee Company. Today SD G&E and its Northern Neighbors see municipalities acting as consumers, and dumping their own Clean Energy Alliances for the old investor-owned utilities? Along with the deceptive name of the "Clean Energy Alliance" comes the truth that on the energy spot markets, yesterday's hydroelectric based supplier will still fill orders exceeding their stated capacity with energy sourced from fossils.
I have been waiting for years for the "battery farm" Cori promised, that was said to be a windfall of revenue for Carlsbad. One would have thought that the $2.4 million (or more) Cori is asking to be kicked back to her allies in Solana Beach and Del Mar, would be chump change by now. This is shaping up to be Cori's version of the Iraq war of 2003, the only thing we are missing is a tailhook landing.
MANY BLESSINGS
NOEL
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