Local Energy Symposium 2016

[column col=”2/3″]

The Climate Center’s second Business of Clean Energy Symposium was a success! Held on March 4, 2016 in San Jose, CA, the event convened business, government, and community leaders to accelerate California’s shift to a clean energy economy. The Symposium provided a forum to exchange ideas about Community Choice Energy programs and to learn about current energy policy, regulations, markets, and technology. Read more about the day’s inspiring discussions.

Community Choice is accelerating at a rapid pace. Ann Hancock, the Center’s Executive Director, reported at the Symposium that 60% of Californians (excluding those served by Municipal Utility Districts) could have the option to be served by Community Choice by 2020. Read more.

For videos and slideshows of the day’s presentations, click here.

Pictures from the 2016 Symposium

The Challenge

To significantly decrease greenhouse gas emissions, the energy system of the future must be radically different from the energy system of today.The shift is already underway: distributed renewable energy is displacing centralized fossil fuel power. Community Choice Energy can be a central part of accelerating this transition by creating more competition in the energy market, increasing consumer choice, fostering robust public private partnerships, containing costs and demonstrating the economic development potential of distributed energy resources.

Smart-grid-web To de-carbonize our energy system, we will need both centralized and distributed renewable resources and much more. This Symposium will focus on distributed generation as a critical part of a resilient clean energy system. Distributed energy resources are critical because they:

Complement centralized resources. Larger scale renewables may be cheaper in per unit cost, but require a transmission system that is expensive to upgrade or extend and less efficient due to line loss
Generate local economic development, creating business opportunities and jobs in local communities and keeping more energy dollars local
Can add more resilience to our energy system
Can engage customers in new demand response technologies and push innovation

logos