Community Impact Report 2020

WHO IS PENINSULA CLEAN ENERGY?

Your community electricity provider is investing in tomorrow

Peninsula Clean Energy is San Mateo’s official electricity provider – generating clean and affordable power and making significant reinvestments back into the community.

As one of California’s 19 Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs), Peninsula Clean Energy has the flexibility and local control to use innovative options in purchasing and generating electricity for residents and businesses.

This has allowed us to pursue aggressive goals of providing 100% greenhouse gas-free electricity by 2021 and 100% power from wind, solar and other renewable sources by 2025 – all while charging our customers less than PG&E. 

Since we first began providing electricity to San Mateo County in October 2016, we have built a trendsetting clean energy portfolio. That includes the January 2020 launch of the 200-megawatt Wright Solar Park, the largest renewable project currently delivering power to a CCA in California.

And unlike an investor-owned utility such as PG&E, Peninsula Clean Energy – as a not-for-profit community-

Peninsula Clean Energy generates electricity for close to 300,000 customers in San Mateo County

controlled CCA – reinvests earnings to provide incentives and other programs that directly benefit our customers. For example, we offer incentives for electric vehicles to reduce emissions from cars, and a program to remove and recycle old refrigerators to improve home energy efficiency.

While Peninsula Clean Energy generates electricity for the 750,000 residents of San Mateo County, PG&E remains responsible for the distribution lines and other infrastructure that carries the electricity from the energy source to wherever it is used. Our generation charges and PG&E’s distribution charges appear as part of a consolidated bill provided by PG&E.

Peninsula Clean Energy’s ECOplus electricity product is cleaner and costs 5% less than the comparable PG&E rate. For about one cent more per kilowatt-hour, customers can choose our ECO100, which is 100% renewable energy. Solar customers also can get more value on our NEM and NEM 2.0 rates.

Find out more at PenCleanEnergy.com

How it works

Illustration showing the process from electricity generation with wind and solar, through delivery via power lines, to customers using clean energy in buildings and vehicles.
Illustration of wind turbine and solar panels representing electricity generation.

Peninsula Clean Energy provides electricity from clean energy sources at lower rates than PG&E.

Illustration of a building, house, and car representing customers.

As a customer of Peninsula Clean Energy, you are helping the environment and saving money.

Illustration of an electricity pylon representing delivery.

PG&E owns the power lines and delivers the power we generate. They send a consolidated bill.

Fighting climate
change here
at home

Dear Neighbors,
According to a 2019 survey, 76% of San Mateo County residents feel climate change is not being addressed aggressively enough.*

The good news is that by working together we have steadily cut hundreds of thousands of metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by using cleaner electricity. And this has been done while saving our residents and businesses millions of dollars through lower electric rates.

We also reinvest in programs to slice tailpipe emissions through electric vehicle incentives, and provide clean energy backup for customers most vulnerable to power outages.

Peninsula Clean Energy is pleased to highlight here what we and members of our communities are doing to achieve our collective vision of offering affordable and reliable emission-free power.

Of course, there is much more to do. But if our progress so far is any indication, San Mateo County will continue to lead efforts to fight global climate change for California and the country.
And we’ll continue to save you money while we provide you cleaner and greener electricity.

Jan Pepper
CEO
Peninsula Clean Energy

* January 2019 survey of 572 respondents chosen randomly.