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Community Choice Aggregation Feasibility Analysis Alameda County <br />June 2016 iii MRW & Associates, LLC <br /> <br />CCA Power Supplies <br />The CCA’s primary function is to procure power supplies to meet the electrical loads of its <br />customers. This requires balancing energy supply and demand on an hourly basis. It also requires <br />procuring generating capacity (i.e., the ability to provide energy when needed) to ensure that <br />customer loads can be met reliably. By law, the CCA must supply a certain portion of its sales to <br />customers from eligible renewable resources. This Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), requires 33% renewable energy supply by 2020, increasing to 50% by 2030. The CCA may choose to <br />procure a greater share of its supply from renewable sources than the minimum requirements, or <br />may seek to otherwise reduce the environmental impact of its supply portfolio (e.g., purchase <br />hydroelectric power rather than power from a fossil fuel generator). <br />The three supply scenarios that we considered are: <br />1. Minimum RPS Compliance: The CCA meets the state-mandated 33% RPS requirement <br />in 2020 and the 50% RPS requirement in 2030 <br />2. More Aggressive: The CCA’s supply portfolio is set at 50% RPS from the first year <br />onward, plus additional amounts of non-RPS compliant large hydro power to reduce <br />GHG emissions <br />3. Ultra-Low GHG: The CCA’s supply portfolio is set at 50% RPS in the first year and <br />increases to 80% RPS by the fifth year. <br />In each case, we assumed that the RPS portfolio was predominately supplied with solar and wind <br />resources, which are currently the lowest cost sources of renewable energy in California. We <br />assumed that solar and wind each contribute 45% of the renewable energy supply. To provide resource diversity and partly address the need for supply at times when solar and wind <br />production are low, we assumed the remaining 10% of renewable supply would be provided by <br />higher-cost baseload resources, such as geothermal or biomass. <br />Local Renewable Development <br />The CCA may choose to contract with or develop renewable projects within Alameda County so as to promote economic development or reap other benefits. For the purpose of this study, we <br />assume that the local renewable power development resulting from the CCA would be largely <br />solar. In developing the hypothetical portfolios, we made conservative assumptions about how <br />much local solar development would occur as a result of the CCA. A renewable potential study <br />performed for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) estimated roughly 300 MW of large solar supply in Alameda County. (Large solar in this study means ground-mounted utility- <br />scale solar farms).1 This estimate is based on an assessment that five percent of the estimated <br />6,000 MW of technical potential could be developed, largely as a result of land use conflicts or <br />slope issues that would make solar development unfeasible in certain areas. We assume that <br />over the forecast period through 2030, about 1/3 of the estimated 300 MW large solar supply <br /> <br />1 At about 8-10 acres per megawatt, this corresponds to 2,400 to 3,000 acres (3.75-4.7 square miles).