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As we mark the 10-year anniversary of the California Community Choice Association (CalCCA), it is worth pausing to reflect on how much the energy landscape has changed. A decade ago, Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) was a bold experiment in local choice. Today, it is a dominant force driving California’s energy transition. Yet the future of the CCA model depends not just on performance, but on the ability to communicate that performance to the public and policymakers.

CCAs now serve more than 15 million customers and projections suggest that, by 2030, two-thirds of California’s electricity market will be under public control. Despite this success, history shows that energy institutions can fail, sometimes catastrophically.

For most of the 20th century, monopolistic utilities were broadly accepted as the most efficient way to power the grid. But when California rates climbed 30 to 50 percent above the national average, that trust collapsed and deregulation followed. The subsequent market restructuring lasted just four years before the Energy Crisis of 2000-2001 brought rolling blackouts, bankruptcy and public outrage, ultimately creating the regulatory conditions that enabled CCAs.

History demonstrates that the legitimacy of energy institutions rests on performance, particularly on affordability and reliability. CCAs face similar struggles today. On affordability, the Power Charge Indifference Adjustment (PCIA) has swung wildly in recent years, with substantial increases projected for 2026. On reliability, the state is grappling with Resource Adequacy shortages, where capacity simply cannot meet demand. And unlike their predecessors, CCAs are expected to be affordable, reliable and sustainable.

CCAs have proven resilient in response. To combat rising PCIA rates, they have implemented rate relief measures. To address Resource Adequacy concerns, they shifted from passive power buyers to active builders, signing 389 long-term contracts for clean energy totaling more than 21,000 MW of new solar, wind, geothermal, storage and demand response resources. On decarbonization, CCAs achieved an aggregate 73 percent renewable portfolio in 2024, significantly exceeding California’s 2030 target of 60 percent.

But legitimacy is only as strong as the communication behind it. When PCIA rates spike, customers need context before frustration becomes opposition. When a clean energy milestone is reached, that story must reach not just ratepayers but the board members, city councilmembers and legislators who determine whether CCAs have the political room to operate and grow. Legitimacy is not a byproduct of good work. It is built deliberately, through consistent and strategic communication with every stakeholder.

Disruptions can be gradual, as with the slow erosion of public faith in monopoly utilities, or sudden, as with the Energy Crisis. Either way, history shows that institutions fail when the public and policymakers conclude it was no longer delivering. The institutions that endure are those that bring their communities along: earning trust not once, but continuously, and making the case for their value at every turn. The first 10 years of CalCCA have been an undeniable success, but amid new and ongoing challenges like regulatory shifts and data centers, it is crucial that CCAs tell their story as boldly as they have built it.

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