Partner Spotlight: Pacific Energy Advisors

Pacific Energy Advisors (PEA) has been an essential partner since CalChoice’s founding in 2016, providing resource planning and procurement consulting for members. 

 “There’s nobody out there who has been working on community choice in California longer than the experts at Pacific Energy Advisors,” said CalChoice Executive Director Jason Caudle. “Their team worked on the initial pilot program that brought community choice to the state. PEA helps our members launch strong programs and serves as an invaluable resource when dealing with any questions and operational issues that arise.”

PEA, which primarily consults for community choice aggregation (CCA) clients, provides technical support for nearly every aspect of CCA operations. The firm offers resource planning and procurement support for CCAs to meet customer energy needs, regulatory compliance support to navigate the complex electricity industry and assistance with rate setting, among other projects. PEA worked with 12 of the first 14 CCAs in California and currently supports nine operational and seven developing programs.

Lancaster Choice Energy started working with PEA in late 2014. Once CalChoice was founded, PEA began to support the organization. Currently, all 10 CalChoice members benefit from the firm’s consulting services. 

“I enjoy working with CalChoice because of the team’s spirit of innovation,” said PEA Vice President Kirby Dusel. “It’s really impressive to watch a municipal entity think outside the box and act so creatively to bring the benefits of community choice to its members. As practitioners in both the local government and CCA space, CalChoice’s team is able to navigate and communicate effectively in both spheres. CalChoice’s innovations have substantially advanced the CCA movement in California, and I am looking forward to seeing what’s in store for current and future members in the coming years.”

About Pacific Energy Advisors:

Pacific Energy Advisors (PEA) offers a broad range of planning and operational services directly related to the California energy market, including Community Choice Aggregation, resource planning and procurement, regulatory compliance, economic and financial analysis and general utility operations, among other areas of focus. PEA’s professional experience and insight has been developed over the course of decades spent in California’s electric utility industry, with many of our professionals having previously served in senior leadership positions within the wholesale, retail and regulated sectors of this complex business.

About CalChoice:

CalChoice offers support for local governments in every phase of the CCA program implementation process, providing feasibility services to determine whether a CCA program is appropriate, developing implementation plans for members to submit to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and managing the implementation process to launch the CCA program, as well as continuing to support members once their CCA program becomes operational. To learn more about partnering opportunities with CalChoice, please visit www.CaliforniaChoiceEnergyAuthority.com.