Energy Self-Determination: Community Choice Aggregation for East Hampton

The Town of East Hampton has begun an inquiry into Community Choice Aggregation, a model in which towns and municipalities can form a public, not-for-profit governing body in order to choose from a wide range of sources of electricity through their power utility to suit their demands, creating energy self-determination. This model stands in contrast with defaulting to using those power utilities given (usually traditional) source, i.e fossil fuels.

(From Wikipedia:)

'“…By aggregating purchasing power, (municipalities) are able to create large contracts with generators, something individual buyers may be unable to do. The main goals of CCAs have been to either lower costs for consumers or to allow consumers greater control of their energy mix, mainly by offering "greener" generation portfolios than local utilities. Eight states in the United States have enacted CCA enabling law. They are: Massachusetts, Ohio, California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia…”

Locally, the town of Southampton is actively pursuing CCA and has appointed an official administrator, and more than 80 other municipalities in New York State have adopted a program, with many others starting the process.

See below for an illustration about how this works:

If you would like to know more about CCA in New York State, click here.

If you support this idea, let the town board know by email or by showing up to town board meetings!