Clean Electricity: Moving to Silicon Valley Clean Energy

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Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE) will soon be your official electricity provider, bringing us 100% carbon-free electricity at rates 1% lower than PG&E.

Formed by twelve local government agencies in 2016, SVCE was established to provide clean electricity at competitive rates to PG&E. PG&E remains responsible for the transmission and distribution of electricity, which includes maintaining power lines, responding to outages and billing.

All customers in the participating communities will be automatically enrolled in SVCE’s standard generation service, GreenStart, which offers 100% carbon-free energy from solar, wind farms and hydroelectric sources. Residential customers will be enrolled in three phases – 20% in April, 35% in July and the final 45% in October. The roll-outs will start on the south side of each city, move to the middle and finish on the north side. Customers will receive two notices before their enrollment date, and two after, announcing and explaining the service. These notices also provide information on how to opt-out for customers who wish to stay with PG&E.

Solar customers will be enrolled in four phases, to better match their “true-up” dates. Importantly, solar customers will receive full retail pricing for any excess electricity generated; a better deal than PG&E.

Customers may choose to upgrade to GreenPrime, SVCE’s premium service, providing 100% renewable electricity (solar and wind) at a cost premium of $0.007/kWh more than PG&E’s current service. An average residential customer account using 460 kWh per month would pay about $3.22 more per month with GreenPrime.

The Cities of Mountain View, Los Altos, Campbell, Cupertino, Saratoga, Morgan Hill and Sunnyvale have each enrolled their municipal electricity accounts into GreenPrime. By upgrading from GreenStart to GreenPrime, these cities have demonstrated additional commitment to climate protection and environmental sustainability, and by choosing GreenPrime, they further expand the demand for generation from renewable energy sources.

For more information, visit their site here.