Orange County’s first clean energy agency could soon be in serious jeopardy as more than 65% of its customer base could be leaving.
It comes after Irvine City Council members unanimously agreed on Thursday night to send a letter announcing plans to leave the green power agency they founded, taking their 115,000 accounts with them.
The warning came after OC Power Authority staff announced plans to reduce the amount of green power they purchased for customers amidst spiking electricity prices, telling its member cities they had to make a decision to drop renewable power or raise rates and dip into reserves.
[Read: OC Green Power Agency To Rollback Renewable Power As Prices Spike]
The letter won’t be sent until 2025, and Irvine City Council members ordered their representatives on the board to try and work with the agency to smooth out communications and transparency issues.
Fred Jung, chair of the agency’s board of directors, criticized city leaders for their decision to leave, saying Irvine’s departure was purely over politics, not power.
“Idle hands are the devil’s playground, and that governing body is amateur hour,” Jung said in a Friday morning interview. “Now, once again, an agency that is tasked with doing good things is being held hostage by Irvine.”
While this isn’t the first time Irvine has threatened to leave the agency, hosting multiple meetings to consider leaving last year amidst several audits at the time, Thursday marks the first time city council members officially voted to do anything on the issue.
[Read: Irvine Councilwoman Reverses Course, Plans to Stay in Controversial OC Green Power Agency]
In a presentation to city council members, City Manager Oliver Chi said the power authority was “deliberately withholding” information from the city on power prices and purchasing.
“We feel very strongly that OCPA has for some reason decided not to inform Irvine about significant decisions that could be adverse to our decisions,” Chi said. “There’s been financial challenges at OCPA that have not been disclosed to Irvine.”
Councilwoman Kathleen Treseder, who sits on the agency’s board and has been one of its most outspoken proponents for years, said that she’s struggling to get enough information to vote at power authority meetings in recent weeks.
“It’s been like pulling teeth,” Treseder said at the council’s special meeting on Thursday night. “I’ve been having a tough time making informed decisions because I don’t have this concrete information … I don’t know what else to do at this point.”
Councilman Mike Carroll, who chaired the authority’s board when the agency was founded and has since called for the city to pull out repeatedly, called it a “noble failure.”
“I can’t even express how many hundreds of hours I spent trying to make this work,” Carroll said. “The revolutionaries have devoured their young.”
The only representative from the power authority at Thursday night’s meeting was Buena Park Councilwoman Susan Sonne, who sits on the agency’s board and made brief comments defending the agency before leaving the meeting.
Sonne called the changes “standard,” and encouraged city leaders to delay any decision making on leaving the power authority.
“Begin a discussion with OCPA so that everyone can fully understand all of the implications and impacts that could come with a letter of intent to withdraw so that you are armed with every bit of information,” Sonne said.
Agency spokesperson Jacquie Henderson declined to comment on Friday morning, saying they were still working on a statement after Irvine’s meeting.
Irvine City Council members also voted to drop residents from the 100% renewable energy tier to the power authority’s basic choice tier, which only drew around 10% of its power from renewable sources in 2023 – the rest came from nuclear power and “unspecified power,” according to the agency’s power content label.
Newly elected Councilman James Mai, who proposed the switch, noted that residents who wanted the higher tiers of power could still switch back to it, but that it was up to them.
“I think people should have a choice, but it needs to be a transparent one,” Mai said. “(The letter) sends a message – no organization will have the power to bully us.”
Jung said the council’s “rushed” decision came without any pushing from the power agency, and that Irvine’s representatives on the board were receiving weekly updates from agency CEO Joe Mosca.
“That was all this was – not a demand, not a sword of Damocles anywhere, not a sky is falling. Just a discussion.” Jung said. “(Mosca) gives out an update to all of us weekly. You should read it. If they’re not, I can’t help them.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.
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