PRESS RELEASE
Feb. 27, 2019
Contact: Connie Conway
(631) 702-1743
Southampton Town Approves Community Choice Aggregation Energy Program
The Southampton Town Board has voted unanimously to enable the establishment of a Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) Energy Program. The New York State approved (CCA) Program may give ratepayers, as a group, the ability to find cheaper rates through a competitive bidding process than currently available from the Long Island Power Authority, to advance the Town’s efforts to achieve 100% percent renewable electric energy by 2025 and to make a significant impact on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The approved local legislation begins a process of evaluating the potential of the CCA program.
A Community Choice Aggregation Energy Program was implemented in Westchester County in 2016. It includes 26 municipalities in that County. To date, the more that 125,000 ratepayers in the Westchester program have saved over $13,000,000 in aggregate. Statewide another 35 municipalities have adopted similar enabling legislation as passed by the Southampton Town Board last night.
The CCA Program was first proposed by the Town’s Sustainability Committee and its chair of the Energy sub-committee Lynn Arthur. The Towns of East Hampton and Brookhaven have expressed interest in learning more about the Southampton CCA and could join with the Town program in the future. The Town of Brookhaven is currently establishing an exploratory committee to investigate CCA.
The Southampton Town Board introduced the legislation, sponsored by Councilman Bouvier, on Nov. 27th and held a public hearing on January 22nd. Following that public hearing, the Board opened a 30 day comment period that ended on February 22nd. The Town now has the local authority to seek the expertise of a CCA administrator to evaluate the potential of the CCA program for Southampton ratepayers. This next step requires no financial or legal obligation of the Town.