Instead of joining Monterey Bay Community Power, Del Rey Oaks looks to team up with King City.

When Monterey Bay Community Power was formed in 2017, Del Rey Oaks was the only city on the Monterey Peninsula to not join the carbon-free energy cooperative, despite a petition signed by about 200 of its residents asking that it do so.

The primary reasons were risk and a lack of representation: If the cooperative, known as a Community Choice Aggregation model (or CCA), were for some reason to go belly-up, the majority of the City Council feared the small city could go bankrupt. Moreover, when it came time to vote on policy matters, the city would only have one-quarter of one out of 11 seats on the board.

On June 27, the city held a workshop that included presentations from both MBCP and Pilot Power, a San Diego-based energy company that is facilitating King City Community Power for King City – the only other city in Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties to not join MBCP.

On July 22, the City Council directed City Manager Dino Pick to negotiate a potential contract with King City for Del Rey Oaks to join KCCP. If it works out, Pick sees minimal financial risk to the city in joining, and about $60,000 in annual revenue that could be put toward local solar projects, whether it be incentivizing solar panels atop homes or putting a solar farm on the former Fort Ord.

With MBCP, which covers the whole tri-county area, Pick says the possibility of getting solar projects in Del Rey Oaks is “highly unlikely.”

KCCP’s power is on track to be 50/50 hydropower and other renewables by 2020.

KCCP is the first CCA for Pilot, and Pilot founder Denis Vermette says the model is ideal for a small city like King City, or Del Rey Oaks.

“The reality is the larger [CCA] models have been more favorable for some communities,” Vermette says. “I’m not saying the model is bad, but each community has its own needs, and King City decided do something on their own.”