Sonoma County residents won't be able to tap into a new energy provider until next year, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reports.
The Sonoma County Clean Power Authority confirmed the four-month delay of the rollout on Thursday, citing a monthlong process PG&E will need to transfer customers and about three months state regulators will need to review the implementation process, the report said.
“All of this is building toward a launch where there are no hiccups at the beginning,” SCCPA interim chief executive Geof Syphers told the Press Democrat.
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The Sonoma City Council last month voted unanimously to join the SCCPA.
“The benefit is that people will have a choice,” Councilman David Cook told Patch shortly after the vote. “If people don't want it they can opt out. If they want to stay with PG&E they can opt out.”
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Sonoma residents will have four months to opt out of the plan. The cost to opt out after four months is five dollars for residents and $25 for businesses.
The council's move was an about-face from a previous vote rejecting the SCCPA option.
“When it first came to a vote there wasn't enough time to look at the facts and some facts weren't available to us at the time,” Cook said.
Cook said the plan made more sense after the city of Santa Rosa conducted a study on the joining the SCCPA.
“That gave us a lot more information,” Cook said. “We learned more and we got to talk to constituents. It was nice was having this extra time to get the word out. A lot of people didn't know that much about it in the beginning.”
