Southampton Town Board Moves Forward With Community Choice Aggregation

Southampton Town Board members voted unanimously on Tuesday night to establish a Community Choice Aggregation program, often referred to as a CCA, to look into the benefits or downfalls of selecting a default electricity and gas supplier for its residents.

By establishing a CCA program, the town will take steps to begin moving toward the town’s goal of achieving 100 percent renewable-sourced energy by 2025.

The agent, or broker who will lead the research efforts, will be able to stipulate how much energy comes from renewable sources like wind farms and solar panels and solicit bids from power and gas suppliers.

“This gives the town a variety of options with our energy,” Town Board member Tommy John Schiavoni said on Tuesday. “If we are serious about meeting our renewable goal for 2025, we need options.”

Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said establishing the CCA does not establish a commitment. Instead, it allows town officials to fully vet its options in terms of energy use, options and pricing, while compiling additional information before power companies begin submitting proposals to become the town’s supplier.

He added that establishing a CCA program allows the town to hire an administrator to lead the effort and to work with the Long Island Power Authority to come up with statistical data regarding community energy consumption.

Ultimately, Mr. Schneiderman said the town would like to see the price of electricity drop, but he said there are other benefits that could come out of the program, such as solar arrays.

“I don’t actually see a downside to it,” he said of taking a step toward CCA. “Other municipalities have done it. We would be the first on Long Island to do it.”

The plan gained huge support from members of the community, who were in attendance to see the resolution get passed on Tuesday.

Tip Brolin, a resident of Water Mill, was one of the supporters.

“This offers the potential to reduce our electricity rates and/or meet the town’s goal of supplying all of our electricity needs,” he said. “The resolution does not commit the town to implement the program, but merely to investigate whether we should proceed to the next steps in the process.”

Lynn Arthur, the energy chair of the Town Sustainability Committee, headed the efforts to get the Town Board to approve a CCA program. She and her team gave 26 presentations on the program and gained almost-unanimous support of everyone they showed the plan to.

Ms. Arthur also said the committee submitted 24 letters and 300 signatures of those who supported CCA to the town clerk.

She also said once the town began looking into CCA, neighboring towns, like Brookhaven, began inquiring what they could do to also get involved.

“The impact you are having is not just in our borders, it’s much broader,” Ms. Arthur told board members.

Town Board member John Bouvier said there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, but reiterated that the town could step away at any point.