Welcome to our newest series, “Rural Voices”, a space for “we the rural, we the hard to reach” to give voice to the voiceless! Through this series the members of the Rural Hard to Reach will share their unique perspectives as to how energy issues can impact our rural communities. Through this effort, the RHTR hopes to broaden the conversation and understanding of what rural communities lack and engage allies in pursuit of energy equity

The Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments (AMBAG) was organized in 1968 as a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) for the purpose of regional collaboration and problem solving across the Monterey Bay. AMBAG serves as the Council of Government (COG) for Monterey and Santa Cruz County as well as the Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz County. The Monterey Bay region is most well-known for our rich and diverse natural landscapes, from the condors of Pinnacles National Park to the redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains,  as well as the rich agricultural production area of the Salinas Valley and of course the wild coast of Big Sur. Because of the largely rural nature of our region, AMBAG has long engaged in rural issues from a transportation planning perspective and has collaborated extensively with other rural transportation agencies in order to bring rural perspectives to the attention of decision/policy makers.

This desire to bring even more services to our communities was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the AMBAG Energy Watch Program in 2006. AMBAG Energy Watch was a local government partnership with PG&E funded under the auspices of the California Public Utilities Commission.  Under this program, AMBAG staff provided energy efficiency resources to agricultural customers, our eighteen cities and three counties, hospitality customers, small and medium businesses, special districts, and school districts. One of the foundations of the AMBAG Energy Watch was a commitment to provide service not only to large customers but to all customers – no matter how challenging. This is primarily because ensuring that all of our communities have access to efficient and equal service is, in our mind, the equitable and ethical thing to do.  But it is also because if AMBAG can serve the smallest, most rural and hardest-to-reach customers we know that we will also be highly successful with all other customers.

A great example of this simple truth is how the implementation of the Proposition 39 program unfolded in our region. At first, the biggest school districts were contacted by consultants to design their Proposition 39 Energy Expenditure Plan at the cost of 15% of a district’s Proposition 39 funding allocation. Not only did this represent a large dollar amount that school districts would not be able to use toward project implementation, but we also noticed that many of our smaller school districts, with little staff capacity or grant implementation expertise, were not being approached by any consultants. We realized then that if we did not intentionally design an approach to serve these smaller customers, they would be unable to access their Proposition 39 funding. The AMBAG Energy Watch Program therefore started to work with small school districts providing no-cost turnkey Proposition 39 management services as well as rebates for lighting projects. These small school districts are often located in remote areas, lack cellphone reception, and have less than 40 students. For example, we worked with the two smallest school districts in California with four and five students respectively. Small school districts are also often in dire need of lighting and HVAC upgrades. Some schools even lack glass panes on some of their windows due to lack funding for repairs. As our work with thermal school districts proceeded, larger school districts started reaching out and expressing interest in working with us. In the end, AMBAG provided full turnkey grant management services to 46 of the 64 school districts and charter schools in our region, managing $27 million out of the $34 million of Proposition 39 implementation funding that came to the Monterey Bay. AMBAG also provided lighting rebates for a further $3 million of Proposition 39 funded projects and provided assistance to a further ten school districts.

Our experience implementing the Proposition 39 program reinforced what AMBAG had already learned: geographically hard to reach and rural area often lack access to statewide opportunities and programs. This is often because serving rural and hard to reach customers is more challenging and time consuming for program implementers and contractors. Another key barrier to access is that hard to reach and rural customers can sometimes lack the staff capacity or necessary expertise to consider participating in programs or applying for funding. It is crucial to recognize that rural ratepayers are not actively choosing to ignore programs nor actively refusing to address energy efficiency opportunities. Too often, policies and programs are not designed in a way that enables participation for rural customers.  Further, because we know that what gets counted is what gets funded, this lack of participation can drive a vicious cycle where rural customers are not valued as a source of potential energy savings, and therefore no programs are designed specifically to take advantage of the numerous opportunities that exist in rural communities.

At AMBAG, we believe that the creation of a Rural Regional Energy Network (RuralREN) is the perfect solution to unlock the untapped energy efficiency opportunities that exist in rural space. This is because RuralREN programs will be designed by rural communities, in rural communities, and for rural communities. These programs will not only perform in rural spaces and bring needed resources to rural communities but they could also be adapted to work tremendously well in urban center as well. This is because, as AMBAG demonstrated with our Proposition 39 strategy, a program that is designed to work for the smallest and hardest-to-reach customers is versatile and can work extremely well for all other ratepayers.

The promise of the RuralREN is to bring a diversity of perspectives and knowledge to the table along with a deep commitment to providing as many opportunities to rural communities as possible. This approach will not only drive the creation of successful programs but also enable partners to learn from each other on energy efficiency issues along with the numerous other issues that our respective agencies engage in. Only through this peer learning and collaboration can we be successful in meeting California’s climate goals in an equitable and sustainable way.

Amaury Berteaud
Special Projects Manager,
Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments