Alex DiGiorgio, community development manager of MCE
By Claudia Wentworth, CEO of Quick Mount PV
I am often motivated by the many ordinary and extraordinary people who are aligned to change the standard of how we harness the electrical energy we all use. Doing this takes effort from many, many people who are teaching, learning, creating and innovating new roads into a static, archaic, utility-monopolized energy paradigm.
At a recent NorCal Solar event in Oakland, Calif., I was inspired by a wonderful speaker, Alex DiGiorgio. Alex is the community development manager with MCE, an enterprising public agency (technically a Community Choice Energy (CCE) program) that educates and facilitates communities to empower their citizens by giving them a choice in their energy sources.
Democratizing the economics of energy lets consumers use their ratepayer dollars to vote for which type of energy they want to consume (clean versus dirty or toxic) and allows for transparency in what has otherwise been a very closed market. Having studied energy regulation and environmental law, Alex understands this not only creates energy choice but also local workforce benefits, economic benefits and lets energy entrepreneurism flourish.
Community Choice Energy can be a vehicle for any individual, corporation, school or community to sell their excess energy back at a retail value. Sunlight and wind are worth more in MCE’s service area, and the CCE model is now accessible and reproducible for cities, counties and communities—due to the hard work of strong, driven visionaries like Alex.
We now have the opportunity to rapidly shift to clean energy sources, decrease our carbon footprint and pursue a better, cleaner, healthier world. We need more influencers like Alex DiGiorgio. Thank you Alex, and everyone out there working toward this goal.