LEAN Energy Second National CCA Strategy Retreat

LEAN Energy will host its second annual leadership conference in Chicago in the summer of 2013. LEAN is the national network founded in 2011 that is dedicated to the spread of Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) as a legal vehicle for the creation of municipal utilities designed to increase the percentage of renewable energy in their energy portfolios and localize energy distribution. The greatest advances in the adoption of CCA have so far been in Illinois and California. In Illinois, dozens of cities have adopted CCA and the city of Chicago has signed a no-coal supply contract for their municipal aggregation. The adoption of CCA is in earlier stages of development in a small and slowly growing number of other states. LEAN Energy serves as a resource for these efforts.

LEAN will use the conference to solidify its national network and develop ways of sustaining the network into the future.

Blackstone Ranch Institute provided strategic advice at the inception of the network and funding for the inaugural gathering of LEAN in early 2011. The institute is providing a bridge grant for the second national gathering as a way to help support LEAN develop funding relationships with other foundations and a membership support program.