PRIME Celebrates Five Years as Your Energy Provider
Pico Rivera Innovative Municipal Energy (PRIME), the City’s locally managed, not-for-profit public energy service, celebrated its fifth-year anniversary on September 1, 2022.
The City’s energy program is a cost-effective, energy-efficient, local alternative to Southern California Edison (SCE) that purchases clean power on behalf of City customers that can save residents money on their electrical bills. SCE still continues to maintain and deliver the power supply.
When conceived five years ago, the City was following the steps of five other programs in California that use more renewable energy products at more affordable rates.
Unlike SCE, PRIME is solely in the business of power generation. As such, PRIME searches for the best deals on both conventional and renewable energy sources and offers them exclusively to PRIME customers. On average, customers save 3% on their energy bills. Since its launch, PRIME has saved over 17,000 customers an estimated $2.1 million.
“PRIME has been at the forefront of promoting cleaner and cheaper energy resources available to our residents,” said City Manager Steve Carmona. “PRIME is special in that it is City specific, which means our residents truly benefit from that exclusivity.”
Beyond helping customers save on energy bills, PRIME has partnered with multiple organizations over the last five years to bring invaluable community programs to Pico Rivera, including joining forces with Energy Upgrade California to provide residents with best practices to improve grid health and local energy reliability and collaborating with OhmConnect to reward customers for saving energy. Additionally, PRIME’s partnership with the Institute for Local Government and the Beacon program supports renewable energy policy adoption and sustainability initiatives. PRIME is also engaged with SoCalREN to help design and implement programs that will increase energy savings.
In addition to partnerships and community programs, PRIME has also helped expand the City’s Office of Sustainability, which will allow the Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) to continue: developing innovative renewable technologies to serve Pico Rivera residents and businesses best; establishing a system of benchmarking and projections that guide energy usage and greenhouse gas reductions; and support state energy and climate change goals.
Moving forward, the Office of Sustainability will focus on developing solar and battery storage programs, maintaining the City’s streetlight conversion to LED, and creating an EV charging plan to encourage the adoption of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The Office has been developing a City Climate Action Plan and lead on other citywide efforts such as the Bikeway Paths Project.
PRIME, an associate member of the California Choice Energy Authority (CalChoice), is one of 24 community choice energy programs in California. For more information about PRIME, visit poweredbyprime.org or call 1.800.GOPRIME.
OhmConnect Helps with Saving Energy and Money
There may not be much you can do about the added cost of gas and groceries, but you do have the power to save on your utility bills and get a little extra money each month to help.
PRIME Power has partnered with a company called OhmConnect to help provide relief. Every Pico Rivera resident is eligible for a bill-saving program brought to you in partnership with PRIME and OhmConnect.
OhmConnect is a free service that helps you stop wasting money and energy. Once you sign up, you’ll get alerts when energy is most expensive and polluting. Any smart devices you’ve linked to the service will automatically power down to save energy.
Here’s the best part: OhmConnect will actually pay you every month for the energy you save.
OhmConnect takes the unused energy saved by members’ smart devices and sells it back to the grid operator. Those proceeds are then distributed to OhmConnect members in the form of a monthly payout.
The payments start at $1 for linking a smart plug, or $5 for linking your smart thermostat, and top out at $7 every month for linking a smart thermostat and two smart plugs.
You can earn $5 every month for saving energy using a smart thermostat, which is provided for just $0.99. OhmConnect will even give you a $10 welcome gift.
Not only will you get paid every month, but you’ll also save money on your utility bill. That can make a big difference to the family budget.
The first step is to sign up by visiting ohmconnect.com/PrimePower.
