Pioneer Community Energy
In January 2022 Pioneer Community Energy will be offering the option of using their services as an electricity provider in El Dorado County. For those who wish to remain with PG&E there will be an “opt out” option where customers can remain with PG&E rather than change to Pioneer.
“Pioneer is offering a choice in electricity providers where no choice existed before,” said Don Eckert, Pioneer Community Energy executive director. “Pioneer provides the energy that is delivered on PG&E lines and there will be no impact to the power service compared to what someone currently has. If you have an outage, you call PG&E as you did before. They own the wires and the poles; Pioneer only provides the electricity.”
Pioneer Community Energy is a Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) which is an agreement between two or more public agencies that allows them to join together and exercise their powers as a single agency for the purpose of accomplishing specific goals they may have in common.
Alexia Retallack, a representative of Pioneer Community Energy, encourages the community to go to the Pioneer website pioneercommunityenergy.ca.gov/ for more information on what Pioneer does, how it works, and what it provides to the community.
“We have tried to provide as much information and answer as many questions as we can on our website,” said Retallack. “If a member of the community cannot find the answer they are looking for, we encourage them to send us their questions by email or contact our customer service. We try to be very responsive to the needs of community members.”
Pioneer also plans to have community meetings in El Dorado County. The Georgetown community meeting is scheduled for Oct. 12 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the IOOF. A community meeting also has been scheduled for El Dorado Hills. Pioneer placed plans for community meetings for Placerville and Pollock Pines on hold due to the Caldor Fire and will work with local officials to arrange meetings once the emergency has passed.