"The only thing not changing is us."
Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam
Admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'
--Bob Dylan
Alright folks, this month is a meaty one! We’ve got logo changes, we’ve got program changes, we’ve got a podcast--the only thing not changing is us.
After 13 years we are retiring our original logo! Fun fact- our original logo was designed by Suzanne Bertz-Rosa for the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley back when SJVCEO was just a working group of the Partnership. It served us well for more than a decade, but we have grown up quite a bit and it’s finally time to embrace our own identity. We’ve been working with SharpEnd Design for the past five years on our project branding for the HDR, METU and VIEW programs. Keri Davis runs this small, woman-owned business out of Mono County (we do our best to support rural businesses), so when the time came to update Keri suggested a design that complemented our digital brands—PODEE, BLOGEE, and Fast Chats. We love the result, and we hope you do too!
While we’re already looking at our past, let’s stay here a bit longer. Way way back in 2010 we had just launched the VIEW Partnership with SCE and SCG, and our founding Executive Director, Paul Johnson, and I were trying to understand where PG&E fit and what they were doing with their Energy Watch program. For those who were around for the early days of PG&E’s Energy Watches, you can understand why this was something to ponder. Especially in the Valley. There were Energy Watches, but they were piece mealed together and no one was serving public sector specifically. The Kern Energy Watch was housed with Kern COG, the City of San Joaquin had their own, and the Great Valley Center had funding from the Energy Watch pot, but was developing an intern program. The was no rhyme or reason to who had a PG&E program or what they did with it. Paul and I liked things that made sense, that had consistency, and regionality. We envisioned a regional Energy Watch, one that housed all the Valley in one place and to each other we called this the “Super Partnership”. It would take another three years before PG&E joined VIEW, and it wasn’t until 2014 with the launch of METU that we were able to offer consistent services to all PG&E served local governments in the eight county region. While the region had six PG&E Energy Watches (Kern, VIEW, Fresno County, Fresno City, Madera, and Valley Vision) only METU provided EE technical assistance to public agencies. It wasn’t the “Super Partnership”, but it was close, and it filled a lot of gaps.
Then the CPUC changed everything by ordering that the utilities send at least 60% of their programs out to third parties, and the Energy Watches and Local Government Partnerships began to close.
In 2019 we started on a yearlong journey to participate in the PG&E solicitation process. We advanced from RFA to RFP and from RFP entered into active negations, and on July 1 we were officially contracted to offer the Central California Energy Watch! The CCEW is the “Super Partnership”, it’s the natural progression of what we’ve done and what we intend to always do: ensure access to energy programs and funding for rural and Disadvantaged Communities. We are thrilled! CCEW serves the eight counties of the San Joaquin Valley (Kern, Tulare, Kings, Fresno, Madera, Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin) plus Monterey County. We offer technical assistance in planning for and implementing energy efficiency to all public sector customers served by PG&E. We will use the CCEW to help public agencies drive towards a culture of EE, while maintaining rural character and being able to effectively adapt to local concerns.
SJVCEO covers a lot of ground now, and we know it may get confusing, so we created a handy infographic (see below) to help our partners understand how we serve their community. We’re using this edition of the newsletter to address our recent changes, as well as showcase our various program channels. We are committed to meeting our audience wherever they are on their energy journey!
Energy Efficiency in California is changing; it has been for years. I can’t say we’re on the backside of the upheaval, but the path ahead seems more clear than it ever has. If we’re to make it to the other side we have to double down on who we are and what we do. We fundamentally believe that all Californians deserve access to more efficient, more reliable, more affordable clean energy. We serve rural and Disadvantaged Communities; we serve the underserved. We always will.
