California Community Power RFP: Clean Generation and Capacity Resources

California Community Power (CC Power), a joint powers agency comprised of nine community choice aggregators serving over 6.7 million residents across 112 municipalities in California, is seeking proposals for clean energy and reliability resources to meet procurement obligations established by CPUC decisions, California renewable portfolio standards, and resource adequacy requirements.

CC Power is soliciting utility-scale renewable projects and energy storage resources with commercial operation dates between June 1, 2028 and June 1, 2034 (with preference prior to June 1, 2031). Eligible technologies include solar with storage (AC-coupled), standalone storage (4+ hours, lithium-ion), wind, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric, and emerging technologies such as small modular nuclear, long-duration storage, natural gas with carbon capture, and hydrogen generation. Projects must have site locations within CAISO service area or interconnected within CAISO, with capacity ranging from 20-200 MW for solar plus storage and standalone storage up to 1,000 MW, or any size for other technologies.

CC Power is pursuing three primary contracting approaches: (1) Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) or tolling agreements with 10-20 year terms, (2) Resource Adequacy (RA)-only agreements, and (3) Build-Transfer Agreements where CC Power purchases projects at or near Notice to Proceed. Projects must have Full Capacity Deliverability Status or reasonable expectation thereof. Respondents must demonstrate prior experience developing and operating projects of the same technology at equal or greater size.

Key dates include: Question deadline of October 31, 2025; Q&A responses posted by November 14, 2025; proposal submission deadline of December 5, 2025 at 11:59 Eastern Prevailing Time; Notice of Selection by January 30, 2026 (PPA/Tolling) or February 27, 2026 (Build-Transfer); target contract execution deadline of May 22, 2026 or June 19, 2026. The solicitation timing is designed to support projects meeting the July 4, 2026 deadline for being "in construction" to retain tax credit eligibility under the Inflation Reduction Act and One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Proposals will be evaluated based on economic valuation (net present value analysis including tariff stress testing), development risk (40 points), counterparty risk and experience (30 points), project location (20 points), and environmental stewardship (10 points), with pass/fail requirements for prevailing wage labor compliance and domestic content (for build-transfer projects). Respondents may propose a tariff price adjustment mechanism to account for equipment tariff exposure on key components including photovoltaic modules, wind turbine blades, and battery storage modules.