California’s Direct Access (DA) Lottery – Electric Choice Program

Direct Access (DA) is an electric service that allows customers to purchase their electricity directly from third party providers instead of from a regulated electric utility.

The utility continues to deliver electricity and provides all safety related services regardless of which electric supplier the customer chooses.

The California Legislature suspended the Direct Access program in September 2001 during the California Energy Crisis.

In 2010, Senate Bill 695 provided for the limited reopening of the Direct Access market for non-residential customers.

California’s electric utilities now accept requests to enroll in Direct Access through an annual lottery process.

Utilities assign a random number to approved Six Month Notice applications.

This random number determines the applicant’s position for available places within that utility’s Direct Access load cap. If a customer’s load moves the utility above the indicated cap, they are placed on a waitlist.

Electric utilities will be accepting Six Month Notices from June 11- June 15, 2018.

Those interested in participating in the Direct Access lottery should contact Ecom-Energy no later than May 15, 2018 to ensure adequate application processing time.

All Six Month Notices will be entered into a lottery to determine their random numerical position on the 2019 waitlist for any load that becomes available.