How to Switch Electricity Suppliers in California: The Direct Access Lottery and CCA Opt-Out, Step by Step

Who can switch, and who cannot

Retail electric choice in California is narrow by design. Direct Access, the program that lets a customer buy generation from a competitive Electric Service Provider, was suspended on September 20, 2001, reopened for non-residential customers only under SB 695 in 2010, expanded by 4,000 GWh under SB 237, and is now capped at roughly 28,800 GWh statewide [cpuc-direct-access]. Residential customers are not eligible [pge-direct-access]. Customers of municipal utilities are outside the program entirely.

Community Choice Aggregation is the other non-utility path, and it works in the opposite direction: you do not apply, you are enrolled automatically if your local government runs a CCA, and your only decision is whether to opt out [cpuc-cca-faq].

So the honest answer to "how do I switch suppliers in California" is: first find out whether you can, then file in June, then decide what to do with the eleven months of the year when nothing can be filed. The steps below follow that order.

Step 1: Confirm eligibility and identify every account

You need three things per meter: the utility (PG&E, SCE, or SDG&E), the Service Agreement ID or account number, and the delivery schedule printed on the bill. A cannabis facility with cultivation, processing, and retail on one site often has more than one meter and can have more than one schedule. Every account you want moved has to be listed individually on the notice.

If any site is served by LADWP, SMUD, or another municipal utility, take it off the list. It has no DA and no CCA.

Step 2: Check your CCA status and build the benchmark

Before spending effort on the lottery, find out what you are already paying for generation. If a CCA serves your address, the account is on it unless someone opted out, and the CCA's generation charges appear on the utility's consolidated bill [cpuc-cca-faq]. The comparison you need is:

• The utility's bundled generation rate for your delivery schedule, from its tariff book [pge-tariffs].
• Your CCA's commercial generation rate for the same schedule.
• The Power Charge Indifference Adjustment for your vintage, which is billed to all CCA and DA customers and re-forecast every October [cpuc-pcia].

CCA rate plus PCIA versus bundled generation is the benchmark. Later, an ESP's offer plus PCIA versus bundled generation is the same test. Delivery charges are identical under all three and should be left out of the comparison.

Step 3: Gather interval data and the documents a supplier will ask for

Demand-billed accounts at all three utilities are on interval meters. Download twelve months of 15-minute data from the utility's online account, along with the twelve bills. Suppliers price on load shape, and California's 4 to 9 pm on-peak window means the evening share of your kWh is the single number that moves the price most. Have your DCC annual license number ready as well; since January 1, 2026 every operator must hold an annual license, and an ESP's credit review will ask for it.

Step 4: File the Six-Month Notice to Transfer in June

This is the step that everything else depends on. Each utility accepts notices during the second full business week of June, from 9 am Pacific on Monday to 5 pm Pacific on Friday, for load that will start the following year [cpuc-direct-access]. For the 2027 service year, PG&E's window was 9 am on June 8 to 5 pm on June 12, 2026 [pge-direct-access].

Utility	What to file	Cap context
PG&E	Form 79-1117 (Six-Month Notice to Transfer) plus PG&E's Excel template listing every Service Agreement ID, emailed to the DA notice mailbox during the window [pge-direct-access]	Overall Load Cap 11,393 GWh; 185 GWh was open in 2023 and 836 customers were still waiting at year end [pge-direct-access] [cpuc-da-lottery-2023]
SCE	Notice through SCE's Direct Access enrollment process, an annual window in the second full week of June that SCE has run since 2014 with a randomized lottery [sce-direct-access]	1,206 GWh open in 2023; waitlist cleared [cpuc-da-lottery-2023]
SDG&E	Six-month notice to transfer through SDG&E's Notice of Intent process [sdge-direct-access]	DA Load Allowance 3,942 GWh; 45 GWh open in 2023 with 194 customers waiting [sdge-direct-access] [cpuc-da-lottery-2023]

A few practical rules. File every account you might want to move, even if you are not sure you will contract; you cannot add an account later in the year. File in every territory where you have load, because each utility runs its own lottery. And do not pay anyone to "reserve" a DA slot; there is no such thing, only the randomizer.

Step 5: Read the result and understand the waitlist

After the window closes, the utility assigns each valid notice a lottery number, offers available load under its cap in that order, and emails each customer whether it was accepted [cpuc-da-lottery-2023]. Accepted accounts have six months until service can begin, which is why a June filing produces January service.

Everyone else goes on a waitlist in randomizer order. At PG&E the waitlist number is valid for twelve months, from the first day of the following calendar year through December 31 of that year [pge-direct-access]. If headroom opens during the year (because a DA customer returns to bundled service, for example), the utility works down the list. On the last business day of December the number is cancelled and you refile the next June [cpuc-da-lottery-2023]. There is no seniority; a second-year applicant draws a fresh number.

Step 6: Choose a registered ESP and sign

Only accepted accounts can contract, and only with an Electric Service Provider registered with the CPUC under Public Utilities Code section 394 [cpuc-esp-list]. The CPUC publishes the list; use it to confirm any supplier or broker offer before you sign. Get firm prices on your interval data from more than one ESP, and read the term, early termination, renewal, and pass-through language with the same care you would give any supply contract; the contract terms guide covers the clauses that hurt. Whether to use a broker or go direct is covered in broker versus supplier.

The ESP submits a Direct Access Service Request (DASR) to the utility for each account. PG&E's tariff book includes a schedule of DASR fees [pge-tariffs]; ask the ESP whether it absorbs them.

Step 7: Billing and the switch date

DA customers can stay on utility consolidated billing, in which case the utility's bill carries a DA delivery schedule plus the ESP's generation charge, or take ESP billing. Most cannabis operators stay consolidated because it keeps one payee and one due date. The switch takes effect on a scheduled meter read after the six-month notice period. On the first post-switch bill, check that the delivery schedule is the DA version of your class, that the utility's generation line is gone, and that the PCIA line is present at the rate for your vintage [cpuc-pcia].

Step 8: Contract end, and the rules for returning

Once an account is on DA it stays on DA through contract renewals, which is the valuable part: you can re-price with any registered ESP without another lottery. The trap is falling back. Returning to bundled service requires a Six-Month Advance Notice to Return, and the returned account makes an 18-month minimum commitment to bundled service before it is eligible for DA again [sce-direct-access] [pge-direct-access]. PG&E allows three business days to rescind a Notice to Return after it is received [pge-direct-access]. Because of that, an ESP contract that quietly expires into bundled service can cost you a slot that took years to win. Set the renewal reminder a year out, not a month.

The CCA side has its own return rule. Opting out of a CCA is free during the notice period before service begins and, per the CPUC, during the first 60 days of service; after that, an opt-out may carry charges or conditions and the customer must remain on bundled service for one year before rejoining [cpuc-cca-faq]. Opt-out requests go to the CCA, not the utility [cpuc-cca-faq].

Mistakes California operators make

• Signing a supply contract before winning the lottery. The contract is unenforceable for accounts the utility will not switch, and some brokers still present it as a done deal.
• Filing in one territory when the portfolio spans two. Each IOU runs its own randomizer.
• Comparing an ESP or CCA price to the utility's total rate instead of its generation rate, and forgetting the PCIA on the ESP side.
• Letting a DA account lapse to bundled service at contract end and losing the slot for 18 months.
• Assuming a Los Angeles or Sacramento store has any choice at all.
• Missing the window. It is one week a year, and no other week counts.

For what the rates look like once you are on any of the three paths, see the California rate page; for how to run the lottery across many accounts, the multi-site page.