City of Santa Monica and electricAmerica to Assess Community Choice Aggregation Feasibility

April 26 (News Release)

The City of Santa Monica and electricAmerica, one of the nation’s leading energy service providers, are to prepare a report to help the City determine the feasibility of implementing a Community Choice Aggregation plan. A primary task in implementing a Community Choice Aggregation plan is to analyze the historical electric consumption information of a city’s or county’s anticipated customer portfolio in order to plan future wholesale power purchases.

Made possible by the passage of Assembly Bill 117 (“AB 117”) in September 2002, Community Choice Aggregation (“CCA”) is an opportunity for California cities and counties to aggregate their municipal electric load with the load of industrial, commercial and residential customers within their municipal boundaries. Cities and counties implementing a CCA plan must continue to use local electric utilities for transmission and distribution services, but may contract out or internally manage the associated wholesale power purchasing and retail ratemaking functions. CCA seems to be gaining momentum in California as more cities and counties look for ways to reduce energy costs for their constituents, increase administrative control over state energy efficiency and conservation funds and deliver more environmentally friendly sources of power.

Earlier this year, the City renewed a power agreement with electricAmerica whereby the municipal facilities of the City of Santa Monica will continue to receive renewable energy well into the year 2005.

According to Susan Munves, Energy and Green Building Program Administrator for the City of Santa Monica, "We believe that Community Choice Aggregation can provide environmental, monetary and other benefits to the City of Santa Monica and its constituents. We are excited to begin investigating the viability of such a plan and are fortunate to be working with our energy service provider, electricAmerica, to help us determine how to best move forward.”

About electricAmerica / Commonwealth Energy Corporation Commonwealth Energy Corporation, a power marketer licensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, is an energy services company that markets retail electricity under the brand name, "electricAmerica", in deregulated markets. Major market areas are Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Detroit, Michigan; New Jersey and California. Commonwealth Energy also is licensed as an energy retailer in other deregulating states.

For more information, contact: Roy Reeves Vice President of Marketing Commonwealth Energy Corp./electricAmerica 15901 Red Hill Avenue, Suite 100 Tustin, CA 92780 Tel: 1-800-ELECTRIC® E-mail: rreeves@electric.com

Certain statements contained within this press release including, without limitation, statements containing the words "believe," "anticipate," "expect," "estimate," "await," "continue," "intend" and similar expressions are forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to the volatility of the energy market, competition, operating hazards, uninsured risks, changes in energy-related state legislation, and failure of performance by suppliers and transmitters. Additional cautionary statements regarding other risk factors that could have an effect on the future performance of the Company are contained in the Company's Form 10-K and other periodic reports and registration statements filed with the SEC. Further, the Company undertakes no obligation to release publicly the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. # # #