Hi all!
VERY IMPORTANT!
The moment has arrived! It is crucial that as many of you turn out on
Friday, July 30, 2pm, at San Francisco City Hall Room 250, to help set a
-strong- precedent for local clean energy and clean energy jobs, both in
the Bay Area, and throughout the world. San Francisco's imminent
community choice program, Clean Power SF, is planned to run the City on
50% local clean energy by 2020! But there is a big problem..
New bids for Clean Power SF are going out soon, and it is crucial that
we demand that the request for bids not be weakened by having its
mandates for actual installed local renewables and efficiency removed
(which would also gut the local hiring opportunities from the program
completely).
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) which has
constantly sought to weaken the program for seven straight years, is
unfortunately in charge of the bid release. The SFPUC intends to release
a weak bid document at the end of this month which will:
1) Completely remove the comprehensive, large scale, local solar, wind,
distributed generation and efficiency installations from the program so
that it will begin solely by artificially purchasing imported renewable
energy and possibly even renewable energy credits (carbon credits) on
the open market; with construction of actual local renewables and
efficiency only -promised- to be pursued separately as multiple, small,
individually bid projects, with no guarantees such projects will be
built into the Clean Power SF program whatsoever!
2) Cut the program down to a five year contract, thereby making it
impossible to properly pay off a local renewables and efficiency
portfolio over time. (Assuming there will even -be- such a portfolio at
all! - See point 1.) Renewables and efficiency need a 15-20 year project
period to pay themselves off in order to remain competitive with fossil
fuel energy prices.
3) Gradually phase in the customer base of the program so that not all
customers are included from the beginning! Just as with universal health
care and Social Security, it is crucial that all customers join the
program at once. This is the only way to achieve the -much- better
economies of scale in purchasing and building renewables and efficiency
that are necessary for the program to work financially, and effectively
meet or beat PG&E's fossil fuel energy rates. Such a gradual phasing
plan could also strand most potential Clean Power SF customers -out- of
the program, if PG&E manages to pass a 50% plus one vote version of Prop
16 before all of those customers are allowed in. This would destroy
Clean Power SF.
Important Note: Our best way of ensuring that these weakening measures
are not included in the bid is to insist that Local Power's Paul Fenn
(the creator of the Community Choice Aggregation model on which Clean
Power SF is based) gives final approval of all bid documents and the
final contract (which is planned to be released in September). Many of
you know Paul from his work in helping to found and run the campaign
against PG&E's Prop 16. Our best insurance to make sure that Clean Power
SF is done right, is to insist that Paul Fenn and his Local Power team
give their thumbs up on all final documents before release.
TO HELP ENSURE THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE CLEAN POWER SF PROGRAM:
SHOW UP TO THE JULY 30TH HEARING TO SPEAK AND RAISE TWO OR THREE OF THE
FOLLOWING TALKING POINTS
*Both the worsening global climate crisis, and the continuing deep
economic crisis, have made essential the widespread installation of
localized solar, wind power, distributed generation and efficiency
projects which will both help save the planet, and create thousands of
local job opportunities.
*It is essential that the City negotiate a Clean Power SF contract which
guarantees 360 megawatts of locally installed, municipally owned,
renewable electricity generation and efficiency in the first three years
of the program, and that San Francisco is run on at least 50% locally
generated clean renewable electricity by 2020.
*To make certain that Clean Power SF is financially strong and has
electricity rates that are competitive with fossil fuel electricity, it
is essential that the Clean Power SF contract period be 15 years or
longer so that, over time, the higher up front cost of renewables can be
easily paid back once the fuel free operation of those renewables
naturally becomes much -lower- cost than fossil fuel electricity.
*To ensure the economic stability of the program, achieve better
economies of scale, and to and make certain that all San Franciscans and
local businesses are guaranteed their place in Clean Power SF, the
contract must also mandate that all San Francisco electricity consumers
are included in the program from the beginning.
*It is vital that the Clean Power SF program set the highest local
hiring requirements to date, in a project of its size, so as to ensure
that the promise of a vibrant emerging local green economy is made real.
*Communities outside of San Francisco are depending on Clean Power SF to
set the highest possible standards for local clean energy and green
jobs, so that they can call on their own local officials to meet or
exceed those standards.
*To ensure that all of these goals are met, we -insist- that Local Power
give final approval on all Requests For Proposal (RFP) and final
contract documents.
The hearing time, place & details are:
- SF Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo)
- Friday, July 30, 2pm
- SF City Hall, Main Chamber, Room 250
- Directions: From SF Civic Center BART/Muni, cross United Nations Plaza
to the City Hall entrance on Polk Street between Grove and McAllister
That's it all.
This is zero hour!
Please call or email back to me so that we can coordinate for the 30th.
thanks!
Eric Brooks
Community Choice Energy Alliance
415-756-8844
