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