New York Times Features Marin and SF Green Power Fight With PG&E

Katherine Mieszkowsky has written an illuminating article in the Sunday Times on Marin's climate protection efforts - and the efforts of utility giant PG&E to block them. "Through a form of public collective purchasing (Marin) plans to provide a greener alternative to the power from the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Northern California’s dominant utility....Unless, that is, P.G. & E., which is investor-owned, stops it. At the moment, it is making every effort to that end, jawboning participants, hinting at legal action and, most importantly, backing a voter referendum to nip such plans anywhere in the state....Marin, closely followed by San Francisco, is racing to get its program established because a statewide initiative, backed by P.G. & E. and likely to be on the ballot next June could make it much harder to do so."

Click Here to Read the New York Times article.

San Francisco Supervisors Approve CCA RFP

October 27 - San Francisco, California. Supervisors approved a major City document seeking a new, radically green supplier of electricity for San Francisco residents and businesses starting in 2010. Approving issuance of an RFP for the SF "Community Choice" (CCA) Program, commonly known as CleanPowerSF, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said it is a "benchmark occasion that we are advancing the RFP" to seek a new power supply for the seven-by-seven mile urban community of three quarters of a million people. For Local Power Inc., which over the past ten years has prepared the City’s H Bond Authority (2001), its CCA Ordinance (2004), CCA Implementation Plan (2007), and now the CCA RFP itself, the CCA RFP is the last, key stage of a decade long process bringing a revolutionary new energy concept to market. We are very pleased with the quality of the solicitation document, which will bring in a new power company to replace former monopoly Pacific Gas and Electric providing power to all San Franciscans under a new, innovative service intended to be 51% green (renewables and energy efficiency) by 2017 including development of 360 Mewawatts (about $600M) of new local green power facilities using financing from the City’s voter-approved green power revenue bond authority, Prop H. As reported in the San Francisco Examiner, this RFP has been made more flexible to bidders to in order to facilitate an accelerated RFP process to meet PG&E’s threat to block CCAs statewide through a $30M-$100M California initiative on the June 2010 statewide ballot. Given the importance of negotiating with prospective suppliers before the June 2010 deadline arrives, Local Power agreed that flexibility is needed, and we have worked hard to ensure that the CCA RFP remains substantively oriented towards the 360 MW rollout outcome, as well as the 51% by 2017 RPS outcome. For Local Power as a company, the issuance of this CCA RFP is a major event – the first official request for “Climate Works” by a U.S. City, according to Local Power’s “turnkey” or Design-Build-Operate-Maintain approach. The supplier would meet-or-beat PG&E’s rates now followed by a structured rate into the future that is intended to be competitive with PG&E – while providing benefits of much greener power and substantial localization of supply as well as demand technologies such as Smart Grid, demand reponse, and other decentralized power systems, including customer ownership. Prior to the Supervisors’ 1o-0 vote in favor of issuing the RFP, Mirkarimi restated the CCA program’s commitment to green power, promising "not just 15% renewables like other Californians get under state law, but towards a renewable standard of 50-plus-1 %” by 2017. Click here for a press release on the City's issuance of the RFP with the actual document and background article attached at PR.Com.

Report on Energy Self-Reliant States Published

The Institute for Self Reliance, which has led the nation's energy localization movement for a quarter century, has published an excellent new expanded edition of its "Energy Self-Reliant States," a national, state-by-state survey of the feasibility of local renewable resources as a commercially feasible basis for replacing electricity supply today. "The ubiquitous nature of renewable energy argues for a decentralist energy approach." This new report, written by David Morris and John Farrell, examines the renewable electricity potential for each state, concluding that all 36 states with either renewable energy goals or renewable energy mandates could meet them by relying on in-state renewable fuels. Sixty-four percent could be self-sufficient in electricity from in-state renewables; another 14 percent could generate 75 percent of their electricity from homegrown fuels. "Indeed, the nation may be able to achieve a significant degree of energy independence by harnessing the most decentralized of all renewable resources: solar energy. More than 40 states plus the District of Columbia could generate 25 percent of their electricity just with rooftop PV." This is must reading for those facing the conventional power industry's claim that massive new "transmission superhighways" are essential to connect urban centers to remote renewable resources, or the hackneyed bark that a "natural gas transition to renewables" are more "realistic" than a concerted shift to energy localization. To read this report, visit the ILSR site's download page.

Stop the PG&E Power Grab - PAC Formed

Local Power has joined The Utility Reform Network (TURN) and Capitol Consulting to form a Political Action Committee in opposition to PG&E's desperate move to halt the Community Choice movement in California - the so-called "taxpayers right to vote act." As dozens of communities in PG&E's service territory mobilize to win energy independence and implement Climate Action Plans, PG&E's claims that it will spend $50-$100M on its campaign to impose monopoly on Northern California portends a major political fight. We say bring it on - there is no better publicity than negative ads paid by an unpopular power monopoly - the great shot in the foot heard round the world. Visit our new organization, Stop the PG&E Power Grab to learn more.

Local Power Proposes 76% Renewable to Marin at PG&E Rates

We finally did it. The Marin Energy Authority said Marin County residents and businesses want at least 51% green power in the community-wide power mix, but at the same rates the incumbent (fossil gas, nuclear, large hydro 12% renewable PG&E) charges. Local Power put together a consortium that can roll out a 76% Renewable power to all Marin customers at Pacific Gas & Electric Corp.'s rates. Sound revolutionary to you? What can we say? It's a buyers' market. For what will eventually become a game-changing event -  Check out Local Power Works LLC press release here. 

GOOD features Local Power

Noella Boudart has written a short feature in GOOD Magazine on Local Power's meteoric rise from political advocate to industrial protagonist; "An activist advocating for a community’s energy rights turns entrepreneur reconceiving a city’s power structure." Click here to view Boudart's article.

Microgrids vs. Green(washed) Transmission: Fast Company Article

Pulitzer-nominated author and journalist Anya Kamenetz has written another excellent article on local power in the July issue of Fast Company, "Why the Microgrid Could be the Answer to Our Energy Crisis" - Why small-scale, local power -- the microgrid -- could be the answer to our energy crisis. And why the big utilities are fighting it with all they've got. Click here to view the article.

California Funds Local Power Inc. Regional Energy Resiliency Projects

The California Energy Commission approved Local Power Inc.'s funding to implement Renewable Energy Secure Communities in Sonoma County and San Luis Obispo Counties over the next three years. Escaping the state budget crisis butcher block, the Sonoma County project, a partnership of Local Power, Los Alamos National Laboratories, and the Sonoma County Water Agency (read SCWA doc), leading the North American Climate Initiative, will produce an complex carbon and economic model for the development of a portfolio of major renewable energy infrastructure proposed in LPI's 2008 Climate Action Plan for Sonoma communities, which was completed by the Sonoma Community Climate Action Plan (link to plan) in 2008 following countywide reduction of the nation's leading greenhouse gas reduction commitment (see the blog entry below). The San Luis Obispo contract, announced by the International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives (read announcement here) will research local renewable energy resources and market opportunities, spanning 18 months, to establish an informed approach to renewable energy development in the region by San Luis Obispo county.  Local Power was retained by Sonoma County to collect and analyze meter data from Pacific Gas & Electric to analyze energy use in the region and refine its 2008 portfolio model, which would achieve a 66% Renewable Portfolio Standard by 2015 without requiring any increase in rates (link to LPI docs is on our company web site).

PG&E "Taxpayer Rights" Initiative Would Suppress Green City Movement

Bill, Initiative Would Block Climate Action Plans: “Taxpayers for The Right to Vote” Would Override City Governments' Authority to Negotiate With Green Power Suppliers

Facing energy mutinies by San Francisco, Marin County and potentially Sonoma County, Northern California energy monopoly Pacific Gas & Electric PG&E has filed a voter initiative posing as Prop 13 style taxpayer populism to require voter approval for San Francisco, Marin and other communities seeking to escape the mostly gas-fired utility utility by switching to and developing green power facilities. An opposition campaign has been formed by consumer and environmental organizations.

Shock Doctrine Populists: Orwellian “Right to Vote” PG&E Initiative Would Block Northern California Communities From Green Power & Climate Plans

PG&E has formed a committee and is now actively seeking to block the most bold, far reaching efforts of any entities in California or the U.S. to ramp up green power development and implement substantial greenhouse gas reduction plans. Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) has facilitiated visionary new projects in the Bay Area over the past decade, championed by the Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA and local groups. From the Morning Report, “Californians to Protect Our Right to Vote,” has major funding From Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), calling itself "a coalition of taxpayers, environmentalists, renewable energy, business and labor." Sound populist to you?

David Room of the East Bay energy relocalization movement, said believes even East Bay Cities like Oakland and Berkeley might act to oppose threats to their rights to green their power under the state’s 2002 Community Choice law (Migden, 2002). Companies like Continental Wind Power have an interest in CCA so may support counter-campaign, but cities and counties like Marin and San Francisco will be approached for funding, according to CCA Advocate Tam Hunt in Santa Barbara.

For Inquiries about PG&E's initiative, contact “Taxpayers Right to Vote Act,” Robert Pence, Steven S. Lucas, 2350 Kerner Blvd. Suite 250, San Rafael, CA 94901, or Nance McFadden of PG&E – Board member, 77 Beale St, Mail Code B32, San Francisco, CA 94015.

To get involved, visit local.org/coalition.html and hook up.

Local Power Marin Launch (Radio Show Post)

Marin Carbon activists Bing Gong, Bernie Stephan discuss the potential of the newly created Marin Energy Authority with green power author/activist Peter Asmus and myself. This is a 60 minute radio show on Local Power's vision for transforming electricity into "a new kind of power."  Marin County, California has released its request for a new energy service that will achieve a "Deeper" green for its residents and businesses and achieve historic greenhouse gas reductions for the North Bay. Having begun working in Marin some ten years ago, Local Power is now involved in the active discussions here around energy independence, the transition town movement, and the so-called "Green New Deal." As a major hub for food sustainability, Marin is now leading the green power /  regional Climate Action movement. To listen to the show, click here.

Greenwashed

Transmission is Dumb and Brown. Gas and electric monopoly utilities are exploiting public misunderstanding of green power to promote new transmission lines and ratepayer-funded brown investments that will not reduce carbon emissions. Saying we need new transmission to reach remote wind sites, the industry is avoiding tough but necessary relocalization of power and dramatic demand reduction to deliver meaningful climate action. Moreover, without reducing power sales (and gas, coal and electric utility load growth) greenhouse gas reductions from the power industry will cause Policy Collapse that has already engulfed California's promise-the-sky with no follow-through political culture. I joined Local Power staff Robert Freehling and David Erickson in authoring this new article in Natural Gas & Electricity, a pre-print (Wiley, May, 2009).

California Releases Major Report on Community Choice

The California Energy Commission has released its Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) Pilot Project Report, outlining the opportunity for communities to achieve accelerated renewable energy development at competitive prices. The Commission's report is based on its work with a diverse group of municipalities in California over the past few years, and is a great primer on the opportunity that Local Power has developed. Click here for a link to the State of California link page.

REVAMP

We have revamped localpower.com. Local Power staff articles published by NATURAL GAS & ELECTRICITY by Howard Golub, Robert Freehling, David Erickson and myself over the past year: Climate Change, Smart Grid, Obama, and the Community Choice movement - visit localpower.com click pdfs of the articles (with permission from Wileys). Green is not enough: relocalize. Transmission is Dumb: a Utility-Owned Smart Grid is not Smart. A Smart Grid that does not reduce consumption is by definition not smart. Community Choice brings the scale of transition towns and conversion cities within reach at utility prices. Changing the energy industry is not dissimilar from changing the tobacco industry. Climate Change is a crisis of supply-side economic fundamentalism, not technology; and more.

ObamaSmartGrid

Much has been said about President Obama's new "Smart Grid" legislation, which could transform America's energy system. But will Big Energy do to Obama what they did to Enron's Ken Lay, the (Killed) Electric Car and (unravelled) Jimmy Carter? Check out this article, which gets into the weeds on how to prevent a recalcitrant, politically powerful industry from blocking yet another visionary, government-led energy policy initiative. This is a preprint of an article published in Natural Gas & Electricity, copyright March, 2009, Wiley Periodicals, Inc..

Green Power Kills

We have been waiting to see just how negative SF Weekly's cover story on San Francisco's CleanPowerSF (CCA) would be, and it was indeed perversely negative, including a misquote that makes me look like a cold-hearted eco-sacrificer of construction workers and poor people. We had anticipated that the Weekly, competing with the San Francisco Guardian, a CCA proponent, would inevitably come out Against. We are shocked to discover just how prejudicial and even scaremongering (good for a few PG&E ads no doubt) SF Weekly would be about San Francisco's plan to implement a 51% renewable electricity service. Author Peter Jamison did capture the magnitude of San Francisco's CCA program; and as they say, any news is good news - so we'll take it. Click here to read the Weekly article. While the Weekly article is nastily presented in Shock Doctrine fashion, Mr. Jamison managed to hit a few nails on the head (however disapprovingly), such as the importance of the opt-out structure - so a hit piece indeed, but worth a read nevertheless.

"Climate Works Bonds" Proposal Released to Obama, Waxman, Boxer

Robert Freehling and I have prepared a federal "Climate Works Bonds" proposal that is now under review by Sierra Club volunteers and is being presented to federal Obama Administration and key Congressional leaders.  The proposal would provide $400B in federal financing support to local governments that issue local municipal bonds to finance local green public works. Click here for the  signpetition.org's link page to the fact sheets. 

"Reinterpreting" the Grid: Terrain Magazine Article by Elly Hopper

Elly Hopper has written an interesting article on the Bay Area CCA movement in the Winter issue of Terrain Magazine; "it is a complete reinterpretation of Califonia's energy system." Click on the image to read her gratifying article. piece.http://ecologycenter.org/terrain/issues/fall-winter-2008/power-to-the-people/

Marin Supervisors Approve Clean Energy Authority: Joins San Francisco CCA Movement

Despite objections from Pacific Gas and Electric Co., county supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to join with other Marin cities to form a joint powers authority, implement Community Choice with a goal of 50% renewable electricity by 2017 at prices that meet or beat PG&E's rates, and finance green power projects to physically reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the whole community in just a few years. Click on the image at right to read the Marin Independent Journal
article.

The Agency adds Marin to a list of cities led by San Francisco to achieve energy independence and implement a major financing of local renewable energy resources to reduce local greenhouse gas emissions. Marin Clean Energy calls for the authority to compete with PG&E as the retailer of electricity to Marin customers, in order to boost usage of renewable energy in the county, and issue some $475M in revenue bonds to dramatically reduce its power carbon footprint and achieve major greenhouse gas reductions in a fairly short period of times.

Supervisors voted after listening to a plea from PG&E representatives to forgo formation of the authority and to partner with the shareholder-owned utility to reduce greenhouse gases. "Marin is about to issue $475M in revenue bonds without voter approval to finance local green power projects," said a PG&E spokesman who pleaded with the County to not approve the Community Choice agency," as if to warn against climate action itself.

Advocates for Marin Clean Energy have estimated a Marin energy authority would be able to provide electricity that is 25 percent renewable by 2010 at the same price that PG&E is charging. By comparison, PG&E has said it may be unable to boost its use of renewable energy to 20 percent by 2010, as required by a state law passed in 2002.

First Major US Climate Action Plan Released

The Sonoma County (California) Climate Action Plan is out - click on coolplan.org to view and download documents - implementing the highest carbon reduction target yet set by any local jurisdiction in the United States - a 25% Reduction from 1990 levels by 2015.

Local Power wrote the whole energy element, which achieves a 66% Renewable Portfolio Standard by 2015 without requiring any increased energy costs. Community Choice (CCA) provides the logistical backbone of an integrated power/thermal/transportation fuel project - billed as a "public works" project on the web site, which was posted just a few days ago.

The Sonoma Climate Action Plan is by far the most visionary, far-reaching project Local Power has been lucky to be allowed to help write. Moreoer, its announcement adds Sonoma County to the list of jurisdictions now actively investigating CCA alongside San Francisco, Marin, San Joachin, and others.

New York City Joins the Fray

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has initiated a process to solicit renewable energy developers that is being compared to San Francisco's CCA program, and this has raised the specter of a competition between the two "Green Cities." In fact, despite the fact that New York's population is ten times larger, San Francisco's scale (because of CCA and revenue bonds) is the larger of the two. Click on the image to view Chris Martin's recent article in Bloomberg News.