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.