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Clean Power SF reports progress on 2020 IRP, highlights local projects, programs and cost trade-offs
Summary
Clean Power SF told the San Francisco LAFCO it is on track to meet its accelerated 2025 renewable goal, citing recent contracts and local project solicitations while flagging higher costs for local distributed resources and requesting creative funding options.
Clean Power SF staff told the San Francisco Local Agency Formation Commission that the agency is on track to meet its accelerated 2025 goal for 100% renewable electricity but that expanding local, distributed resources will raise costs that require new funding strategies.
"Enrollment and customer participation in Clean Power SF has remained stable," Director Mike Himes said, while also noting the COVID-19 pandemic has increased bill-payment delinquencies. Himes described recent state moves to address pandemic-era utility arrears and disconnections, saying the California Public Utilities Commission extended a disconnection moratorium and authorized a 24-month auto-enroll COVID-19 relief payment plan for investor-owned utility customers with arrears.
Himes outlined procurement targets from Clean Power SF's 2020 Integrated Resource Plan: roughly 81 megawatts of new solar in the nine-county Bay Area, 27 megawatts of battery storage in the region, 105 megawatts of new solar in California, 5 megawatts of wind, 223 megawatts of four-hour energy storage, 15 megawatts of long-duration storage, and 50 megawatts of geothermal capacity. He said the SFPUC has already contracted for 75 megawatts of new solar and 75 megawatts of battery storage in the Bay Area and executed 50 megawatts of geothermal at the end of 2020.
Himes also described local projects and solicitations: Clean Power SF is planning solicitations to support approximately 285 megawatts of new clean capacity and is seeking to develop about 9.3 megawatts of solar on SFPUC reservoirs (naming Stanford Heights, Summit, Heathrow and University Mound reservoirs as near-term sites). He said the program is working with the new CCA joint powers authority (California Community Power) to procure long-duration storage and expects to purchase approximately 1525 to 25 megawatts of those resources.
On customer-facing programs, Himes noted active efforts including net metering (about 9,000 participating rooftop solar customers), budget-billing plans, a GoSolar SF initiative that provided nearly $30 million in incentives for roughly 23.5 megawatts of rooftop solar, and peak-day pricing for large commercial customers. Under development are a disadvantaged-communities green tariff and community solar program to offer discounted 100% renewable energy to qualifying low-income census tracts, a feed-in tariff for local projects, and an electric heat-pump water-heater incentives program in partnership with the Energy Council (StopWaste) and regional CCAs.
Commissioners pressed staff for more detail on local project sites, the current share of locally generated energy, and the capacity of contractor-focused programs to reach minority and limited-English-speaking contractors. Himes said he would provide written statistics on the share of locally generated energy and follow up on the Energy Council's capacity to engage smaller or immigrant contractors. He estimated initial Clean Power SF funding for the contractor-focused heat-pump program at about $450,000.
Public commenters urged a faster, large-scale local and regional buildout funded by revenue bonds and asked whether Clean Power SF continues to procure from a solar facility near Lancaster; the director said the commission would follow up with more detail at a future update.
The presentation contained no formal LAFCO action; the clerk recorded "no action taken" on the Community Choice Aggregation report. The commission set the next meeting for Sept. 17.
