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SFPUC’s IRP: staff recommended accelerated path to 100% renewables by 2025; commissioners and stakeholders press on resiliency and engagement
Summary
SFPUC staff recommended the 'accelerated case' in its 2020 Integrated Resource Plan, projecting 100% renewable and greenhouse‑gas‑free electricity for Clean Power SF by 2025 and lower net present cost than alternatives; LAFCO’s consultant and public commenters raised concerns about stakeholder engagement timing, resiliency for PSPS/blackouts, and the need for project‑level feasibility and rate impacts.
San Francisco LAFCO commissioners reviewed Clean Power SF’s 2020 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) modeling and staff’s recommendation of an "accelerated case" as the preferred portfolio.
Michael Himes explained the IRP process and said the accelerated case was selected because it best balanced affordability, local investment, and rate stability and was the lowest‑cost portfolio in the staff’s analysis. The accelerated case reaches 100% renewable and greenhouse‑gas‑free electricity for Clean Power SF by 2025 — five years earlier than the city’s prior target — and includes modeling constraints to achieve policy goals.
Himes described portfolio components staff modeled: a base case aligned with the city’s 2030 renewable goal; an accelerated case (the recommended preferred portfolio); a time‑coincident case emphasizing hourly matching of load and local resources; and a CPUC‑required case to meet statewide emission targets. Staff required all portfolios to include 81 megawatts of local solar and 27 megawatts of local battery storage. The accelerated case’s local projects were estimated as a $186 million investment in local clean energy, generating roughly 5% of Clean Power SF’s annual energy needs by 2025. Staff projections estimated the portfolios would create roughly 11,000–14,000 job years by 2030.
Banner (LAFCO’s consultant, Jenny Woodson) reviewed SFPUC’s IRP and said she supported the accelerated case selection but flagged four recurring concerns: (1) stakeholder engagement was compressed by CPUC timelines, leaving limited time for public review before adoption; (2) reliability and resiliency implications — including public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) and unplanned outages — deserved more project‑level analysis; (3) the IRP lacked a granular rate impact analysis showing per‑customer effects for each portfolio; and (4) more detail on Clean Power SF’s customer programs, timelines and measures to serve disadvantaged communities was needed.
Commissioners and public commenters pressed staff on resiliency and the trade‑offs among cases. The time‑coincident case, which restricts imports from the broader CAISO market to prioritize resources under local control, requires about 38% more capacity by 2030 and was shown to be about 20% more costly to ratepayers in later years—tradeoffs staff said were central to the analysis.
Staff acknowledged limited public comment windows driven by CPUC filing timelines and committed to continuing planning, to pursue additional sensitivity analysis and to provide written responses to LAFCO’s consultant recommendations. Commissioners requested staff provide prepared responses to the consultant’s points at a future meeting.
