More time needed for plan to deliver green power to S.F.

A program designed to deliver renewable power to residents as early as next spring has stalled.

CleanPowerSF, which seeks to offer services that are greener than PG&E’s, including a 100 percent renewable energy alternative, was scheduled to start next spring. But the contract approval process and an added business plan will push the start date back by six weeks or more.

The city’s Public Utilities Commission has received 52 bids for one part of the project, which will take time to evaluate, said Barbara Hale, assistant general manager for power. The most

competitively priced options top the proposed $10 million cap, which will require new approval from the Board of Supervisors and add at least four weeks before a contract is signed.

More time also will be needed to complete a more rigorous risk assessment, including a third-party review, and formulate a business plan.

At a tense joint meeting Friday between the Local Agency Formation Commission, which is shepherding the green power effort, and the PUC, Supervisor John Avalos urged the commission to stay as close to the original timeline as possible.

“We all want to move forward as quickly as possible,” he said in the meeting. “The approval of contracts was going to be that marker to show we were serious about moving forward.”

Buyers club for energy

More than a decade in the making, CleanPowerSF will use a system called “community choice aggregation,” which works much like a buyers club for energy. Local governments purchase electricity on their residents’ behalf, while private utilities own and operate the electrical grid, delivering the energy the governments buy. Under the program structure, San Francisco customers will be automatically transferred from PG&E to CleanPowerSF, unless they opt out.

Because CleanPowerSF could shake PG&E’s decades-long monopoly over delivering energy to San Francisco, it has met stiff opposition — including from Mayor Ed Lee and his allies. But the program is overwhelmingly supported by the Board of Supervisors and the city’s left, which has long sought an alternative to PG&E. About 220 people have enrolled online for the program so far.

“What’s frustrating is we are all out there telling folks who really want to see this launched that it’s going to start in the spring, it’s going to be ready, we are ready,” Supervisor London Breed said. “And now another bureaucratic delay.”

Campos disappointed

Supervisor David Campos echoed the sentiment, repeating multiple times that he was disappointed with the PUC’s progress.

“I don’t have a lot of confidence that we are going to meet any of the dates we are proposing,” he said. “I think we are playing into PG&E’s hands. This is a pretty significant change that’s very disappointing.”

Though a contract topping $10 million may delay the project, it ultimately would create cheaper power, Hale said.

“What we are trying to achieve is a stable price we can pass on to our customers over the types of things they might see over the years with PG&E,” she said. “We are able to do that math and it is looking attractive.”

General manager Harlan Kelly said the PUC is as committed as ever to the project, and that the start date probably won’t be delayed more than six weeks.

“We are trying to lead with affordability,” he said. “We want to move as quickly as possible.”