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Sonoma Clean Power Moves Ahead

on April 26, 2013

PrintOn April 23, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 1 to move ahead with setting up a Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) clean power agency just like Marin’s MCE. This vote means that approximately 100,000 homes in the unincorporated parts of the county will start receiving their electricity from “Sonoma Clean Power” in January 2014, unless they opt-out to stay with PG&E.  As in Marin and Richmond, transmission, distribution and billing will continue to be provided by PG&E.

The next step in Sonoma will be for the incorporated cities to each vote whether or not to join Sonoma Clean Power. The goal is to have all these votes complete by the end of June. If all cities join, the total customer base for SPC will be approximately 220,000 homes and businesses.

The initial product of the new agency will be 33% renewable (vs. PG&E’s current 20% renewable.)  It is not clear yet whether SCP will also offer a 100% renewable option like MCE’s “Deep Green.”

You can read local press coverage here  and here. Also just like Marin is the establishment newspaper’s implacable opposition to community choice.  You can read the Santa Rosa Press Democrat’s anti clean energy editorial here.

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City Votes to Switch to MCE

on March 28, 2013

Marin Clean Energy LogoOn March 16, the Novato City Council voted unanimously to switch all 121 of the city’s electric accounts from PG&E to Marin Clean Energy. (Most homeowners and businesses switched to MCE last summer.)

The  Staff Report recommending the change noted that the switch to MCE will save the city roughly $7,800 on its annual electric bill while reducing  greenhouse gas emissions by about 191,000 lb a year – the equivalent of taking 18 cars off the road . . . forever. That’s because the the power Novato buys through MCE will be at least 50% renewable vs. PG&E’s 20% renewable power.

MCE is Marin’s unique first-in-the-state Community Choice electricity provider. They provide more stable prices and cleaner energy by writing long-term contracts for renewable energy for their customers in Marin and Richmond, while PG&E continues to provide distribution, billing and service. MCE also encourages local distributed renewable generation by offering a very favorable rates specifically for rooftop solar and small commercial solar projects in Marin and Richmond. For more information, see the MCE Website.

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The First 100% Solar City?

on April 28, 2013
Solar shade in lancaster

Solar panels over a stadium parking lot in Lancaster, CA

The high desert city of Lancaster, CA is seriously planning to be the first city in the world to produce more electricity from solar panels than it uses. It’s an ambitious plan, but they’ve already taken a number of measures that are more far-reaching than anywhere else in the world.  For example, all new houses in Lancaster, which is a fast-growing exurb of L.A., are required to either be built with a self-sufficent solar system of their own or to be part of a subdivision that contributes one KW of net generation to the grid for each home in the development.

These plans were recently the subject of a feature story in the New York Times. You can read it below.

NY Times logo

With Help From Nature, a Town Aims to Be a Solar Capital

By . April 8, 2013

LANCASTER, Calif. — There are at least two things to know about this high desert city. One, the sun just keeps on shining. Two, the city’s mayor, a class-action lawyer named R. Rex Parris, just keeps on competing.

Two years ago, the mayor, a Republican, decided to leverage the incessant Antelope Valley sun Continue Reading →

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MCE Receives 52 Responses for Clean Energy Projects

on March 28, 2013

Overwhelming Response to Marin Clean Energy Call for Renewable Energy Projects.

Dutch houses w solar panlesSAN RAFAEL, CA — MCE is pleased to announce that fifty-two offers for California renewable energy projects were timely submitted on March 1, 2013 in response to its annual Open Season Procurement Process for renewable energy projects. The additional clean energy contracted through these offers will help further reduce energy‐related greenhouse gas emissions and advance MCE’s long‐term goal of supplying all customers with 100% renewable energy.

MCE currently has contracts with 10 suppliers for 15 power projects. These projects include 52 MW of solar and 8 MW of landfill gas – enough clean energy to power approximately 22,500 homes per year. A substantial number of the open season responses Continue Reading →
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SN Supports Solar Project at Nursery

on March 3, 2013

las-gallinas pv projectGreenpoint Nursery in Novato has proposed building a 660 Kilowatt solar PV project on the unused ground at the periphery of the nursery. (That would be about the same size as the solar project at Las Gallinas Sewage ponds in the picture above.) This would be the second project in in the county to be built in response to the very favorable Feed-in Tariff offered by Marin Clean Energy.

MCE is offering a 20-year contract at above market rates to local projects of this size  (a few acres of panels – - much bigger than a home system but much smaller than “utility size” industrial systems.)  That’s because construction of lots of “distributed” systems this size – - hundreds, maybe thousands of them; all over the state; all close to the end users – - is a critical part of the switch from fossil fuels to renewables.

The project is currently awaiting approval by the county’s planning department.  Sustainable Novato has taken a position strongly supporting the project and urging an expedited approval process. Continue Reading →

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(Video) Saving the Night Sky

on February 4, 2013

USLight POL mapThe great American naturalist, Rachael Carson, once wrote of seeing “the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky” as she gazed upward on a moonless night. Today, it has become harder than ever to see the stars as cities, with their 24-hour lights continue to sprawl. Many children learn about the Milky Way only through books or films, Too often, poorly shielded outdoor lighting, even in Novato, blots out the night sky and its myriad wonders, wastes electricity, and adds to climate-disrupting carbon emissions.

This video, from the International Dark Sky Association shows that this isn’t simply an esthetic issue or a problem only for astronomers. Light pollution is causing serious problems throughout nature and in our own daily lives,

To learn more about the problem and about practical steps for reducing it, check the association’s website and this 2010 report from the Council of Europe.

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