It’s Our City.
It’s Our Power.
It’s Time!
The growing movement for public power.
San Francisco HAs already PROVEN TO BE a successful public power provider.
When it comes to public power, San Francisco is showing how it’s done. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) is a City department that has provided safe and reliable electricity for 100 years. Today, it serves all City buildings and some of San Francisco’s most important assets, including our airport, general hospital, police stations, and Muni. The City also created CleanPowerSF to provide renewable power for about 380,000 homes and businesses.
With the power generated by Hetch Hetchy and clean power provided through CleanPowerSF, the SFPUC already provides more than 70% of the electricity consumed in San Francisco.
The SFPUC has a long history of successfully delivering other critical services. It delivers drinking water from Hetch Hetchy to 2.7 million people in the San Francisco Bay Area, and collects and treats wastewater for the City and County of San Francisco.
The City of San Francisco has adopted increasingly bold climate policies, but our ability to achieve these goals is hampered by PG&E’s control of our access to the grid.
PG&E HAS TAKEN ITS EFFORTS TO BLOCK PUBLIC POWER TO EXTREME NEW HEIGHTS
For decades, PG&E has obstructed public projects in San Francisco. The corporation has a long history of imposing unnecessary conditions, limitations and costs on the City’s use of the electric grid, throwing up costly roadblocks and charging exorbitant fees for basic power hookups, blocking everything from affordable housing to new public transit projects.
But recently, PG&E has launched a full-on assault on public power in San Francisco, making filings with federal regulators in an attempt to shut down public power in our city by making it too expensive and difficult to operate.
The implications of PG&E’s latest actions are dramatic. The publicly-traded utility knows its new demands for huge payments on routine power connections are completely unworkable and only designed to make it harder for San Francisco to provide public power. For example, PG&E wants to require new equipment for existing street lights, traffic signals, and bus shelters – the cost of which could exceed $1 billion.
Ultimately, PG&E’s aggressive new moves could cost San Francisco billions and imperil our clean energy future. These actions make local ownership of the grid and full public power throughout San Francisco the right choice.
WITH FULL PUBLIC POWER, SAN FRANCISCO CAN DO EVEN MORE—DELIVERING AFFORDABLE, SAFE, RELIABLE, AND CLEAN ENERGY
+ Cost-Effective: Public power ensures more affordable rates because it requires no shareholder dividends, executive bonuses, or added costs for profits. The cost to acquire PG&E’s existing power grid would be paid back with proceeds from delivering power to San Francisco customers and won’t come from the City general fund, which pays for police, parks, affordable housing, homelessness prevention, and other services.
+ Cleaner: San Francisco’s approach to public power is much more climate friendly, consistent with San Francisco values. Without PG&E, San Francisco has a clearer, quicker path toward our goal of 100 percent clean energy.
+ Safer and more reliable: The City is making strong investments in services we control, from our Hetch Hetchy water and power systems, to our airport. With full public power, we can partner with the community to explore investing more resources to make our own grid more resilient, with battery storage, local infrastructure, renewables, under grounding, and modernization. While PG&E is responsible for serving most of Northern California, the City would be entirely focused on high quality electrical services in San Francisco.
+ Accessible and accountable: The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) would operate public power with oversight from the Board of Supervisors and Mayor, who answer to voters. As a public agency, the SFPUC serves San Franciscans, not shareholders. Regular public meetings of the SFPUC and Supervisors let residents make their voices heard.
+ Good for all PG&E ratepayers: PG&E is struggling with a huge debt load and is already working to pass that cost on to ratepayers. The fair price the City has offered will enable PG&E to meet its obligations, reduce its debt, and be better positioned to provide safe service to its 5.1 million electric ratepayers in other parts of the state. The City will also still pay PG&E to transmit electricity to our local public grid.
IT’S OUR CITY. IT’S OUR POWER. AND SAN FRANCISCO MUST ACT NOW.
San Francisco has always had the right, under the California constitution, to operate its own public power grid, including electrical services. PG&E installs and operates its local power grid through an agreement with the City, and up to now, our public power system has operated in parallel with PG&E. Today, more than ever, it makes sense to control our power under a single, local, public system that will be more reliable and accountable to the public.
San Francisco’s leaders have come together around our shared values of transparency and local control. Public power is supported by our Mayor, the Board of Supervisors and many others. Our City has the experience, technical ability, and resources to run our own power grid. We can’t afford PG&E obstruction tactics any longer. San Francisco is ready for full public power now.
Join the Movement.
It’s time to take back our power.