What San Francisco is doing next in its transition to public power
January 5, 2022
The City of San Francisco has continued to move diligently forward with its transition to public power since making its initial offer to purchase PG&E’s local electric grid in 2019. The latest step is the City’s initiation of public review of the acquisition under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Read more about this process and how it fits into the City’s steady progress toward owning and operating our local power system.
Sacramento Bee Editorial: PG&E has destroyed enough California communities. It’s time for a public takeover
Sacramento Bee Editorial Board | November 5, 2021
“The state could also take advantage of multiple offers on the table from local governments, which would break up the company into smaller, government- or community-owned utilities. […] San Francisco even went so far as to offer $2.5 billion for PG&E’s lines within the city, but its offer was dismissed as “pennies on the dollar” by a company that is billions of dollars in debt to its victims.”
SF CHRONICLE Editorial: How PG&E keeps making the case for its own takeover
SF Chronicle Editorial Board | July 31, 2021
Such is the ignominious record of criminal recidivism and financial insolvency compiled by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. that all feasible alternatives to the utility must be regarded seriously, if not enthusiastically. San Francisco’s so-far-frustrated bid to take its portion of the utility’s power grid public easily qualifies for that consideration.
City Attorney Dennis Herrera this week fired the latest shot in San Francisco’s long-running insurgency against the privately owned utility, asking the California Public Utilities Commission to determine the value of the small part of PG&E’s distribution system lying within its headquarters city. San Francisco has repeatedly tried to buy the lines for $2.5 billion, a price that the utility, despite having gone bankrupt twice in as many decades, haughtily dismissed as “pennies on the dollar.”
After years of PG&E obstruction, San Francisco is taking the next step for full public power.
July 27, 2021
For over 100 years, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) has provided electricity to all City buildings and some of our biggest public assets like our airport, general hospital, and Muni. Through the power generated by the Hetch Hetchy System and provided by CleanPowerSF, SFPUC already provides more than 70% of the electricity used in the City.
But that public power still runs through the power grid that PG&E controls in San Francisco—and we’re paying a big price for their monopoly.
SF CHRONICLE: San Francisco asks state PUC to name a price for PG&E's local power lines
J.D. Morris | July 27, 2021
San Francisco is redoubling its efforts to take over Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s power lines in the city, this time by asking state officials to determine a fair price.
City officials on Tuesday petitioned the California Public Utilities Commission to study the value of PG&E’s local electric equipment. San Francisco wants regulators at the commission to decide how much PG&E’s poles and wires are worth, so the city can try once more to purchase them.
The petition comes about two years after San Francisco unsuccessfully tried to pay $2.5 billion for PG&E’s local electric system amid the company’s wildfire-caused bankruptcy.