Campaigns and Priorities

The Local Clean Energy Alliance is mainly focused on local and regional policy but we also take stands on state energy policy as appropriate. Our state policy priority for 2010 was defeating Proposition 16 - the PG&E Power Grab. Mission Accomplished!  In 2011, we are focused on the Bay Area;s portion of Governor Brown's call for the development of 12,000 MW of local renewable energy resources in California by 2020.

Our main policy areas are:

  • Comprehensive and Equitable Energy Reduction. We advocate for a program that reduces overall energy use as well as how much we spend on energy, with an emphasis on creating local energy-upgrade jobs. Policies that promote energy efficiency include public administration of Energy Efficiency funds collected in the public goods charge, point of sale ordinances, and on-bill financing of energy efficiency retrofits.
  • Local Renewable Power.  Bay Area cities would benefit from renewable projects sited in their communities that would be subsidized through ratepayer recovery (as all generating facilities are). This would create jobs and revenue for cities, while helping them meet their greenhouse gas reduction goals. Policies that promote local power include Feed-in tariffs and a long term procurement plan by which California procures a substantial portion of it’s renewable energy from decentralized/distributed generation sources.
  • Community Choice Energy Programs.  Despite the defeat of Prop 16 last year, Community Choice initiatives still face an uphill battle against PG&E, which is using its financial power and its leverage with the CPUC to try to undermine existing Community Choice programs and prevent establishment of new ones. While each Community Choice initiative is local in nature, broad regional coordination and support can be decisive in the success of each effort.  We have been working with communities around the Bay Area to support SB 790, which would help eliminate the worst abuses of PG&E.

Many options are available to Bay Area cities for developing local decentralized clean energy systems, with some already underway. The Local Clean Energy Alliance has identified the following portfolio of tools as holding the greatest promise for increasing local clean energy generation and energy efficiency in our region:

Other tools include:

Community Choice Energy could be the mechanism to implement all of these highly effective and mutually reinforcing programs in the most cost-efficient manner. Full details on each of these tools are found in our policy platform document: The 21st Century Energy Greenprint for the East Bay.