Foggy San Francisco sets sights on solar power
Date: 02-Nov-01
Country: USA
Author: Andrew Quinn
City voters are being asked to approve two ballot measures on Nov. 6 to pave the way for a $100 million revenue bond promoting solar and wind power - a first step to transforming San Francisco into a city bristling with photovoltaic panels, squeezing more power from the sun than any other community in the country.
"The goal is to get a lot of clean energy up and running quickly. This will be the biggest purchase of solar energy in the country, and has a very quick implementation schedule," said David Hochschild, a spokesman for the "Yes on B" campaign promoting the bond issue.
San Francisco's plan to go solar was born in the darkest days of California's power crisis last winter, when a botched energy deregulation plan sparked spiraling wholesale power costs and rolling blackouts across the state.
The city's vulnerability to the swings of the power market - evident both in its own skyrocketing energy bills and scary scenes of powerlessness as shops, traffic lights and offices went dark during blackouts - helped create a new political drive for energy alternatives.
San Francisco did not have to look far. Sacramento, 120 miles (190 km) to the northeast, pioneered the push for solar power and now sports photovoltaic panels on about 750 residential rooftops, commercial buildings, churches and even parking lots, generating about eight megawatts an hour for the municipal utility district grid.
San Francisco decided to go further, opting for an initial goal of 10 megawatts of solar power in the sunnier sections of the city combined with 30 megawatts of wind power - making up about a quarter of the total energy consumed by city government.
"Proposition B offers San Franciscans an historic opportunity to begin to take control of their energy future," said City Supervisor Mark Leno, who sponsored the measure.
LET THE SUN SHINE IN
While the San Francisco plan places a greater initial emphasis on wind power, the city's long-term goal is clearly to build up solar energy - a move industry analysts say could provide a crucial push for solar power companies seeking to improve technology and bring down prices.
"There are definitely economies of scale for this, and this should help a lot," said Bentham Paulos, a program officer at the Energy Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that promotes renewable energy.
"What's needed is a gradual commitment to increasing the size of the industry. This will give developers the chance to ramp up their production, because they know they'll be able to sell panels three or four years out."
San Francisco's immediate plan to install 10 megawatts of solar power equipment on the roofs of city buildings is not by itself a huge boon to the industry. But it is not insignificant in a world photovoltaic cell and module market that saw 288 megawatts produced in 2000.
More importantly, according to industry experts, the second ballot measure before San Francisco's voters would allow the city's Board of Supervisors to authorize future revenue bonds for alternative power purchases without seeking voter approval - a move which could free city energy planners to expand the solar program to residences and business.
Raju Yenamandra, director of sales at Siemens Solar, a Camarillo, California-based solar producer, said San Francisco's expanding commitment to solar energy was coming at the right time to make a big difference for the industry.
"Prior to the energy crisis that we had in California, it didn't make a whole lot of sense to (go solar) when the cost of electricity was so low ... but now that electricity rates have gone up you are beginning to see some return on solar investment that is reasonable."
The two San Francisco measures have the support of most of the city's political establishment. Even the city Chamber of Commerce - often a conservative fiscal voice - backs the solar power proposal.
"Both of these measures pose very little risk to the ratepayer or the ta
