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Snake Oil for our Green Valley. The $54 Million Dollar Magic Trick that makes San Mateo County look green.
How Green is My Valley?
In my previous blog post, I mentioned additionality as one of the major criteria that would make Peninsula Clean Energy (PCE) a real provider of “green” energy. Based on PCE’s own information, our San Mateo Consumer Choice Aggregator (CCA) does not fulfill this criterion, not even close.
I was wrong, however, about one thing in my last post. PCE isn’t really doing the Three Cups and One Ball scam because they simply do not have to. PCE performs the Cups and Balls trick using clear plastic cups because the powers that be are the only ones watching. And that is exactly why PCE can openly admit that their power sources lack true additionality.
The county spends roughly $54 million to execute this magic trick just so they can brag about being green. They readily admit that their main strategy relies on buying Renewable Energy Credits (RECs). RECs are not actual green electricity; they are merely expensive green bragging rights.
Rooftop Solar Additionality
When a private household invests capital in rooftop solar to produce cheap, renewable, green, sustainable energy, that action firmly qualifies as additionality.
For the county, this is the perfect setup. The financing is taken care of, installation usually benefits small local businesses, and PG&E can use existing infrastructure to provide clean, locally sourced energy that can help relieve pressure on the grid. Take a good number of these rooftop solar households, and California needs fewer energy imports, high-voltage transmission lines, and fossil-fuel peaker plants.
Despite these massive benefits, California’s Public Utility Commission (CPUC) recently started labeling private rooftop solar “inequitable”. According to CPUC and others, various rebates and incentives cost non-solar users $8.5 billion per year. Meanwhile, an independent energy consulting firm calculated that rooftop solar actually benefits everyone through some $1.5 to $2.4 billion per year, with those benefits mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, that is $1.5 billion per year that PG&E cannot spend on “lobbying” CPUC members.
This is certainly not the first time we have learned that officials using “equity” as an argument really mean “enrichment”.
Hour-by-Hour Accounting
PG&E does not like additionality; PCE does not do additionality. But it gets weirder. PCE offers the 50% wind power plan despite not owning a single wind turbine. PG&E offers 100% solar for around-the-clock power, despite openly fighting against rooftop solar adoption.
Someone is clearly selling snake oil in our Green Valley.
“The Sun Must Never Set on the PG&E Empire!” [Zarathustra]
How can solar provide 100% of “Green Transit” and “Green Access” within the PG&E empire, when the rest of Californians are still celebrating our magical sunsets?
The only number that counts on that chart is the “359”, because the real grid still has 60-80% non-renewable energy at night, including imported coal power. All those many zeroes are achieved through magical Renewable Energy Credits (REC). Shasta County was happily taking our county’s money so we could pretend we are all “EcoPlus”. And San Mateo County has been “green-bragging” ever since. California was doing something similar. Energy companies in Oregon and Washington were asked to “re-route” green power to California, because California pays a premium. And Sacramento has been “green-bragging” ever since.
A massive amount of money seems to be wasted purely on “green-bragging”, leaving people to wonder why electricity costs so much more in this state.
Locality and Distance
Power sources should be located nearby for several reasons, the main one being resiliency. In a state where wildfires, flooding, heat waves, and blackouts have become common, the county desperately needs locally available power. This requires segmenting the grid into localized microgrids.
“Renewable Microgrid: A self-contained energy system that can operate independently from the main grid and is often powered by renewable sources like solar and wind, combined with battery storage for reliability.” [PCE]
PCE certainly knows what a local microgrid should look like. Looking at their map of power suppliers, nothing looks local. The map stretches from Shasta County down to San Diego and even bleeds into Nevada. This kind of sprawl only makes sense if we assume that Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Disneyland do not need any of that green energy for themselves.
Greenwashing as a Service (GaaS)
This county doesn’t invest in sustainable transportation, which would make things cheaper. This county doesn’t produce renewable energy locally, which would make things cheaper.
This county doesn’t do additionality or hour-by-hour accounting, which would make things greener.
Peninsula Clean Energy neither produces, sources, nor supplies physical clean energy to your home.
Instead, PCE acts as the proverbial middleman running a green-energy shell game. This organization boasts more than 23 board members, over 60 staff members, and roughly 16 million dollars in compensation costs. This bloated middleman generates 54 million dollars in total operating costs while providing zero tangible added value to the local grid.
PCE calls itself a Consumer Choice Aggregator. We have to ask ourselves: was an overpriced greenwashing scheme really the choice consumers wanted to make? And that leads to the ultimate question for next time: What the heck actually is a Consumer Choice Aggregator?
Who is in charge here?
Peninsula Clean Energy – Board of Directors
Donna Colson (Burlingame), Ray Mueller (San Mateo County), Adam Loraine (San Mateo (City)), Elmer Martínez Saballos (Redwood City), Noelia Corzo (San Mateo County), Marty Medina (San Bruno), Rick DeGolia (Atherton), Tom McCune (Belmont), Coleen Mackin (Brisbane), Ken Gonzalez (Colma), Dr. Rod Daus-Magbual (Daly City), Carlos Romero (East Palo Alto), Stacy Jimenez (Foster City), Patric Bo Jonsson (Half Moon Bay), Leslie Ragsdale (Hillsborough), Michael Amabile (Los Banos), Betsy Nash (Menlo Park), Bob Nguyen (Millbrae), Greg Wright (Pacifica), Rebecca Flynn (Portola Valley), John Dugan (San Carlos), James Coleman (South San Francisco), Hassan Aburish (Woodside).
“Driven by community, focused on clean energy.” [PCE]
San Mateo County Flood & Sea Level Resiliency District – Board of Directors
Donna Colson, Ray Mueller, Kaia Eakin, Debbie Ruddock, Lisa Gauthier, Adam Rak, Marie Chuang
“Building Solutions for the Changing Climate.” [OneShoreline]
Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are those of one author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.
