Oakland Switches to ‘Green’ Power

Oakland has joined a short but growing list of California cities that are plugging in to green power, using their municipal clout to encourage the use of renewable electricity sources such as wind and geothermal energy.

The City Council recently gave final approval to a plan to buy alternative power for all of its municipal needs--from traffic signals to the lights in City Hall. The switch to green will add about $100,000 to Oakland’s annual $4-million electricity bill.

“It leads us in the direction of reducing global warming, stimulating new industry, and sets the pace for the national government,” said Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, a former California governor and presidential candidate who has a record of pushing environmental causes.

“This is truly a bottom-up effort,” he added, complaining that the federal government has been dragging its heels on fostering alternative energy programs.

Santa Monica last year became the first city in the state to purchase green power for all its municipal needs. Palmdale soon followed and several other communities are poised to do the same--among them Santa Barbara, San Jose and Santa Cruz.

Cities “have a very definite role to play. They now de facto have an energy policy,” said Joe Costello, a consultant for the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, a nonprofit organization sponsored by environmental groups and alternative energy companies.

Overall, 12% of the electricity used in California by all customers is green--a figure far above that of many other states.

As defined in California, green power comes from energy sources such as wind, geothermal plants, solar radiation, methane gas and small dams. Large hydroelectric plants are not considered green.

State policy over the years has in various ways encouraged alternative energy. Deregulation of the electricity industry--which ended utility monopolies and opened generation to competition in California--furthered that trend in the late 1990s.

Of the 223,000 customers who have changed power companies since deregulation, 92% have switched to renewable energy in whole or part, according to Marwan Masri, manager of the renewable energy program for the California Energy Commission.

Still, the bulk of energy consumption in California relies on traditional sources: 20% comes from out-of-state coal plants, 20% from large hydroelectric facilities, 31% from natural gas and 16% from nuclear facilities.

Officials in cities contemplating green power say that they not only want to encourage the development of renewable sources, but set a model to encourage residents to switch to green electricity.

“I’m interested in getting every citizen and business to do this as well,” said San Jose City Councilwoman Cindy Chavez. “It’s a little inappropriate to ask others if we’re not doing it ourselves.”

San Jose is planning to seek green power bids this summer. “The key thing is just pushing the envelope and that is something as a community we’ve done before environmentally,” Chavez said.

Whether through symbolic resolutions or purchasing muscle, cities have long tried to shape policy beyond local borders.

“It’s probably one of the most positive impacts that a city can have on the environment,” Susan Munves, Santa Monica’s energy coordinator, said of her city’s switch to green power.

Getting a contract for green energy does not necessarily mean that the electricity flowing into a city building’s sockets will actually come from renewable sources. That is because alternatively generated electricity goes into the overall power pool, much like a stream that flows into the ocean and becomes indistinguishable.

But by buying green, promoters say, cities and residential customers increase the total demand for alternative generation and encourage the construction of new sources.

When the state, as part of its deregulation package, offered subsidies to firms to develop more renewable energy, it awarded money for 55 new projects, Masri said.