Skip to main content

tv   [untitled]    March 27, 2015 1:30pm-2:01pm PDT

1:30 pm
1:31 pm
1:32 pm
1:33 pm
1:34 pm
1:35 pm
1:36 pm
1:37 pm
pars3 my name is john avalos, the
1:38 pm
chair, joined to my left by supervisor london breed and to my right vice chair cynthia cruz and also joined by lindo lafco commissioner. madam clerk. >> please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic quieses. any copies of documents to be included in the file should be submitted to the clerk. >> thank you very much. let's go to our second item. roll call? >> i can do roll call. >> commissioner avalos, present. commissioner breed, breed present. commissioner cam poes is absent. cruz is present. lindo is present. commissioner mar is present. mr. chair, you have a quorum. >> let's go on to our second item ?oo sfoo item 2 is approval of the lafco minutes from february 27, 2015 regular meeting.
1:39 pm
>> colleagues, any ques, changes to the minutes? let's go on to public comment on item no. 2. skiiing no one come forward we will close public comment and we can have a motion to approve the minutes. motion from commissioner cruz, seconded by commissioner breed and we'll take that without objection. next item, please. >> item no. 3 is a community choice aggregation activities report. a is timeline for program launch, b is status on proceedings of california public utilities commission and c is presentation from department of the environment. >> we have a few city staff who are here, we'll start off with jason fried, lafco director. >> jason fried, wanted to suggest we do these items a little out of order and start
1:40 pm
with 3c, the presentation from the department of the environment. we have staff here and once they are through we can have them leave and once we can go to the ms. hale >> thank you, good afternoon, commissioners, debbie raffell, director of the department of the environment. it is with great excitement and gratitude that we are here today to talk about work we have been doing for the last 15 years in our department around energy efficiency and looking ahead at the horizon how that work could potentially be enhanced, frankly, with the adoption of a cca as you all know, san francisco has set some very aggressive climate goals. we all understand that action happens at the city level and our city is one to take the bull by the
1:41 pm
horns and make sure that we are leading the way. one of our goals is 100 percent renewable electricity. in order to meet that goal and especially in the context of increasing demand for electricity with the electrification of vehicles, as we move towards electricity it's going to become more and more important that we maximize our ability to use electricity wisely, which means energy efficiency. and when we look at our energy efficiency efforts from the past 15 years we've been the beneficiaries of a number of different funding sources through the public goods charge, which has come through the cpuc and pg&e, through the federal government and the r funds, through private foundation funding, as well as now direct funding from the cpuc through the association of bay area governments. so no matter the funding source, our
1:42 pm
mission has always stayed the same, which is to reach as many san franciscoans as possible and to bring the benefits of energy efficiency to those most in need. it turns out that's not an easy task and there are some substantial regulatory barriers in our way. and to give you sort of a brief snapshot of where we've been and where we think we'll be able to go under a cca, i'm going to ask my colleague, kathleen bryant, to come and give you a short presentation which i hope will be very inspiring to you as well. thank you, kathleen. >> sfgov tv, please present the pdf thank you. hello, everyone, my name is kathleen bryant, i am here to represent the department and talk about our current role in
1:43 pm
energy every si and how we think it might change in the future. we all know that energy efficiency matters. we also know that our future will be in renewable energy. we firmly believe the first step will be to move forward in optimizing our existing building systems so that we can achieve our energy efficiency goals. the department of the environment has xhuepbtd relationships that work. we've been running energy efficiency programs now for 15 years and we expect to continue to run these programs in the foreseable future, even with a cca in place. our staff can be a familiar face to building owners, business owners, building engineers, property managers and even residents .d we can also continue to cultivate our relationship with pg&e as we run our programs as a local government partnership since 2006 and will continue to have success. we currently contribute 40 percent to the energy efficiency portfolio of san francisco. that's 40
1:44 pm
percent against other programs that target large customers and low-hanging fruit. our programs have targeted small business, multi family building owners since their inception in 2001. we do this with our staff of certified professionals. this alphabet soup represents our staff's credentials. we are professional passionate honest and effective as third party energy advisors to customers who know that we are unmotivated by profit. we also have bilingual staff engaging all of our diverse communities. we currently run two programs out of the department of the environment, the sf energy watch program and the bay run multi family program. the rate payers fund both programs through pg&e and the association of bay area governments, respectively. sf energy watch is mostly a lighting program. it's run since 2006 and we've served hard to reach customers up to
1:45 pm
large commercial buildings. we serve customers at every phase from the energy audit to equipment fit. started in just 2013 and serves exclusively multi family sites. this program uses total estimated energy savings to incentivize customers to a higher degree. our programs have had wide coverage in san francisco. you can see our coverage through the commercial districts and the dense population centers of the city to every corner of our territory. our programs help san franciscoans save energy. we've done 15,000 projects over the past 15 years, paid out $40 million in incentives through our department to san francisco residents and business owners, reduced 92,000 tons of carbon emissions which is the equivalent of removing 15,000 vehicles from the road. finally, our programs help san francisco residents live
1:46 pm
better. i'm going to highlight one of our favorite examples, 81 9th street is a single room occupancy hotel in selma the bay run allowed us to significantly increase the incentives to the customers to finally get rid of their aging boiler. there were significant energy cost savings that were achieved that were ultimately used to improve quality of life of the residents by allowing the owner to install new security doors in the building. the owner was so thrilled with the project that he moved on to do this in his other two buildings. >> question: so you replace an aging boiler with another very efficient combustion boiler? >> yes, all natural gas boiler. >> and i'll have questions later about ways we can move forward toward non-combustion
1:47 pm
sources in buildings as well. >> so this is one of our favorite examples because it's very comprehensive but unfortunately it's unique in its comprehensiveness. most of our programs have been single measures for example just lighting or just refrigeration. i have worked on these programs for 8 years and it's challenging to address truly comprehensive programs. because all these programs are funded to the rate payers and it is the duty of the kafrl public utilities commission to make sure the spending is appropriate, san francisco energy watch is the local gofrt partnership with pg&e so we are subjected to both its authority and that of the cpuc's energy division. in contrast, they are subject to the direct authority of the energy gition so that one layer of complexity is removed. the result is more los angelesity in program
1:48 pm
design and we have really enjoyed that the past few years. we want to pause and explain the claimable savings we often bring up here, this is a standard retrofit, we have a 60 watt incandescent light bulb going to a 10 watt led lamp. the claimable savings here you would expect would be 50 watts, but in fact what the program can claim is only 8 watts. so the math makes sense, you would say 50 watts but unfortunately the program is only able to claim and incentive ieds that smaller amount because that is the amount that's above the state's title 24 code base line. this is something that we've been able to break through with the barren program and something we hope to do with other programs. the bay run has given us this interesting proof of concept. the success has been remarkable. in 18 months of bay run we have served 9500
1:49 pm
residential units. it's built on our expertise with programs. bay run is flexible, comp prehence and accessible. we've expanded on this long-term model of energy watch but we want to do more for all our customers moving forward. we think that cca gives us the opportunity to do that. we want to more completely account for and incentivize project savings. we know that we might not start right away with the cca's energy efficiency program, but we can't help but think about what the next generation of energy efficiency program might look like. again, we know we want to aegt for all energy savings so we can increase the increase to the customers on chillers that have the same limitation on title 24 base line. this will allow customers to break through and
1:50 pm
do those deeper energy savings measures. all these projects deliver real green house gas energy savings and they are crucial to achieving both san francisco and the state's aggressive environmental goals. we also know that a future program will need expressable and affordable financings. financing will be very impactful if it is accessible and affordable. our staff has considerable experience with pg&e's on bill finance program which has a minimum $5,000 loan and the application review is quite lengthy because they are not a bank and don't want to be in the business as such. some of our contractors avoid these on bill financing completely. there is talk at the cpuc of private financing but we fear higher rates for small customers. our department has led on the long road to a viable pace program and we think that will be a key offering to midand large size customers. again, we want to
1:51 pm
address small customers moving forward. this is what a comprehensive program might look like. this is a multi use build not guilty chinatown. in a future program we'd like to work with all the ray payers in a long-term phased project. we would start on the ground floor and do the led lighting we have done in so many of our other projects. then we'd move into our restaurant downstairs, we would build on our cool savings program, a pilot we are doing right now, looking to more accurately account for the savings from this project. we would move to the residential units upstairs and finally with actual energy savings we'd be able to address the heating and hot water systems in the basement that have been left to slowly fail in the basement. the official life of these older boilers -- this is the new boiler here -- is 20 years but we see many of these running many decades
1:52 pm
later and they are there as too costly to retrofit. finally after moving through all the spaces with energy efficiency then we could do on site renewables. we'd like to build on our sun shares program, the bulk purchasing program. future programs might even have an energy storage element which would create us to have a microgrid storage system on site. the result is an even stronger long-term relationship with a customer. these projects provide long-term savings in return to both the programs and the customers. they are more efficient with staff project management time and our marketing dollars by limiting the amount of marketing we need to do and on site visits. they avoid stranding the (inaudible) increasing energy costs and putting our businesses at risk every day we hear this on all
1:53 pm
of our site visits. we also would like to see continued job creation in the manufacturing, sale and installation of energy efficient technology. we have the vision. the next step is to work with our partners like the puc to determine a timeline. we have a powerful future here. we believe cca will help san francisco bridge our current energy efficiency work and the promise of clean renewable future. we will continue to lead not only with our innovative ideas but also innovative methods of implementation. thank you very much. >> thank you. thank you for your presentation. we have questions from the committee. supervisor mar. >> can i just -- i would love to just bookend this with some final thoughts, would it be okay? >> please. >> i want to -- thank you, kathleen, that was outstanding -- we're very proud of our energy efficiency team and what they have been able to accomplish, the real
1:54 pm
improvements that san francisco residents have seen. i want to just highlight a couple things kathleen said. one is about timing and the other is about partnerships. we have been working very closely with barbara hale and her team over at puc over how the timing of this might roll out. there's a lot going on with respect to the launch of cca and in parallel with that we'll be working with michael and with barbara to anticipate what we need to do at the cpuc to get permission to launch our own independent energy efficiency programming. i don't -- we don't know when that final result with the cpuc will be finished. however, it may not coincide directly with launch. but what will happen at launch is we will continue the current programs that we already have, so there will not be a break in service, but the actual launch of the new cca
1:55 pm
informed energy efficiency, the timing on that is a little bit questionable. we don't know exactly how long that will take. we're looking very carefully at the experience of sonoma and marin as they are involved with a similar request with the puc it's going to be very important that san francisco stay engaged with the puc for us to overcome some of these regulatory barriers by the iou's, by the utilities, we need to demonstrate that a cca is a different entity and should be treated differently. that will be a journey we will go with our fellow cca's to the cpuc, but i want to say there's a very very tight working relationship right now between the san francisco puc and the department of the environment and i'm excited to see where that takes us. thank you. >> thank you, that's great to hear. commissioner mar. >> i wanted to thank miss bryant for the very positive
1:56 pm
presentation, really clear the difference between bay run and the energy watch program, given pg&e's involvement in the other one. as a member of the executive committee of abag i think it's a great example of how regionally it can support empower sf as we look at the low-hanging fruit of energy efficiency. i want to thank cal broomhead on the years of bringing me up to speed on the green jobs creation and how challenging that is, but i think with the great work of the staff of the department of the environment be this really really helps our clean power sf program. i wanted to thank cal also for the establishment of the new energy efficiency task force. i think in april it's going to the rule's committee. it has members of put air, emerald city, labor small business and other leaders that will be on the energy efficiency task force to helpfully support the
1:57 pm
task force and raise awareness in the neighborhoods too. i wanted to acknowledge we're working with guillermo rod rod from the department to make sure we're going to support the work going on, but i'm pleased with how there's a great connection and good timing and the partnerships that miss rafael just mentioned. i'm very, very pleased. thank you. >> thank you. i'm curious, moving forward, what kind of action legislatively that might be needed from lafco or the board of supervisors to help strengthen the work that can be done with energy efficiency moving forward. do you have any recommendations that are coming forward for us? >> beyond be what director rafael added, yes. anyone else from staff? >> barbara hale, assistant
1:58 pm
general manager for power at the sfpuc there may be an opportunity for you to lend your voices of support to our efforts to get california puc authority to expand pg&e rate payer dollars to expand our energy efficiency. there may be an opportunity there to engage. we weren't at this point envisioning bringing any specific legislation for energy efficiency to this body or to the board. that could change but at this point we weren't anticipating that. >> thank you. >> cca program. >> i'm not sure if you've identified funding that was approved by the voters in the housing trust fund for energy efficiency. i had put the language in the housing trust fund that, the language was originally called the home owners stablization fund and at
1:59 pm
the last minute it was changed to the housing stablization fund. i wanted to create a funding stream that could be available for households, single family homes to be able to access. some of those funds are available for distressed mortgages and there's a new program that's being made by the mayor's office of housing around distressed mortgages but there's also eligible uses that are around energy efficiency as well. there is also discussion about how these funds could be used to help lead to incentive for legalizing in-laws. the difficulty is the city has not worked on how to program these funds into these programs and i think that's an area where probably there is office of housing, which is very focused on affordable housing construction, has not seen the effort made to creating these programs for this funding stream for energy efficiency or these other ways to support single family homes and i think maybe the department of the environment can play a role
2:00 pm
working with the mayor's office of housing to help get some meat on the bones to see these programs come to fruition. >> and if i could i'd like to suggest that the coordination that we're engaged in today between the department of the environment and the san francisco puc on the cca front might be a good vehicle to sort of program it in so that we don't have multiple administrative efforts but a consolidated effort. >> i was not aware of that but i wrote it down. first thing i'm going to do is find out more. thank you. >> it's a little bit of money, but --. >> but if we can leverage and it hasn't have the same restrictions we have when going through the public --. >> other questions i have, moving forward, i also serve on the air district, the bay area air quality management district and we