1 Andrea Pizano
From: BRUCE KARNEY < >
Sent: Tuesday, June 4, 2024 6:54 PM
To: [email protected]; Council Member Zachary Hilton; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; Mohan, Sheila; [email protected]; Scozzola, Elliot; [email protected]; [email protected]; Pat Showalter
Cc: Monica Padilla; Andrea Pizano
Subject: It's imperative for SVCE to continue to be 100% Clean ATTENTION: This message is from an external user. Confidential information such as social security, credit card, ba routing, wire transfer and other personally identifiable information should not be transmitted to this user. For questions, please contact the SVCE IT Department.
Dear Board Members,
I will be travelling and unable to attend next week's Board meeting, but I did attend the last Executive Committee meeting on May 24. I would like you to see a slightly revised version of the email I shared with the ExecComm members after that meeting.
The context for my email was a presentation to the ExecComm that implied that SVCE had no alternative but to more than double its emissions. I did not feel that the presentation adequately explained the cost of staying true to SVCE's "clean energy" mission, and completely ignored the Social Cost of Carbon. What follows is my attempt to add my perspective.
-------
May 24, 2024
By my calculations (detailed below), if SVCE increases its emission factor from 72 pounds/MWh to 170 pounds, as was described in today's meeting, it will increase SVCE's annual emissions by 177,778 Metric Tons per year. The Biden Administration recently announced* that it would be using a "social cost of carbon" of $190/Ton, which means that SVCE's increased emissions would cause $33,777,820 worth of damage to the environment, including human health impacts. I expect that this is a larger amount than SVCE hopes to save by not bidding high enough to procure more clean energy in 2024 and 2025.
It's certainly true that the RECs that SVCE might buy to meet its long-standing commitment to 100% carbon-free energy would not be likely to come from newly commissioned projects, and might not even come from California. There would be no "additionality." But of course when SVCE was created, none of the energy it procured was "additional," it all came from sources that existed prior to SVCE's first half-billion dollar electricity purchase. Over the years SVCE has done a great job of signing agreements with new renewable projects, and eventually all its electricity will come from such sources. But the argument "if resources aren't 'additional' then they're not worth buying" is inconsistent with the fact that throughout its history most of SVCE's electricity has come from sources that existed before SVCE did.
In response to one Director's request for information on SVCE's GreenStart emission factors over time, here are the figures that are available to the public. Clearly, this is not the trend one would like to see if the goal is to bend the carbon curve downward.
2017: 0
2 2018: 0
2019: 2.3 lbs/MWh
2020: 7 lbs/MWh
2021: 18 lbs/MWh
2022: 72 lbs/MWh
By way of comparison, PGE's "base plan" electricity offering for 2022 had an emission factor of 56 lbs/MWh, which is 40% lower than SVCE. Peninsula Clean Energy's factor for their default "EcoPlus" offering was a mere 9 pounds in 2022.
I hope SVCE will not decide that, in the name of cost containment, it will make itself responsible for $33,777,820 worth of environmental damage EVERY YEAR until it once again becomes 100% carbon-free.
The math is this:
SVCE's annual sales are about 4,000,000 MWh.
Increasing the emissions factor by 98 pounds/MWh increases emissions by 392,000,000 pounds or 177,778 metric tons.
177,778 x $190 = 33,777,820 social cost of carbon
If you do decide that you need to reduce the carbon-free percentage of GreenStart in 2024 and 2025 I think you should also commit to buying enough RECs in 2026-2028 to offset all the 2024 and 2025 emissions. If you did this, SVCE would go from being "carbon free on an annual basis" to being "carbon free on a 5-year average basis," which is certainly better than nothing and in keeping with the desires of community members like me who helped harness the political that resulted in the creation of SVCE. ___
* * See Dec. 2, 2023 New York Times article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/climate/biden-social-cost-carbon-climate-change.html Cheers,
Bruce Karney
1 Andrea Pizano
From: Serge Bonte < >
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2024 11:34 PM
To: [email protected]; Council Member Zachary Hilton; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; Mohan, Sheila; [email protected]; Scozzola, Elliot; [email protected]; [email protected]; Pat Showalter
Cc: Monica Padilla; Andrea Pizano; [email protected] Subject: re: 6.12.2024 SVCE Meeting - Proposal to make Green Start only 80% clean Follow Up Flag: Follow up
Flag Status: Flagged
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Dear Board Members
As a SVCE rate payer, I'm shocked by your proposal to provide energy that is only 80% clean. Maybe the Green Start offering should be renamed to Pastel Green Start or Celadon Start, Maybe your organization should be renamed to Silicon Valley Clean-ish Energy.
What's even more infuriating is that the main driver for not maintaining 100% clean is to keep your margins to preserve your ratepayers funded programs. Ironically, many of these programs will generate additional 20% dirty electricity consumption.
As a Mountain View resident I am also concerned with the impact on my City's Climate Action goals. When SVCE started, Mountain View -a founding member- accounted for a huge drop in emissions since its electricity became 100% clean overnight. Has your staff measured the impact of a now 20% dirty electricity supply.on Mountain View's goals? To make up for that change, Mountain View will most likely have to dig even deeper into its coffers (our tax dollars) for offsets (either via programs or carbon offsets).
In short, in order to maintain your margins, you are pushing lots of emissions to your member agencies now on the hook to offset them.
Please stop obsessing about your margins and refocus on what SVCE was founded for: providing its ratepayers with clean energy.
Sincerely,
Serge Bonte
1 Andrea Pizano
From: Steve Schmidt < >
Sent: Tuesday, June 11, 2024 10:22 AM
To: Andrea Pizano
Subject: Public Comment on board agenda item #3
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Honorable Board Members --
As a long time SVCE advocate, I encourage the board to reject staff's recommendation in agenda item #3 to "Relax the 100 percent clean target" (page 189 of the packet).
Silicon Valley CLEAN ENERGY was created by and for Santa Clara County residents who want to lead the shift to clean energy.
But in 2022 SVCE's electricity was dirtier than PG&E's electricity. This is no time for backsliding on the mission of the organization.
Please prioritize clean electricity -- it is SVCE's primary reason for existence.
Steve Schmidt
Los Altos Hills Resident
SVCE Board Alternate 2017-2019
1 Andrea Pizano
From: A. Infeld < >
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2024 8:15 AM
To: Andrea Pizano
Subject: Proposal to relax the 100% clean target
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Hello SVCE -
I am a green prime customer and am concerned about the proposal to relax SVCE's 100% clean target due to market conditions. It seems to me that the TARGET should not change at all. It's completely understandable that it may not be possible to meet the target due to market conditions - in fact, that's good news in a way: it's terrific that everyone wants to purchase green power - but I am uneasy with SVCE taking themselves off the hook and going with 80%. Can't the proposal be more nuanced, and state clearly that SVCE will still aim for a target of 100% but with some guidelines around how we will try to achieve that.
Clearly, it does not make sense to outbid everyone in the state for what clean power is available, but within limits it makes sense to me to pay higher prices for what clean power we can get.
Thank you so much for being there and fighting for renewable energy!! Best regards,
Anne Infeld
1578 Alison Avenue, Mountain View CA, 94040
408-489- (mobile)
1 Andrea Pizano
From: anand ranganathan < >
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2024 9:01 AM
To: Andrea Pizano
Subject: Public Comment on Agenda Item #3
ATTENTION: This message is from an external user. Confidential information such as social security, credit card, ba routing, wire transfer and other personally identifiable information should not be transmitted to this user. For questions, please contact the SVCE IT Department.
Dear Board,
Please reject staff's recommendation on this item. It is already the case that PG&E is delivering cleaner energy than SVCE, meaning that it is already the case that there is little reason for me to stick with SVCE. If SVCE can't guarantee 100% clean electricity, I and thousands of others like me will overcome our inertia to opt out.
Thank you
Anand Ranganathan
1 Andrea Pizano
From: Eric Muller < >
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2024 12:48 PM
To: Andrea Pizano
Subject: To the SVCE Board of Directors, regarding item #3 on the June 12, 2024 agenda, Consider Staff’s Recommendation to Modify 2025 Clean Power Supply Offering for GreenStart ATTENTION: This message is from an external user. Confidential information such as social security, credit card, ba routing, wire transfer and other personally identifiable information should not be transmitted to this user. For questions, please contact the SVCE IT Department.
To the SVCE Board of Directors, regarding item #3 on the June 12, 2024 agenda, Consider Staff’s Recommendation to Modify 2025 Clean Power Supply Offering for GreenStart Dear Directors,
If I understand correctly, whatever clean electricity we can buy for 2025 will not come from new generators.
So, for 2025, it is just a game of musical chairs, a game of which CCA is going to claim the lowest emissions at the expense of the other CCAs (or more generally LSEs). The outcome of that game has absolutely no impact on the overall emissions of CO2 and therefore on the climate. In other words, it is a futile game.
Instead of using our money to play that game, we should use it to actually reduce the overall CO2 emissions today and/or tomorrow, by whatever program is the most effective (new clean generators post 2025, electrification, reduction of consumption; by the way, for the the $2000 incentive for my water heater).
I would go as far as accepting an arbitrarily large amount of emissions attributed to SVCE if that is part of actions that demonstrably result in less emissions overall.
Please do not hesitate to reach out for any clarification, Eric Muller
Los Altos
1 Andrea Pizano
From: John Scarboro < >
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2024 5:24 PM
To: Andrea Pizano
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: June 12 SVCE Board Meeting Item 3- Green Start Power Mix ATTENTION: This message is from an external user. Confidential information such as social security, credit card, ba routing, wire transfer and other personally identifiable information should not be transmitted to this user. For questions, please contact the SVCE IT Department.
Good afternoon, SVCE board,
I'm long-term resident of Mountain View, and have supported forming a CCE and SVCE since 2013.
While seeing the challenges of procuring 100% clean energy, and the desire to procure less than 100%, I disagree with doing so voluntarily. I believe Silicon Valley Clean Energy must maintain 100% clean energy for all the people that it serves. I do not want clean energy to be a luxury item. We will not make our goal to have a habitable planet by burning more fossil fuels. We must show the way by sticking to 100% carbon-free electricity for our communities. SVCE was formed to provide clean energy, and that is why it has such great community support. Going back on this would be damaging to the reputation of the organization. If SVCE adopts a mix similar to PG&E, where it is partially fossil fuel, the differentiation between the two becomes significantly less. Then there will be less reason for people to go with SVCE, negatively affecting all the programs and the good work that SVCE is doing. One of the great advantages of SVCE is community control. If it turns out that the resulting decisions are the same as PG&E is making, then there will be questions about how valuable it is to have this additional government organization and that could also negatively affect the success of SVCE in bringing clean energy to so many people in Silicon Valley in the long run.
I appreciate your work on this and understand that it is not an easy situation. I implore you to keep 100% clean energy in the Green Start product.
John Scarboro
1 Andrea Pizano
From: Bruce Naegel < >
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2024 6:39 PM
To: [email protected]; Council Member Zachary Hilton; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; Mohan, Sheila; [email protected]; Scozzola, Elliot; [email protected]; [email protected]; Pat Showalter; Monica Padilla; Andrea Pizano
Subject: Vote Tonight
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To: SVCE
From Bruce Naegel
I was deeply disappointed when I heard SVCE is planning to move from 100% carbon free to 80% carbon free. The SVCE program provides a great example of Can Do for other organizations to follow. I have concerns the rest of the CCAs will follow suit.
Addressing the power source has a few big advantages:
o It occurs across all members of the CCA
o It provides a dramatic standard to shoot for.
Bruce Karney provided the council with the calculations on that the carbon is for various scenarios.
Bruce Karney provided calculations on the effects. They are listed below. SVCE, please reconsider moving to 80%. Staying at 100% will mean we all have a goal we can be proud of and to provide support to the other CCCAS. Thanks for listening.
CFSV] It is imperative for SVCE to continue to be 100% Clean.
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BRUCE KARNEY Jun 11, 2024, 9:13 AM (1 day ago)
to CFMV, CFSV
Tomorrow night (Wed.) the SVCE Board will meet and decide whether to abandon the agency's long-standing strategy of providing 100% clean energy. In the email below, I will explain why I think that is a bad idea. The staff memo proposing the change is here: https://svcleanenergy.org/wp- 2 content/uploads/2024-0612-SVCE-June-BOD-Agenda-Packet-scrubbed.pdf and the relevant agenda item starts on page 189 of the packet.
The staff thinks that going from 100% clean to 80% clean will save $22 million per year, but ignores the social cost of carbon, which I estimated to be $33 million per year.
I am travelling and will not be able to attend the Board meeting, but I urge you to do so and to voice your support for continued adherence to the 100% clean policy and to insist that financial decisions always explicitly include the social cost of carbon.