Stevenson, Garrett
Subject:FW: Comment for Municipal Services Committee, 8/22/2022 - Solar From: Rev. Tera Landers < >
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2022 2:50 PM
To: Stevenson, Garrett <[email protected]>
Subject: Comment for Municipal Services Committee, 8/22/2022 - Solar CAUTION: This email was delivered from the Internet. Do not click links or open attachments unless you know the content is safe. Report phish using the Phish Alert Button. Learn more....
Dear Municipal Services Committee:
I'm writing in enthusiastic support of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) as part of Pasadena's overall plan to get to 100% non-carbon energy sources.
The congregation I serve, Throop Unitarian Universalist Church, installed solar on our historic building several years ago. We did this because we understand we are in a climate emergency, and we want to be part of the solution and live into our values. We are a small but mighty congregation, and we figured out a way to do this.
We know other institutions in Pasadena can do it, too. Strong leadership and incentives from our city can help others do this!
Local rooftop solar adds resilience in case of grid weakness, storms, or other problems. Recently, the Pasadena Water and Power Interim Director, Mr. Kightlinger, acknowledged the important role rooftop solar plays, when he said that during the heat wave, local solar helped get us through increased demands for air conditioning.
I have solar on my own home, and I charge my electric car during the day so that my car truly is "powered by the sun." I'd like to see PWP and the City encourage other electric car owners to charge their cards during the day, so they are drawing on the sun's energy rather than fossil fuels.
Thank you,
Rev. Tera Landers
Lead Pastor, Throop Unitarian Universalist Church
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1 Stevenson, Garrett
Subject:FW: MSC Solar Business Models - Comment
From: Sam Berndt< >
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2022 7:31 PM
To: Stevenson, Garrett <[email protected]>
Subject: MSC Solar Business Models - Comment
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Hi,
I'd like to submit the written comment below to the Municipal Services Committee meeting at 4:30pm on Monday.
"The climate crisis is here; but it is still getting started. We must do everything in our power to ensure we transition toward carbon free energy as soon as possible. This includes large-scale generation through utilities and also distributed & resilient generation locally. We need all the solar we can get in our transition to carbon free energy."
Thanks,
Sam Berndt
1 Stevenson, Garrett
Subject:FW: Public Comment - 8/23 MSC Meeting - Solar
From: Wesley Reutimann < >
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2022 6:04 AM
To: Stevenson, Garrett <[email protected]>
Subject: Public Comment - 8/23 MSC Meeting - Solar
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Dear MSC members and staff,
As a Pasadena resident who strongly supports a healthier community powered by clean, non- polluting energy, I urge you to study ways to reduce the cost of home solar energy installation in the City.
Pasadena has a mild climate and is generally pro-technology. We can reduce our reliance on expensive and polluting methane gas. Yet we continue to place barriers in front of solar and have made it unnecessarily expensive.
Solar in California installs at roughly $3 per watt. In Australia installation averages $1 per watt.
The hardware is the same, and installers in Australia even tend to get paid more. The primary drivers of the cost difference are 'soft costs', including more cumbersome permitting and inspection processes and requirements.
The outcome of this massive cost difference is clear. In Pasadena the penetration of rooftop solar is in the single digits, in Australia it is 30%, with some areas already over 50%.
This is self-imposed market failure. We need smarter regulations. PWP can work with solar installers to identify ways to further simplify our processes and reduce cost to local residents.
Now is the time to do so. Products such as span.io to coordinate energy and load management of rooftop solar, storage, EV charging, and other major loads are already available. By supporting the adoption of such strategies, the City and PWP have a tremendous opportunity to leverage the wealth of the community in developing a more resilient, clean, distributed local grid.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
1 Stevenson, Garrett
Subject:FW: *For today's meeting
From: Donna Sidero
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2022 2:10 PM
To: Stevenson, Garrett <[email protected]>
Subject: *For today's meeting
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Dear Municipal Services Committee:
I write in support of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) as part of Pasadena's overall plan to get to 100% non-carbon energy sources.
As an early adopter, I had solar installed on my home in 2006, prior to getting central air and hybrid car. Please work to support Pasadena 100 goals for a zero carbon future.
Thank you,
Donna Sider
25 year homeowner in District 2
1 Stevenson, Garrett
Subject:FW: Comments for EAC meeting on 8/23/22
From: Chris Peck <>
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2022 9:58 PM
To: Stevenson, Garrett <[email protected]>
Subject: Comments for EAC meeting on 8/23/22
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Dear Mr. Stevenson and MSC Members and staff:
I have discussed the topic of local rooftop solar with my clients, local activists, and my business partners.
As an architect and engineer, my firm provides consulting, planning and engineering services to homeowners and developers in the single family arena. In addition, I am a partner in a ground mounted, grid connected 20 MW solar installation in Northern California. Also, I have installed 20 solar PV panels on my Pasadena rooftop and have been grid connected to the PWP network for about 2 years.
I have also done a study on the land area that is required for fossil fuel generation, rooftop solar generation, and large scale ground mounted solar generation.
Through this experience of being involved in all sides of the solar generation picture, I have come to the conclusion that many others have come to.
Let's do all of it, on all fronts, as quickly as we can.
Distributed rooftop solar generates power locally at a time of day that matches high demand for cooling, which helps mitigate the strain on the grid during these ever more frequent peak periods where AC systems are driving demand that exceeds grid capacity. It also provides a resilience to weather storms and outages, because local generation will survive mechanical or system failures or attacks on transmission lines, generating facilities, or fuel supplies.
An all fronts approach is logical. There is no downside to developing large scale solar through large scale investment and smalt scale solar through homeowner investment. Grid improvements for long haul transmission may be minimized if local generation is more significant. A greater capacity can be developed if we pursue both types of solar at the same time.
Chris Peck, Principal
PECK Architecture Structural Civil
1 Stevenson, Garrett
Subject:FW: MSC Agenda Item 2
-—Original Message-—
From: Claudia Funke <>
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2022 11:02 AM
To: Stevenson, Garrett <[email protected]>
Subject: MSC Agenda Item 2
CAUTION: This email was delivered from the Internet. Do not click links or open attachments unless you know the content is safe. Report phish using the Phish Alert Button. Learn more...<https://mydoit.cityofpasadena.net/sp?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB0010263>.
To the Municipal Services Committee,
I am a Pasadena resident who is deeply concerned about climate change. I am active as a member of Pasadena 100, a coalition that is advocating for 100% carbon-free energy in Pasadena by 2030.
Clearly, the city needs all the clean power that it can get, and distributed local rooftop solar is important in moving the city away from fossil fuels. Local solar is important for resiliency. It can enable community solar, which has the potential to benefit lower income groups and renters with lower rates.
I lived in North Carolina some years back and had neighbors with a large sunny plot that they outfitted with solar panels.
During the not unusual ice storms, they were the ones who had power and generously shared the comforts of their home with those of us living in the woods without solar.
Pasadena has an abundance of sunshine. It is a great natural resource for us in fighting the planet's greatest existential threat, climate change. Local rooftop solar has an important role to play in Pasadena's future energy plans.
Respectfully,
Claudia Funke
1 Stevenson, Garrett
Subject:FW: Commit to 100% fossil fuel free utilities by 2030 From: Lauren Cory < >
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2022 1:14 PM
To: Stevenson, Garrett <[email protected]>
Subject: Commit to 100% fossil fuel free utilities by 2030 CAUTION: This email was delivered from the Internet. Do not click links or open attachments unless you know the content is safe. Report phish using the Phish Alert Button. Learn more....
To Mayor Gordo, the Pasadena City Council and PWP,
I am a homeowner in District 6 in Pasadena. I am writing you today to strongly support private rooftop solar as well as distance utility scale solar. I have solar on my house and my electricity bill is amazingly low. This needs to be more available to other Pasadena homeowners. especially to the owners of multi-rental units in lower income areas.
I understand that recently our PWP interim director acknowledged the essential help given by local rooftop panels when the city needed extra energy during peak heat waves. Net energy metering is an incentive for anyone and any city. It is an enormous incentive for a property owner thinking to buy solar.
The push for local rooftop panels does not in any way reduce the efforts our city government needs to be making during this IRP study year. We, as a city and as very concerned voting citizens, are asking PWP to address its investment in coal. I think around 40% of Pasadena's energy comes from Utah coal. The state, the nation, most of the world is working hard to move away from coal. If South Pas, Culver City, Alhambra, Cupertino and many more can do it why aren't we actively doing it?
The time to commit to a utility plan and company that is 100% fossil fuel free is now, not in 5 years, not in 10. Now, 100% fossil fuel free by 2030.
Thank you for your tireless public service.
Lauren Cory
1 Stevenson, Garrett
Subject:FW: MSC Meeting August 23 Comments on items 2 & 3 From: cheryl auger < >
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2022 1:35 PM
To: Stevenson, Garrett <[email protected]>
Subject: MSC Meeting August 23 Comments on items 2 & 3
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Hello MSC Members and Staff,
Just a few months ago Edison International (El), the parent company of SCE, said that California will not make their 2030 climate goals.
https://www.edison.com/home/our-perspective/mind-the-gap.html I wasn't surprised given how little has been done to reduce carbon emissions, but I was baffled by why El and SCE knew this and were still trying to purposefully kill rooftop solar by increasing grid connection fees and reducing kWh payouts. Similar rate structures in other states were shown to reduce solar sales by over 90% while improving the lOU's bottom line. But not without a cost to the environment and species habitats as the greenfield projects destroyed these with their build cuts of transmission lines and distant green energy. I heard Assemblymember Holden just say that the lOUs will build these transmission lines out, and build new generation to sell power to other states. But I digress as do they from their core mission.
I hope the City of Pasadena will fairly incentivize as much rooftop solar as possible and provide grants for low and middle income families to assist with purchasing solar or even renting their rooftops and not change the rate structure and negatively impact the solar adoption rate. I think having a MW goal for adoption of rooftop solar to offset the lOUs failings by 2030 would be laudable.
And on the topic of implementation of SB 1383,1 appreciate the outline of the plan but I think we have the wrong measures in place. It should not be based on dollars but based on the GHGE contributions. Composting programs should be prioritized by residential, community, institutional, then industrial or regional. Pasadena has an opportunity to expand on both local composting at the homeowner level and the institutional level. There is also an external cost of losing food waste to anaerobic digestion compared to soil production. That soil can help salvage our stressed trees and the trees we hope to plant. This will allow more carbon to be sequestered from the atmosphere. Here are my comments by plan.
1. Backyard Compost Bin. Why wouldn't we give people the same type of compost bin (tumblers) we will be using in the parks in each district? For anyone who has used the bins provided by the City they know these bins are susceptible to rats, and people freak out when they see rats and no longer want to compost. Their neighbors hate them for composting with these compost systems since the rats have now found a new hood. The tumblers are enclosed and off the ground and therefore mitigate the rat issue. I 1 would also hope we would subsidize these. The current bin type provided by the City is great for lawn and tree waste.
2. Community Compost hubs. I applaud the City for trying to get here. This is really what we need to do to reduce GHGEs. I appreciate that every district has one composting HUB but more populated and dense areas need more HUBs. The crazy thing about organic waste from food is that in any month a family might generate five gallons of waste and in three months that waste will be just a few ounces. There is little incentive to drive it anywhere when you realize it will significantly shrink verses the cost to roll the truck and the associated GHGEs. We should increase the community drop off hubs.
3. Commercial and MultiFamily - I assume this will be sent to the anaerobic digester which again is a bad use of energy and creates GHGEs. We should create more community hubs and utilize the composting facility at the Rose Bowl to manage this or even the public works space. It doesn't make sense to haul compost which has such a high water percentage. Also, every new construction project should have to install a mechanical composter. Even existing multifamily units would save GHGEs by installing mechanical composters. This is a much better option.
4. Residential Curbside Organics Recycling - everything about this is misleading. It is not recycling. It is anaerobic digestion. It is not just 5 miles to the anaerobic digester, it is 5 miles to the transfer station and then additional miles to the anaerobic digester, and the food recovery model should promote composting to improve soil health over turning food into energy which uses energy in transit and creates GHGEs so probably results in an increased carbon footprint. Food is what is renewable, not the methane produced by the AD process.
Hopefully any decisions made today will result in more rooftop solar, more local composting and less GHGEs and hauling and meaningful strides on our climate goals.
Sincerely,
Cheryl Auger
My Zero Waste Store
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