Santa Barbara Buys Green
Santa Cruz, San Jose And Others To Follow Soon
SACRAMENTO, CA — April 20, 2000 — The Santa Barbara City Council voted this week to authorize its staff to complete a contract with San Jose-based Cleen n' Green, a green power marketer, to supply up to 90 percent of its total municipal electricity supply from green, non-polluting renewable energy sources. The power purchase contract is valued at $1.6 to $1.8 million.
"Few predicted it would happen, but local governments are emerging as leaders in current efforts to build a more sustainable future," said Steven Kelly, executive director of the Renewable Energy Marketing Board. "I'm encouraged not only with their green power purchases, but by the commitments of local governments to help educate consumers about the environmental and economic benefits renewable energy brings to California," he added.
cleen n' green, a subsidiary of Preferred Energy Services, Inc., holds a power purchase contract with the California Association of Water Agencies. The Santa Barbara municipal purchase takes advantage of this arrangement in order to buy electricity sold through the Cupertino-based Automated Power Exchange, which runs a daily green power spot sales market. Santa Barbara joins approximately thirty other local governments that are purchasing a portion of their power from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal steam, biomass (including landfill gas projects) and small hydroelectric facilities.
A growing number of other local governments are in the process of testing the green power market with their own solicitations. The Santa Cruz City Council, for example, made the decision at their April 11 meeting to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for green power. The RFP is expected to be released in June. The purpose of the RFP is to identify vendors interested in providing Santa Cruz with renewable electric power, and to identify the full range of service options available including not only power supply and delivery, but scheduling, metering, meter reading/data management, and billing.
The City of San Jose will release an RFP before the end of this month asking for green power bids to supply up to 100 percent of its municipal electricity bill. Proposals will be reviewed in May with a final decision on a new supplier currently scheduled to be made this June.
Other local governments also looking into green power purchases include Petaluma, which is exploring the idea of issuing an RFP. Though currently purchasing green power through the Association of Bay Area Governments, they would like to go 100 green and perhaps add solar energy to their power supply mix.
CEERT contact: Kari Smith (415) 431-5182
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