By Bruce Wolfe, HANC Board
Please join HANC on Thursday, April 9, as we discuss San Francisco’s effort to acquire PG&E’s local grid. Haylie Cantiller and Elisa Rodriguez Furey from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission will share information about the Our City, Our Power Campaign. Tim Redmond from 48Hills will provide his perspective on the issue. We will also hear an update on the Doolan-Larson House from Tia Lombardi. See the accompanying article for instructions on how to join the meeting
San Francisco's path toward energy independence began with Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), a revolutionary model pioneered by Paul Fenn and championed by then-Assembly Member Carole Migden. Their landmark 2002 legislation (AB 117) empowered municipalities to purchase electricity directly, bypassing investor-owned utilities like PG&E.
Grassroots advocacy, particularly from the Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood Council, fueled the CleanPowerSF movement. These advocates envisioned not just cleaner energy procurement but full municipalization—public ownership of San Francisco's electric grid and infrastructure, fulfilling the century-old promise of the Raker Act of 1913 which mandated public power from Hetch Hetchy.
Today, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) leads this ambitious transition through the PublicPowerSF project. Through CleanPowerSF, it now serves over 385,000 customers with cleaner, often more affordable electricity. In 2025, the SFPUC achieved a milestone: approving electricity rates with no increases for all customers while securing unprecedented 20-25% reductions in supply rates.
The current frontier is "Expanding Public Power"—the campaign to purchase PG&E's local distribution assets and fully municipalize San Francisco's electric system. The SFPUC is actively pursuing grid acquisition, framing it as essential for climate resilience, reliability, and ending what they describe as "PG&E's obstruction and extortion tactics."
This evolution from CCA advocacy to operational public power utility represents one of America's most significant municipal energy transitions. As San Francisco moves toward complete grid municipalization, it stands as a national model for communities seeking energy democracy, climate action, and local control over critical infrastructure.