S. David Freeman, the octogenarian anti-nuclear apostle of renewable
energy, sent out a farewell message Monday to the Department of Water
and Power’s 8,000 employees urging them to “Keep the Faith” despite the
controversies that have engulfed the utility.
Freeman’s first term as DWP General Manager ended badly when then Mayor RIchard Riordan fired him. He didn’t fare much better in his second as interim GM when controversy swirled around his veracity and the lack of planning.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa moved Freeman from his role as deputy mayor the for environment to interim GM of DWP and the Council approved him for a six-month term that ends this week.
Read his farewell letter at OurLA.org.
Lies, attempts to blackmail the City Council over withholding $73.5 million in general fund transfers, fiscal mismanagement, an overly generous union contract, a demoralized executive tem, failure to provide timely and accurate information were among the accusations laid at Freeman’s feet.
His credibility had fallen to the point that the mayor’s staff told him to stay on vacation overseas when they attempted unsuccessfully to ramrod through power rate increases of 20 to 30 percent.
Insiders said the mayor has been unable to find a top manager to take over the reigns of the DWP despite the services of an executive recruiting firm in great part because of the likelihood Freeman would either become head of the oversight board which has a vacancy that must be filled this week or would return to the mayor’s office.
Austin Beutner, the mayor’s jobs czar, has been floated as a possible interim successor but he has no experience running a utility although he is a wealthy equity fund manager. Raman Raj, the DWP’s chief operating officer, also has been mentioned but he was fired by both the MTA and DWP previously and has close ties to IBEW union boss Brian D’Arcy which would make his confirmation by the Council unlikely in the current political climate.
It is obvious that our Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is out of control, a rogue department which believes it is above scrutiny and oversight, under the control of our manipulative and destructive $25 Billion Mayor who has no respect for commercial and residential Rate Payers.
Surely with the departure of Northrop Grumman there are dozens of engineers with management experience who would prefer to stay in this climate than move to D.C.
The next head needs to be a real engineer, and have real management experience.
DWP just keeps going from “the Worst” to “the Worst.” The fact that he re-writes the slaughter of the Owens Valley as a heroic undertaking rather than the imperialist crap it is says it all.
LADWP needs to respect the fact that it is RATEPAYER OWNED. It consistently refuses to honor ratepayers’ needs in favor of increasing its own power and wealth. One might expect that from SCE or Sempra, but why are we getting it from a utility WE own?
UCLA just published a blistering commentary on the total failure by DWP (along with others in CA and across the US) to implement the proven, winning strategy for clean power implementation at virtually NO COST to ratepayers – the Feed In Tariff. LA bakes, sprawls and deteriorates while idiots like Nahai and Freedman scheme to re-monopolize their chokehold over the city. why are we letting them?
We need rooftop solar that WE own, so we need AB 811 loans funded. Not in 5 years, now. We need to pay ratepayer-generators fairly for power they produce that they do not use. Just those 2 basically FREE policies will cram all the clean energy into our homes and businesses that we need. LA is an incredible solar resource – no need to look anywhere else!
We are ideally situated to shift to decentralized, distributed generation within our built environment cheaply and quickly and to avoid the massive infrastructure costs DWP is dying to assess – check out his letter!
We want improved property values, jobs, clean air, democratic, reliable energy and our open spaces left intact. Rooftop solar and conservation can easily and cheaply get us there.
Sheila:
Please provide us with a link to the UCLA Study.
I remember your post during the election over Measure B when you touted (properly so) AB 811 (to which has been added AB 474 – Dealinlg with Water Conservation).
I wanted AB 811 to be a positive alternative to Measure B. . . But that never happened. Meanwhile, the County of LA is moving aggressively ahead with its AB 811 program while the City of LA does nothing.
I sincerely hope and urge all who read this blog to get behind Sheila’s idea that the DWP and the City Council aggressively get behind an AB 811 program.
Noel Weiss
AB 811 and Measure B don’t concern the same type of construction.
AB 811 covers funding of solar panels on private property. Measure B covered the construction of solar on city-owned property. LADWP’s original plan was to have both plus outbasin solar in order to meet the State RPS. And the assumption that in-basin solar on private property can meet the State RPS alone is wrong because the RPS capacity is too great and the timeframe to deadline is too small.
I’m curious what exactly Sheila wants the city to do regarding in-basin private-property solar. Do you want the whole project subsidized by the city? Are you expecting to make a profit off net metering?
To 9:39 PM,
Here is the report that you requested: http://labusinesscouncil.org/online_documents/2010/Designing-an-Effective-Feed-in-Tariff-for-Greater-Los-Angeles-040110.pdf
This report was published by the LA Business Council and the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.
LA Business Council President Mary Leslie in a statement. “To make any meaningful impact, policymakers will have to identify renewable programs that deliver immediate results and produce the greatest benefits for their cost. The findings in our study validate an ambitious Feed-in Tariff as one of the smartest investments Los Angeles can make to create a cost-effective, locally generated source of solar energy and grow our green economy.”
When you attack DWP, you need to focus on the Elected officials responsible for the faults – mainly the Mayor who picks the General Manager and the Commission. Unlike what some believe, DWP is anything but independent, its totally political under direct control of the Mayor with oversight of the City Council if they opt to.
When you analyze alternative/renewable energy sources, you need to look at a cost/benefit and not merely how much money am I putting into it. That was the foolishness of the Environmental groups rushing BLINDLY to the Mayor’s side in the debate for a rate increase when the Mayor used the “Carbon” word.
Eric Holoman, president of Magic Johnson Enterprises, was named by the mayor to fill the DWP board seat vacated last month by Edith Ramirez.
This is a joke. Once again the Mayor is paying back political favors. Magic Johnson came out strong for Antonio during his campaign and he won with the black vote. I dont’ think that will ever happen again as the blacks are furious the Mayor has done nothing for their communities and is bias towards the immigrant population. Magic Johnson has helped Antonio raised a lot of money for all his pet projects and his campaigns. I hope city council has the guts to not vote in favor of this “political payback” appointment.” I wont’ hold my breath because city council has shown the nation they are cowards when it comes to DWP
6:39 – at a minimum, the Council should ask some questions that require more than a “yes” or “no.” He will of course say that he cannot take a position because he has not seen the DWP data yet. But he has been witness to the mess of the last 3 weeks. Some Humphreville-inspired questions will be a good start.
To Anonymous at 10:14:
AB811 is not a subsidy, it is a loan program that costs ratepayers NOTHING. Every MW of clean solar generation installed using an AB811 loan could add to the RPS at NO COST to ratepayers (if RPS is ethically and realistically calculated). This is in stark contrast to Big Wind, Big Solar and Big Transmission, which will cost ratepayers a FORTUNE and destroy our wilderness areas and deplete water sources.
Ratepayer generators should not be penalized for installing solar on their roofs – it should not be a “sacrifice.” We should be allowed to net meter to the amount of power we use and to be paid fairly (Feed in Tariff) for any amount we produce and do not consume. Net metering costs other ratepayers NOTHING, because it reduces grid congestion and fuel consumption. So all that clean, local, solar power? FREE. Free to ratepayer-generators. Free to non-generating ratepayers.
With AB 811 loans, ratepayer generators can zero out their system costs on an annual basis using net metering and FIT payments, amortized across 20 years. FIT-purchased power is RESOLD by the DWP for close to purchase price, and only the tiny incremental costs between resale price (say, 30 cents for peaker) and FIT paid price (50 cents), and only for that power above and beyond net metering (say 5% of the gross solar power produced) is passed on to ratepayers. It will not even register on utility bills.
The system I propose is cheaper to us than the German system, where they buy 100% of the power at the premium price (about 80 cents) instead of net metering first, and it makes rooftop solar within reach of every single home and business owner in the City who has a sunny roof.
Personally, I don’t have much faith in DWP to handle the city-property solar affordably or competently, but as long as WE get the programs WE need, and WE are counted in the RPS calculations as full generators, rather than as “demand reduction,” the City can do what it wants with its rooftops as long as the CITY pays for it out of their existing budget (just like us). They need to get costs down so that energy savings offsets pay for their rooftop systems, JUST LIKE US.
Sheila, thanks for the response. A few more questions I’m thinking about.
1. Who subsidizes the loan? Each home is a 20k-100k project depending on much power the homeowner wants to generate.
2. LA’s current generation due to in-basin solar is 18 MW. To meet the RPS without building outbasin wind/solar/geothermal and transmission lines, in-basin solar would have to generate over 2800 MW from private property rooftop solar by 2020. Is this reasonable? If so, how do you know?
3. If 40% of LA’s portfolio was based off solar, 40% of LA’s generation capacity would either be gone or impaired when the sun isn’t shining, which would cause blackouts during times of peak load. Doesn’t this prove big wind and non-solar renewable generation (which would automatically be outbasin and require transmission lines) is needed?
3. What do you think is wrong with LADWP’s current solar incentive plan? How would you change it?
hi again.
Firstly, the loan is not “subsidized” by anyone. Money is lent, then it is repaid with modest interest that covers administration costs. No subsidies at all. there are dozens of ways to raise the money, from ARRA funds, muni bonds, private investors, etc. Lots of information out there on this program already and lots of other counties and cities are already funding it.
Secondly, most homes will net out (after current rebates and tax credits) in the under $20K range, unless they are doing massive retrofits for efficiency upgrades at the same time as PV or unless we start getting fair payment for producing more power than we need. Nobody’s going off-grid here, so people can size conservatively.
1BOG is securing pricing in the $6/watt range, before rebates and tax credits, which should knock another 50-60% off, putting us in the $2 – $3/watt range after all is said and done. Average homes are installing 3.5 kW systems, which would then net out at about $10,500. Repaid via AB 811 over 20 years, that’s gonna be $600/year with interest, or $50/month to produce ~80% of total power. Entire cost will be offset by reduction in bill (and/or FIT).
2. I am not sure where you get “over 2800 MW” as a 33% RPS in a system that peaks at 6,000 MW. 33% is the state number. 40% is just a childish one-upsman number from a grandstanding mayor, but it is still completely do-able even without ripping off ratepayers and decimating outlying communities and ecosystems.
Since solar produces generally at peak times, and since 50-55% of the total power in the city is consumed during those 4-6 peak hours, it seems all we would need for 33% is just under 2,000 MW, and that assumes no reduction in energy consumption, which is unlikely if current trends continue.
If the average home installation is 3.5kW and the average industrial is, say 25kW, and there are 1.4 million electrical connections in the DWP system, I feel like it would absolutely be achievable to secure 2,000 MW from private rooftops alone. Don’t forget that LA is a major industrial center with lots of baking, sprawling, single-story buildings. If a million of those are homes and apartments, and only 1/3 of them put “average” solar up, we’d have ~1200 MW. If the other 400,000 were business connections and only 20% of them installed a 25 kW system, we would have ~2,000 MW. These are just a few random illustrations.
And hey, if the City wanted to fund their own panels and contribute to the RPS just like us, using it’s own offsets to repay itself for the cost of the panels, like I said, I would be fine, delighted, as long as the program offers real, human ratepayers a clean, fair shot at participating, and the City didn’t stick us with the bill both coming and going. They can play on the same field as us.
Parking lots, brownfields, you name it, they should definitely do it – on their own dime, for the same reasons we do it, because it’s the right thing and it makes environmental and economic sense. They should not do it to strengthen their chokehold over ratepayers and small communities like Owens Valley. They should not do it as a backdoor tax to fund City programs. They should not do it to greenwash an otherwise devastating environmental mess.
3. If you want to complain about the RPS system, and how unreliable solar will be, that’s not my trip – that’s a political game these guys play that has nothing to do with what is needed. I could care less if their soundbyte number is 25%, 80% or 50% – we need to max out the built environment with efficiency upgrades and point of use generation before we start slaughtering wilderness – that’s my point and it should be a no-brainer.
Obviously we need improved storage solutions and load balancing and we need to keep the gas peakers online so they can jump in – just like they do now – to compensate for shortfalls. But the timing of Big Solar and local solar production is identical, so rooftops completely defeat the need for Big Solar and its Big Transmission. Can we agree on that?
3 (again). I think I’ve been pretty clear how I would change the system. AB811 loans and feed in tariffs. Democratic not monopolistic ownership of solar and microwind generation. Removal of all caps on system sizes. Favorable business climate for clean energy manufacturers and installers. No dead wilderness and species, no water depletion (geothermal, solar thermal), no SF6-spewing powerlines (29,000 times more potent GHG than CO2, emitted by powerline infrastructure), no eminent domain, improved property values, well-paying local jobs, and healthy open spaces we can all still enjoy. All for much less cost to us than the current boondoggles they have planned. That’s all i want. is that too much to ask?
Thanks Sheila, a lot of good information there and for the first time I actually think in-basin private rooftop solar can play a big role in the RPS.
Just to add to a few points of discussion
I got the 2800 MW by referencing capacity but you’re right. Load (energy usage) should be referenced instead.
I asked 3 (the first one, not my typo 4) not because I was complaining but because it’s a valid concern of generation planners. Solar and wind don’t generate on command. Because of that they can’t be used for base load and it’s unwise to invest such a substantial portion of the portfolio into a single non-controllable generation source because system failure would be inevitable if the weather starts acting funny.
Thanks for the financial info, that was helpful. The only thing I’m wondering now is whether it is logistically possible to retrofit enough homes by 2020.
The city already tried to fund its own panels on its own property on its own dime (which is basically taxpayer and ratepayer money) via Measure B but it failed.
SF6 is actually the dielectric in circuit breakers, not powerlines. The breakers are used for system protection, not generation, and would not be removed by switching to rooftop solar. Also SF6 leaking into the atmosphere is akin to an oil spill. It should not happen under normal operation and if it did, somebody messeed up.
Anyway thanks for the discussion. It’s nice to have an in-depth discussion about potential solutions as opposed to just ranting and venting.
thanks for your reply “Anonymous” at 8:21 AM.
You raise good points.
Firstly, at the moment, nobody but greenwashers are saying we should immediately rely on solar for a massive amount of our power, but for whatever amount we decide, that should apply even moreso to Big Solar than local solar, because of the inherent unreliability of remote generation and long transmission.
We absolutely need to fund research into storage solutions, and a hydrogen “battery” looks particularly promising at MIT. We also need to keep our “on demand” gas plants at the ready for the foreseeable future, and keep hydro and increase non-polluting biomass (see Denmark for super-low emissions trash incinerators).
A legitimate focus on (painless) conservation would also help but with utilities guarding the conservation henhouse, all we get is window dressing – no matter what kind of decoupling we see, their entire business model is based on BUILDING MORE and GENERATING MORE, which means we need to keep consuming more – they cannot win if we consume less, but that is all the more reason to consume less, is it not? AB811 funds are available for efficiency upgrades, as well as solar and microwind generation.
What we can’t do is destroy millions of acres of intact, healthy desert ecosystem with Big Solar so that Chevron, BP, Goldman Sachs, DWP, Sempra and others all (literally) make a KILLING by producing the same exact power we could be producing at point of use, within our built environment. That is a super-expensive, deadly, wasteful scam and needs to be STOPPED immediately.
As for SF6, the EPA has named it one of the 6 most deadly gases (GHGs) it immediately needs to regulate because a huge amount of it is already leaking and much, much more will leak from new transmission infrastructure – it is inevitable with the current way our infrastructure is built. This is the EPA talking, not me, and more breakers means more SF6, which means more global warming.
If this whole thing is being done to “save the planet,” it is incredibly disingenuous to destroy highly effective carbon sinks like the Mojave, use 33 cement trucks and thousands of tons of steel (2 of the most polluting materials we make) for each Industrial Turbine (not to mention shipping parts around the globe), kill off the wildlife that keeps us all in balance, and hugely deplete our scarce water resources – and then claim an environmental victory! All while the urban heat island within our cities exacerbates the other harms.
Point of use is the absolutely critical FIRST step. If we need more power after we max out our built environment, we do that then, not now.
As for Measure B, that was funded by a rate hike, not by the savings in electricity the City properties would realize once they started generating their own power. This is a critical difference. Because DWP will almost certainly overcharge the city for the panels and installation in a non-competitive bid, and because it is unlikely to be coupled with a sincere conservation effort (because of no accountability), it is possible that the City cannot break even using the type of program that we need for ourselves (loans and offsets/FITs). Again, that’s not inherent in rooftop solar power – it is inherent in LA City politics. Big difference.
Thanks for your smart ideas, comments and questions – it is a pleasure to discuss this with someone genuinely interested and openminded. Now, let’s get the City moving!