An annual celebration that recognizes the economic, social, and environmental contributions of community-owned utilities, Public Power Week (Oct 2-8th) honors the long tradition of community-led decision-making and local control of electric utility service in the United States.  

When it comes to public power, San Francisco is showing how it’s done. For more than 100 years, Hetch Hetchy Power has provided publicly owned, clean, reliable electricity for San Francisco. As a not-for-profit enterprise owned and operated by the community, the SFPUC is proud of our team and the people behind public power who provide nonstop, high-quality service to our customers in San Francisco.  

As Public Power Week draws to a close, it offers us a moment to reflect not only on what public power has accomplished for San Francisco over the past century, but to look ahead to what the future might look like if San Francisco is successful in its efforts to expand public power locally.   
 
San Francisco has always had the right under the California constitution to operate its own public power grid, including electrical services. PG&E installs and operates its local power grid through an agreement with the City, and up to now, our public power system has operated in parallel with PG&E.  
 
For decades though, PG&E has obstructed public projects in San Francisco. The corporation has a long history of imposing unnecessary conditions, limitations, and costs on the City’s use of the electric grid. In fact, PG&E continues to throw up costly roadblocks and charge exorbitant fees for basic power hookups, blocking everything from affordable housing to new public transit projects in San Francisco. Ultimately, PG&E’s obstruction could cost San Francisco billions and imperil our clean energy future. These actions make local ownership of the grid and full public power the necessary – and right – choice for San Francisco. That is why we are pursuing acquisition of PG&E’s electric distribution network in San Francisco. We are currently in the process of having the state utility regulator, the California Public Utilities Commission, issue a valuation of PG&E’s electricity assets in San Francisco so we have an independent appraisal of their worth. The City is prepared to pay a fair price to acquire those assets using revenue bonds.  

Under local public ownership of the grid, we could deliver clean Hetch Hetchy Power to all San Franciscans. Without PG&E, San Francisco has a clearer, quicker path toward our goal of 100 percent clean energy. With full public power, we can partner with the community to explore investing more resources to make our own grid more resilient through battery storage, local renewables, undergrounding of power lines, and modernization of the grid. 

Now more than ever, it makes sense to control our power under a single, local, public system that will be affordable, more reliable and accountable to the public. Supported by Mayor Breed and the Board of Supervisors, the City’s leaders have come together around our shared values of transparency and local control. On top of that, more than 70% of San Franciscans support switching to public power, too.  
 
As we look to the future, a lot remains unknown. But one thing is for certain: San Francisco is ready for full public power now.  

Learn more at publicpowersf.org.