Hetch Hetchy Power

For 100 years, the Hetch Hetchy Power System has been generating greenhouse gas-free hydropower for San Francisco. Today, it powers vital municipal services and infrastructure such as MUNI and San Francisco General Hospital, and large, private developments like Salesforce Transit Center. As our drinking water flows downhill from Yosemite to the Bay Area, we harness the natural force of gravity to efficiently generate this clean electricity. The Hetch Hetchy Power mix also includes renewable solar energy, generated right here in San Francisco.

With Hetch Hetchy Power, the SFPUC is your energy producer and publicly-owned utility service provider. We recommend using Hetch Hetchy Power for new or existing large facilities; plus, all new projects on City-owned land must apply for Hetch Hetchy Power. As an added benefit, our Power Customer Programs are available to all new and existing Hetch Hetchy Power customers. 

We recommend using Hetch Hetchy Power for new or existing large facilities. Additionally, all new projects on City-owned land must apply for Hetch Hetchy Power. Smaller private projects can take advantage of other SFPUC services, including CleanPowerSF.

In 2019, the City of San Francisco passed legislation that calls for the City's largest commercial buildings to procure 100 percent clean electricity from any of the City's electricity providers by 2022. Then, starting in 2024, additional buildings will be subject to the new requirement, eventually encompassing all commercial buildings 50,000 square feet or larger. The requirement is currently phased-in chronologically to ensure adequate renewable electricity service is available for procurement:

2022 -- commercial buildings over 500,000 square feet;

2024 -- commercial buildings over 250,000 square feet; and,

2030 -- commercial buildings over 50,000 square feet.

As a Hetch Hetchy Power customer, your building or development will meet this ordinance.

Following your application for Hetch Hetchy Power, we conduct a financial review with your team, then deliver contracts. When contracts are in place, we will apply for wholesale power delivery through PG&E to access their electric grid and deliver Hetch Hetchy Power to our distribution sites in San Francisco. After you become an SFPUC customer, all of your electrical utility needs, including billing, will be handled by us, similar to how your water service with the SFPUC.

Hetch Hetchy Power is San Francisco's full-service, public power utility. DA is a retail electric service where customers purchase electricity directly from a provider called an Electric Service Provider (ESP). Hetch Hetchy Power is 100% greenhouse-gas free and meets all clean energy mandates in San Francisco, while the power mix varies among ESPs and may or may not meet local mandates. Exit fees are paid by Hetch Hetchy Power if you become our customer; however, on DA, you are responsible for these costs. Finally, as a public utility, Hetch Hetchy Power provides rate transparency and reinvests profits back into the local community, neither of which are offered by DA.

We usually provide 12kV primary power to large new developments, which typically requires a switchgear system that takes up around 700 square feet of space (including clearances). Switchgear can be installed in most basement or garage spaces, and can be shared among multiple buildings and developments for up to 12MW of total power load. SFPUC will work with you to determine the best design and layout of the equipment.

Because the City is a tax-exempt entity, our customers can save on the upfront capital costs of construction. We don’t charge our customers any tax on the cost to install SFPUC-owned infrastructure to provide electricity, which can result in savings of approximately 22-34% of those costs for your development project. Hetch Hetchy Power also has significantly lower long-term energy costs, which can be particularly beneficial for a developer who will own and operate the building after construction. Our rates tend to be about 10% lower than PG&Es because we are driven by a mission of decreasing greenhouse-gas emissions in San Francisco, not by expanding profits for shareholders.

Our Customer Engagement Team and Engineers will work closely with you to determine feasibility and will provide design assistance and review. Once you and your occupants start using our power, we’ll provide 24/7 care and troubleshooting. We have been supplying electricity in San Francisco for 100 years to many of San Francisco's most critical facilities, including SFO, Muni, SF Unified School District, SF General Hospital and San Francisco’s police and fire stations. You’ll have the reliability benefits of using the same grid as the rest of the city, but without the greenhouse-gas emissions.

We support our customers' efforts to conserve energy and generate power locally. SFPUC offers competitive energy efficiency incentives for new and existing buildings.

Visit the Hetch Hetchy Power Net Energy Metering page for more information.