Our building is located in Transit/Commercial side of San Antonio and we have a large roof suitable for this type of solar installation.

We were NEVER contacted by anyone at the City to participate in the program.

If our experience is similar to others in town...the lack of outreach doomed this program.

Just turning on a web page is not outreach.

Palo Altans are always big talkers when it comes to the environment, claiming they care so much. But only 20% of residents have agreed to pay higher rates for green energy from the city. That statistic says it all for me -- that 80% of the community doesn't buy in to this sustainability crap that the city is constantly trying to force down our throats.

How is it possible that Larry Klein did not sign sign up for this deal? He could have offered his business building roof top for solar panels. He claimed to be very excited about the approach of feed-in tariffs ( Web Link )

Talking green and walking green are not the same thing, apparently.

Everyone has the same energy from the same sources in Palo Alto. If you sign up for "green energy" you simply pay more; that's why residents aren't going for this teaser, we're too smart.

The ranks of Palo Alto City employees are filled with a surplus of highly paid employees with high sounding titles who are dreaming up exotic plans and mandates for the residents to justify their positions. In order to save money, why not get rid of all non-essential employees and their staff and their far out ideas and concentrate on what's basically important. Most of these people,I'll bet, don't even live here.Frankly,I'm sick and tired of "City Hall" telling me what I can and cannot do .
Start cleaning house in the Planning Department and the Utility Department - and the city manager's floor. Anyone else 'fed up'?

I don't know the program. What if the city paid for the installation and maintenance; had rights to all the electrical generation; and paid a royalty of 1-3 cents per kilowatt. Is there more to this?

OK . . . Make the city promise to use the profit/net revenue for public safety and road maintenance only. No new programs; just the job a city government is supposed to do.

> hoped to get about 4 megawatts of solar energy from local
> rooftops through this program, enough to power roughly 1,250 homes

This would only be true if each of these 1,250 homes used only an average of 320KW/home--which is very hard to do. If the per-home power use were to be closer to 600KHW/month, then the number of homes powered would drop by half, to something over 600.

The City should provide the residents, and captive customers of the PAU, monthly use reports that provide meaningful information about the use of power in Palo Alto--like a histogram showing consumption by KWH. It is very hard to believe anything the PAU says, most of the time. Same for the City Council.

In the United States, we do not allow monopolies such as utility providers to operate unchecked.

PG&E, for example, is checked by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC): an independent third party that represents state and ratepayer interests in rate-cases and other regulatory proceedings.

In Palo Alto, that role is supposed to be filled by the city council, our elected representatives. However, the system is structurally flawed, as the city charges a Utility Users Tax that is based on total utility revenue collected. The council is therefore incentivized to allow rates to rise, so that the general fund receives more revenue and councilmembers can take care of their union benefactors' out of control pensions or sponsor pet projects.

The voters should look at their running 20% utility rate increases (at a time when wholesale energy is cheaper than its ever been) and demand that this anti-capatalistic, un-American, and probably illegal conflict of interest be addressed immediately by repeal the UUT.

While we're on the topic of CPA Utilities did anyone see this little gem from last week's edition of the PA Weekly?
News - Friday, August 17, 2012


"WATER SURVEY ... Residents received notices by mail last week regarding a state-mandated residential water survey to protect drinking water. The survey asks questions regarding a backflow-prevention device. To protect drinking-water quality, Palo Alto is required by state law to administer a backflow-prevention program. Residents can complete the survey online or return the form by Aug. 24. City Utilities department staff will come to properties to do an inspection if the resident does not complete the survey. The property owner will then be billed up to $250 for the cost of the inspection. Questions can be addressed by emailing the city at backflow@cityofpaloalto.org or by calling 650-496-5926. The online survey is available at www.cityofpaloalto.org/backflow."

I did not receive my letter so I can't complete the survey. Guess I and others like me will be receiving bills for $250...

The real issue is the ROI on this kind of " investment...

PV panels are still only %20 efficient. " Teakettles " ( generating plants that use a heat source to boil water and spin turbines ) are at least 40% efficient. The best CLEAN energy is from hydroelectric or thermal vents ( global warming anyone :/ ).

The other requirement is many SUNS ( Google this measurement ) for the proper working of solar ( PV ) panels to put energy back on the " grid ".

The time for PV panels is not here. When the PV panels become 40% efficient, THEN it is time to supplement & employ PV solar power.

I'm afraid that the citizens and local government were misled by some people that should lose their cushy job.

BTW, it was a course at Foothill College that clued me into the way to get the REAL numbers, not today's hype.

@ Petroleum: Not that I'm a big defender of local governments...but in this case I think you're not reading your own mail or utilities bill.

Each month we receive a utility bill that shows 12-months usage (via individual bar charts) for water, electricity and gas. Very easy to read and to make comparisons versus current usage. Further, the CPAU has made many communications that it is easy to look up and publish your own energy reports via their website.

Palo Alto Utilities really needs to be reined in. Send back your survey saying NO, you won't spend an extra dime with them for what they're calling green energy. Remind them they're providing a service that should be cost-effective.

Nor did we get a backflow water survey request in the mail. I wonder how many didn't get one? Was it possible that they were "forgotten" to allow the city to later bill the $250? Perish the thought - or not.

BP Observer. Thanks for the web site to complete the on-line survey.

> In Palo Alto, that role is supposed to be filled by the city council, our elected representatives.

This is correct, at least as far as the CA PUC claims. The Palo Alto City Charter does not make that claim. The City Charter does, however, make it a misdemeanor for a Council Member(s) to interfere in the direct operation of the government, however. The Utility is a wholly-owned operation of City Government. This makes the kind of “oversight” that the PUC is supposed to provide the commercial utility providers virtually non-existent where the Palo Alto City Council is concerned.

> However, the system is structurally flawed,

Yes, it’s flawed primarily because there are no definitions, nor checks-and-balances, included in the City Charter to provide clear boundaries for/expectations of, the Council, relative to Utility oversight. Given how complicated oversight of a Utility is, the idea that elected officials (without even the requirement of a high school education) could actual provide any oversight is laughable. The laws exempting municipal utilities from CA PUC controls should be repealed/modified to allow to require the CA PUC monitor municipals too. Selling the Utility to a commercial operator would be an even better idea, where public safety derived from oversight is concerned.

> as the city charges a Utility Users Tax that is
> based on total utility revenue collected.

The public could vote the Utility Users’ Tax out of existence. It’s just a matter of getting 1,500-3,000 signatures (more-or-less) on a petition, and then people voting in sufficient numbers to kill off this $11+M “tax” on their utility consumption.

As to the "backflow" on-line survey --

Web Link

From reading this web-page, it's not clear everyone will be getting a survey notification at the same time.

Green translates to "COSTS MORE" whether it is a Prius or solar panels. Does give 'em the "I'm rich and green and your not, peasant"
catchet.

Where do I sign the petition to roll back the utility tax? I'm sick of getting the pious little holier-than-thou mailings that show me I'm less green and energy efficient than my neighbors! Waste of my utility payment dollars!

I pay about 11.6 cents/kW-h for Palo Alto Green.
About 3.8 cents (33%) of that goes to "Distribution, 1.5 cents (13%) to PA Green, 5.6 cents (48%) to
"Commodity", and .3 cents (3%) to public benefit.
I am not sure which of these amounts to compare to what the city
proposed to buy the energy (between 12 and 14 cents/kW-h), but I guess that "Distribution" includes maintanence and admin and at least
part of it would have to be added to the buying cost.
So PA Utilities would be buying energy at higher price than it is selling it and our utility bills would go up in the short term.
However, with 10 and 20 year contracts for the rooftop solar, and the difficulty of predicting what the more coventional costs will be, it is possible that 5 or 10 years from now it will be seen as
a bargin.
The main issues to me are:
1) How much per kW-h is the additional cost now and projected into the future compared to current costs.
2) Is that additional cost worth the benefit of relatively polution
free energy?

The first question is easy to answer so somebody please do it.
The second one is open to many opinions, but depends on the first.

> However, with 10 and 20 year contracts for the rooftop solar,

Ah .. and who is going to sign these contracts .. promising to be in business in 20 years? Or even living in the same house, or living in Palo Alto 20 years from now?

How many businesses sign 20-year contracts for anything? That time frame is simply too far out.

Agree with Bob and Green Energy Professional. Let's try to get rid of UUT and ever escalating rates. I see people using very little energy and water and paying more and more because of all the fixed/ever increasing personnel costs. And I think those neighbor comparison letters are an incredible waste..they make little sense since there are vastly different numbers of people living in homes.

....thought Palo Alto residents were all in favor of outsourcing city jobs? Now that the the Palo Alto Utilities Dept. is largely outsourced to private contractors and run by unqualified managers transferred over from Public Works after the last utilities dept. scandel a couple of years ago, all of a sudden residents are complaining about the outsourced help. Guess residents (53% who are renters according to the 2010 census) just like complaining about everything and anything. What a pity!

PGE rates for electricity per kwh:
Tier 1: $0.1228
Tier 2: $0.146
Tier 3: $0.299
Tier 4: $0.339
Tier 5: $0.339

> Now that the the Palo Alto Utilities Dept. is largely
> outsourced to private contractors

Can't see any complaints about outsourcing in the reader postings on this topic. While some work has been outsourced to private sector parties, most of the head count is still City employees.

> and run by unqualified managers transferred over from
> Public Works after the last utilities dept. scandel a couple
> of years ago

And even if this were true, what evidence can you provide linking the "unqualified managers" to the topic of low public interest in local solar power generation, or to growing costs of running the Utility?

@BP Observer and other posters

Just checked the link given in BP Observer's post to City website regarding the water survey. It says there that the notice that was run in the PAWeekly was run with no consultation with the City. The survey currently being conducted is only a pilot-testing survey with a few Barron Park residents (I am not one who received a notice to participate). You would need a personal ID# to access the online survey, and you would receive that ID# in the City's letter when they mail the survey notice to you. Such a mailing will be done City-wide in months to come. So residents have not been excluded from the mailed or online survey; this time around it is merely a small pilot test involving a small sample or residents in Barron Park.

And in case anyone is wondering, I am not a fan of most of what the City does, but information in some of these posts is just plain wrong. Go to the link and see for yourself: www.cityofpaloalto.org/backflow

Orchid-fan,
I agree that the information on the city's web page is informative - now. This page has been extensively revised since Monday in response to the overload of emails that have been received by "backflow". If this info has been provided in the first place, much confusion could have been avoided.

Additionally, PaloAltoOnline revised their article under the same Aug 17 date without any acknowledgement that it was a correction/clarification or that any sort of change had been made.
Oh well - didn't cost me $250 anyway.