The Power of Community

There are many reasons to celebrate the Santa Clara community and having access to local, high quality electricity service is an important one. Every October, public power utilities, including Silicon Valley Power (SVP), celebrate Public Power Week to recognize over 2,000 utilities across the nation that are community-owned, not-for-profit organizations. Unlike other cities that have to rely on large investor-owned utilities, Santa Clara benefits from having a municipally-owned utility that cares about making our city a rewarding place to live. A local business model makes sure that customers can count on responsiveness and investments in community growth, as well as continued affordable rates ensured by our not-for-profit status.

In addition to being invested in the success of Santa Clara, our team is also a part of the community. Our local expertise allows us to create programs and services that are tailored to the needs of Santa Clara’s residents. Our initiatives include investments in free outdoor Wi-Fi throughout the city, student scholarships, and a Tool Lending Library to contribute to the growth of Santa Clara’s economy and a high quality of life for all residents.

As a public power entity, we are also able to make a direct impact on creating a sustainable future for Santa Clara. When the community began to show interest in renewable energy, we launched Santa Clara Green Power, a 100 percent green power option available to all residents and businesses. We also offer a full suite of energy efficiency rebates for residents and businesses, free home energy audits, and energy efficiency resources for our business customers to help our customers improve the comfort of their homes and facilities while saving energy and money.

Sponsoring and enjoying regular community events is another benefit to our local operations. Each year, we look forward to supporting events that allow our friends and neighbors to connect over local entertainment, such as the annual Fourth of July fireworks and the holiday tree lighting ceremony.

As your locally-owned utility and trusted energy advisor, we’re proud to play an integral role in the Santa Clara community!

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How will renewable power affect the reliability of your electricity?

‘Reliability’ describes how often power outages happen and how quickly the power comes back on. Today, Santa Clara has a high overall system reliability that is aided by our diverse power mix.

What happens when renewable power is added? For utilities and state operators, maintaining reliability will become more complex. Renewable electricity can come from small energy producers in many different locations. For instance, each home with a solar rooftop system produces energy that affects the grid. This can make planning for a steady supply of electricity difficult.

However, even with a more complex process, we will continue providing the same reliable power you expect. Our team is exploring new technologies and processes, like energy storage, that will help us adopt a cleaner power mix and maintain high‑quality service.

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the body that manages California’s electric grid, is in charge of planning how renewables will flow on the grid. CAISO is currently testing tools such as demand response, a larger regional power market to balance electricity flow and energy storage to support this increase in renewables.

Utilities will be a key part of this change. Utility employees will need to develop new skills and styles of teamwork. They will also need to use new automation tools to support renewable power and manage the flow of electricity. Operators will watch automated models, check for correctness and take over manually when needed. The process will look like a pilot flying a modern commercial plane, using automation for most of the flight.

Adopting renewables helps us secure a clean future, but the process requires a careful balance in our operations. Our team is dedicated to managing the process while focusing on our customers’ needs. Visit our website for more information on reliability and our power mix.

Santa Clara Customers Lead the Nation

Santa Clara has a higher proportion of its residents and businesses participating in a renewable energy program than most communities in the nation. While our city is known for its leadership and advancements in technology, we are also leading the path to a more sustainable future. Our Santa Clara Green Power program has once again been honored as one of the National Renewable Energy Lab’s (NREL) Top 10 utility green power programs in the nation.   

Santa Clara Green Power is a voluntary program that allows Santa Clara residents and businesses to match 100 percent of their electricity usage with solar power, 80 percent of which is sourced from California. Participation in Santa Clara Green Power has grown to 9.35 percent in 2017, indicating the rising importance of renewables to our community members. The program also achieved the second highest green power sales with a rate of 12.15 percent in 2017. As the community grows increasingly concerned about climate change, Santa Clara Green Power offers the ability for all interested customers to support renewables, opening up access to green power to customers without solar rooftop systems.   

2017 marks the twelfth year that Santa Clara Green Power has been recognized by NREL and the third consecutive year that the program has been awarded three top honors. Santa Clara has also been nationally recognized as one of the EPA’s top five Green Power Communities. Our customers continue to demonstrate Santa Clara’s future-focused outlook on energy as we integrate sustainability into our city’s everyday operations.    

We launched Santa Clara Green Power as a direct response to our customers’ desire for green power and choice in their electricity service. We are proud to offer service that is tailor-made for Santa Clara. Visit our website for more information and to sign up for Santa Clara Green Power today.  

The Power of The Geysers

The Geysers power plant

The Geysers power plant

The Geysers power plant

The Geysers steam vent

The Geysers power plant

At a facility 72 miles north of San Francisco, a powerful force deep underground is harnessed to supply almost five percent of California’s electricity. The facility, known as The Geysers, taps into a reservoir of steam over two miles below ground and turns it into usable electricity. Each year, this steam generates up to 5.5 million Megawatt-hours (MWh) of power, making The Geysers the largest geothermal field in the world. 

Luckily for Santa Clara, we have invested in this renewable, reliable power resource. Through the Northern California Power Agency (NCPA), we co-own two geothermal plants at The Geysers. Together, our plants produce up to 240 MWh of power each year – enough to power as many as 240,000 homes among our combined customers.  

How does it work? Like most geothermal plants, The Geysers collects naturally created high-pressure steam from underground “wells” and directs that steam into large turbines that turn to generate electricity. Since the flow of heat from the Earth is fairly constant, the plants are very reliable, producing steady power 24 hours a day. 

But The Geysers is even more renewable and innovative than most geothermal plants: the facility also redirects wastewater headed for a recreational lake, treats it, and adds it to the geothermal wells. Solar-powered pumps are used to move the water from the wastewater plant and up over the hill to the geothermal facility. These resourceful efforts mean that little is wasted and the positive environmental benefits are multiplied.  

The Geysers is one of the many diverse resources we use to power Santa Clara and provide carbon-free electricity to all residents. Through smart investments in innovative renewable power plants, we’re able to provide our customers with modern, affordable power solutions.

 

Cheers to cleaner power for Santa Clara in the new year!

On January 1, 2018, you’ll wake up, roll out of bed, and get ready to start your day. As you flip on the lights, you won’t feel any different. However, something will have changed. Starting in the new year, the electricity that powers your lights, your coffee maker, your morning news – your entire home – will be more sustainable.

How is that possible? We are eliminating coal power from Santa Clara’s electricity supply portfolio by divesting from our small share in a San Juan coal plant. Starting January 1, 2018, all of the electricity supplied to your home will be generated by various renewable, hydroelectric and natural gas resources. This means your carbon footprint will be reduced – without you having to change a thing. It’s that simple.

For years, we used coal power because it was reliable and affordable. However, coal contributed over half of Santa Clara’s carbon emissions from electricity use last year, while making up only 10 percent of our power mix. We knew we needed to move beyond coal in order to reach our sustainability goals.

As a community, moving away from coal will reduce our carbon footprint from electricity use by about 50 percent. This transition to cleaner energy will not only place us ahead of the City of Santa Clara’s Climate Action Plan, but it will also allow us to maintain some of the lowest electricity rates in the state. You might think that cleaner energy would be more expensive, but evolving market forces have made many of these sources more affordable. Powering our homes, businesses, and schools with cleaner energy not only makes sense for the environment, it makes economic sense, too.

We’re proud to move into the new year coal-free. Santa Clara customers who want to do more to decrease their carbon footprint can choose to sign up for our 100 percent wind and solar power option, Santa Clara Green Power.

Read the full press release on our website.

San Juan Coal Plant

 

 

Don’t Get Fooled – Our Green Power is Still the Cheapest!

You may start hearing about a new kind of electric company in the area that will claim their green power is a great deal for residents. What these “Community Choice” companies don’t say is that our 100 percent green and carbon-free program, Santa Clara Green Power, remains the lowest-cost plan in the South Bay Area. Period.

Our community is very proud that we pioneered the adoption of clean, renewable and affordable energy decades ago, and our award-winning green power program is now 13 years old. Last year, Santa Clara Green Power earned a position on the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s national top 10 listing that benchmarks green power programs.

We love new ideas that promote clean energy, but we want our customers to know that these new community choice power companies 1) do not offer electricity service in the City of Santa Clara, and 2) have rates that are higher than SVP’s for a comparable electricity product.

Take a look at the table below showing the residential green power prices proposed by one of the new companies, Silicon Valley Clean Energy compared to SVP rates, which average about 13 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for 100 percent Santa Clara Green Power.

While these new companies are giving their customers more options in the region for buying cleaner energy, which is a good thing, we are proud to be an industry leader by offering 100 percent green power at much lower rates.

The Wisdom of Wind

Wind has come a long way since the 1980s in terms of the power industry and wind power. It’s hard to believe that many of the wind turbines we put into action in 1982 were able to generate only about 100 kilowatts of energy, maybe enough to power about 36 homes when the wind was blowing at our first wind farm at Altamont Pass. Soon we will have giant turbines that can put out almost 2 megawatts (MW) of power each, enough to power 730 homes, and they’re more efficient (taking up less space for more power).

Plus they are a clean, green source of electricity.

The Altamont Pass location has changed in recent years. Towers now can be 100 feet or more in height, utilizing wind that is stronger and more consistent than breezes closer to the ground. Lattice support towers that encouraged bird nesting are being replaced by towers designed without nesting opportunities and bird collisions have been significantly reduced as modern turbine blades over 100 feet in diameter turn slower than those on older windmills.

The U.S. Department of Energy says that most windmills in the country are started when wind speeds are between 8 and 16 miles per hour and turned off when winds exceed 55 mph. Higher winds can damage the windmills, so operators remotely stop them from spinning.

Today we can generate almost 200 MW from wind for local distribution, using turbines at Altamont as well as power from wind farms in Washington and Southern California (see our energy resources map). Combining that wind energy with the electricity generated by solar, hydroelectric, geothermal and landfill gas resources, we’re able to keep our power generation for our Santa Clara customers over 40 percent carbon free.

Wind Power Winning the Day for Electricity Users

Did you know that wind power is actually considered a type of solar power by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)? 

In an explanation of how wind turbines work, the DOE points out that winds are caused by the heating of the atmosphere by the sun, the rotation of the Earth, and the Earth’s surface irregularities. Maybe we can add “earth spin power” to our list of renewable energy sources.

At SVP we have the potential use of almost 200 megawatts (MW) of peak wind power for our customers. The actual amount utilized at any one time usually depends on when and where the wind is blowing. As of Dec. 31, 2015, California had 6,108 megawatts (MW) of wind power potential, according to the DOE. The DOE states there are 74,472 megawatts of wind power capable of being generated overall in the U.S.

Wind power is here to stay, and for good reason.

So how does wind add up? The advantages as well as the challenges associated with wind power include:

• It’s a green renewable energy source. Turbines don’t emit atmospheric pollutants.
• It’s sustainable. As long as the sun shines and the wind blows, power can be harnessed and distributed to the grid.
• Wind turbines can be built on existing farms or ranches. Some of the best wind farm sites are in rural areas. Since wind turbines use very little land, farmers and ranchers can continue working their land while at the same time earning extra income from renting their land to power companies.
• Wind helps the economy and creates jobs. U.S. wind power projects in 2014 employed more than 73,000 workers and resulted in more than $8 billion of private capital entering the economy, according to the American Wind Energy Association. The DOE’s Wind Vision Report says by 2050, wind power might support more than 600,000 jobs in manufacturing, installation, maintenance, and support services.

There are also challenges for wind power.

Other sources of electricity can be cheaper than wind power. Some fossil-fueled generation sources can sometimes provide electricity more cheaply than wind farms. Also, the initial investment for wind power technology is higher than the investment needed for conventional resources.

• Rural sites are good for wind but they can be far from populations needing the electricity. This requires transmission lines to deliver the power from a remote location.
• A wind farm development might not be the most profitable use of the land. Other types of development not related to power generation may be more profitable for owners of land suitable for a wind project.
• Turbines might cause noise and aesthetic pollution. Concern exists over the noise produced by the turbine blades and visual impacts to the landscape.
• Turbine blades could damage local wildlife. There is concern about turbine blades killing and injuring birds. The Audubon Society has long supported wind power while encouraging new wind farm location parameters and continued improvement in pole design. Slower turbines, improved monitoring of bird behavior and flight paths, and sensitivity to bird migration routes have all played a role in reducing impacts of wind turbines on birds. In fact, a good portion of turbines are shut down for two months during the bird migration season at Altamont Pass, where we are also working toward replacing the smaller, faster-spinning small turbines with new large units.