California leads the US in deploying smaller renewable power systems.  The economics are shifting to make the smaller systems cost competitive with the large “utility-scale” generators that have long dominated the power grid. Global market trends now favor decentralized renewable energy deployment, featuring thousands and even millions of individual renewable generators and energy storage devices. 

This transformation is forming the basis of a 21st century electricity system that will be increasingly decentralized, enabling local jurisdictions like Davis to have great flexibility.  We’ll be able to determine our sources and uses of energy so as to achieve our sustainability goals while keeping energy costs affordable. 

Terrorist attacks in Paris.  Climate talks in Paris.  Which got saturation level media coverage?  The terrorist attacks, of course.  They were about life and death. 

And yet, so were the climate talks.  A lot more lives.  A lot more deaths.  Just not good fodder for action movies and the daily news cycle.

What I know about the Paris conference I learned from colleagues who participated. 

Utility contractual obligations to independent generation project owners must be honored and/or renegotiated.  Unlike other states, California allows its incumbent for profit utilities to impose “exit fees” on electricity users switching to community choice energy service.  In northern California, these fees now add 25% to the cost of newly purchased renewable electricity. 

We immediately notice, not one integrated project, but a lot, hundreds, thousands, of aspirational initiatives scattered about.  Generally, they aim to reduce “carbon footprints”.  For example, some California jurisdictions and agencies have goals to achieve some dimension of “carbon neutrality” by 2050, e.g. in the electricity sector.  Many local California jurisdictions have “climate action plans” targeting vehicle miles traveled and other transportation metrics.  In the buildings sector, California is working on “net zero” standards that would be applied to new residential buildings as soon as 2020. 

Last year the Davis City Council funded work to evaluate the city's long-term electricity service options.  The matter was tabled as the June election drew near.  Then this summer the city commissioned a resident satisfaction survey that, among other questions, asked if the city should form a municipal utility and purchase PG&E’s distribution system.[1] 46.5 percent of respondents said yes, 34.5 percent said no, and 19 percent were undecided. This result suggests it is time to resume serious public discussion of Davis’s energy future, based on relevant factual information and insights.

Some friends and I recently had a conversation about the future of a volunteer group we helped create.  We are concerned about environmental issues, and our group is part of a larger organization that has a much broader and diverse set of concerns.  So, how to proceed?  Advocate for specific action on specific issues, and someone in the larger group is inevitably going to see the issue another way.  Busy ourselves with innocuous individual good-doing, and the group loses cohesion if not a reason to exist.

I offered an observation that might be a good guideline if judiciously applied.  My friend, Mike Eckhart, created and developed the American Council on Renewable Energy into a broad based and politically potent coalition.  He led the effort according to a principle which flies in the face of our gut political instincts. 

Ten years ago, Susan Davis introduced me to the notion of “both/and”, or “both…and”.  It may be a measure of cultural imprinting, or a slow paced intellect, that it took me some time to grasp the full meaning.  “Both, and…” says don’t settle for the best of both sides of an either/or choice; rather recognize that there are other best sides to incorporate as well.  It is another way of saying, “You are both right”, an observation Solarex CEO, Harvey Forest, was fond of making in the midst of heated debates among his management team members.  But it goes further.  It is essentially a call to integrate, not differentiate.  Not surprisingly, you’ll find the call pervasive in Buddhist teaching, and in some Christian teaching as well, as in “We are many parts; we are all one body.”