LAFCO presents preliminary city department renewable-energy assessment and recommends a centralized tracking system

At the April 16 commission meeting, Executive Officer Brian Gobel presented a preliminary snapshot of renewable-energy activity across San Francisco city departments and recommended the city consider a centralized system to track and accelerate municipal projects.

Gobel said the survey was "scratching the surface" and noted responses varied by department, with SFPUC, SFO and SFMTA among the most active. He described SFPUC’s distributed-energy resource team developing two to three small-to-mid-size solar retrofit projects per year — projects expected to be owned and operated by SFPUC — and listed projects in development at locations including Ninth Street (San Francisco Public Library building), Garfield Pool, southeast health center and several SFUSD schools.

Gobel said SFO is pursuing net-zero energy, carbon and waste goals, commissioning studies for photovoltaics and battery storage and considering additional microgrids. SFMTA is planning facility upgrades to support nonrevenue fleet electrification and long-term battery-electric bus deployment. The Department of Emergency Management has a pending solar request for its main facility and has procured solar generators for the food bank.

The Department of Environment chairs a municipal green buildings task force that is updating green-building energy requirements, including whether new municipal buildings should be storage-ready and whether critical facilities should be battery-ready. Gobel concluded the presentation by recommending the commission and city consider a system to catalog citywide renewable-energy projects and pursue aggregated procurement where feasible to reduce cost and speed deployment.

Commissioners expressed support for further reporting and asked counsel about LAFCO’s authority to request reports from other departments. Counsel said LAFCO can request documentation but that mandating production across city departments would require action by the Board of Supervisors; LAFCO can, however, work collaboratively to establish reporting relationships.

Next steps: Gobel said he will continue outreach to city departments to assemble a more complete inventory and will return to LAFCO with a more detailed plan and recommended reporting cadence.