30 years ago, Mayor Tom Bradley recommended that “The DWP should pay the highest justifiable cost for surplus power generated by its customers who invest in solar electric systems.”  Nothing happened.

14 years ago, Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and DWP General Manager David Freeman committed to “100,000 rooftop photovoltaic systems…by the year 2010.”  

LADWP’s mission is to provide clean, reliable water and power in a safe, environmentally responsible and cost-effective manner with excellent customer service to the communities we serve. Their vision is to be a world-class publicly-owned integrated utility, innovatively transformed to provide sustainable water and power to a green, robust and prosperous city. How they do this is in their plan. See https://www.piersystem.com/external/content/document/1643/280504/1/LADWP%20Strategic%20Planning.pdf

LADWP has had 6 General Managers in the past 4 years (9 in the past 10 years) which clearly shows that the Mayor and City Council do not and can not manage LADWP. Instead, LADWP career bureaucrats manage to keep the lights on and the water flowing and rates low while adding $200 million annually to the City General Fund. However, they do not support customer-owned renewable energy distributed generation beyond the legal mandate. They listen politely and follow their plan. So if you want LADWP to change their plan, then change the law.

Esteemed CLEAN LA Solar Coalition members and Solar Feed-in Tariff advocates,

Outcome of 11/2 City Council FIT hearing:

 The 11/2 hearing was a success in that each of the coalition members and FIT advocates had the opportunity express their grievances with the LADWP 6MW solar demonstration program in front of the entire Los Angeles City Council. And…the Councilmembers heard you loud and clear as expressed best when Council President Eric Garcetti recognized our “unparalleled coalition!”

 We will head back in the City Council Energy and Environment Committee (E2) on December 1st at 9am. E2 Chairwoman Perry has promised to address the following issues on 12/1:

  • establishing a fixed price or at least a floor for the demonstration program and the 75MW FIT program
  • streamlining the application
  • eliminating administrative overhead
  • implementation timeline for 75MW