Should the three public school districts join this JPA? What would Julie Muir say (Stanford University's Zero Waste Manager and an active MVWSD parent)?
PPSSI Web Link

Stanford Magazine article Web Link

Should the MVWSD put this JPA item onto their discussion agenda?

Trustee Steven Nelson attended John Muir elementary, Glendale CA, which was also the alma mater of his father. My understanding is that Julie Muir has no connection to the founder of the Sierra Club, which supports this type of 'green' initiative.

What's the advantage of the community approach vs PG&E's Solar Choice? Is it just a matter of being opt-in by default or are there other considerations? I'd expect that PG&E has better negotiating power than local cities, and without the extra overhead of an independent organization, although maybe community choice could be more aggressive at expanding renewable power vs relying on PG&E.

Is rooftop solar part of the mix for a partnership like this? A while ago my family looked into getting solar. It turned out our electric bill is too low for it to be worthwhile. Also, when you get rooftop solar, the installer puts in a number of panels to match your usage.

Why not go beyond "net metering" and max out the number of panels and sell the excess energy? I know grid storage is a problem, but it seems like generating too much electricity is a good problem to have...

Rooftop Solar: My understanding is that PG&E pays a lot less for its own solar power than it does for solar power it buys (because it has to) from individual customers' roofs, i.e., to make your idea work, what PG&E pays for rooftop solar would go down pretty dramatically. That said, it could still be a good idea from the customer's point of view.

On the other hand, as the cost of solar power continues to go down, and the cost of solar power batteries begins to fall into attractive price ranges, disconnecting your home from the grid may become financially attractive. I understand it is already a winner in high-price markets like Hawaii.

This program is being promoted as a clean energy alternative. They are only moving energy around unless they themselves create new clean energy sources.

Thanks Doug, you are definitely right about the prices PG&E pays. Net metering is great for consumers but bad for PG&E if applied to widely. But this is why I would love to see an option that goes beyond paying for energy from a specific source-- that just frees up the fossil fuel-based energy for someone else to use. And I think a huge piece of the puzzle is rooftop solar.

Houses in this area use on average < 1 kWh of power-- one kilowatt-hour is easily enough to power your lights, TV/stereo, fridge, internet, and small appliances at the same time. For example an LED light uses < 10 watts, so you could power 100 lights with 1 kWh. A new 60-inch TV uses ~80 watts, so you could power 12.5 of them.

Our 1200sqft house could EASILY fit enough cells for 5 kW of capacity. Conservatively, 25% of houses with solar could cover an entire neighborhood. The cost for installation at that size is listed at $13,000 after rebates/credits. From there, if we had proper storage (and this is the big "if"), we would have free electricity for an estimated 20 years.

So, my question is, what would it take to get organized about blanketing Mountain View with rooftop solar, and to go beyond sizing each roof for that house's utilization? Obviously and unfortunately, it requires a lot of upfront capital for the installation and storage, but the net savings are off the charts. We could truly be a model for the region, state, and country.

Sources:
Average energy usage for California homes: Web Link
Rooftop solar capacity and cost, via Google's Project Sunroof: Web Link