Oh, how I wish that the SF Public Utilities Commission meetings brought me to such a brink…
Not so much. But as far as the peaker power plants are concerned there were some interesting developments today. Mayor Gavin Newsom is definitely playing the white knight in this scenario, and he’s now brokering a deal in which the city fronts all the money to build the power plant, skirting the public-private partnership deal that’s been floated to date. According to Jesse Blout, from the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the city will now be issuing debt to finance the peaker plants and own them outright, rather than have the private company, JPower, act like they own them for 13 years and then hand them over to the city.
In this new deal JPower still operates and manages the three combustion turbines that will be sited in the city. (The airport CT will still be built, owned, and operated by JPower for 30 years before it’s turned over to the city, in order for them to make some $$$) The diff is that the city will own the Potrero plants straight-up, bypassing any sketchy loss of control or assets through the convolutions of a public-private partnership.
The PUC unanimously passed a really wordy resolution on all of this, and also asked Blout to check in with them every couple weeks to make sure all is on track. Blout, meanwhile, promised us a signing ceremony on an agreement that Mirant will shutter as soon as their contract is pulled and given to the city’s power plant instead.