By Rebecca Bowe
On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve the sale of four city-owned combustion turbines, with a final vote on the matter still pending. But an amendment to the ordinance built in some wiggle room for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to reconsider as strategies advance to shut down the Potrero power plant.
The CTs — which can be used to produce electricity during periods of peak demand — were nearly used to develop in-city electric generating facilities last year that would have replaced the existing Potrero power plant. Those plans were ultimately abandoned, the units have been sitting in storage in Texas ever since, and the Potrero plant has continued running 24/7. When Mayor Gavin Newsom introduced his interim budget in June, he included the sale of the turbines for $10 million — much lower than market value, but the maximum amount the city is entitled to under the terms of a settlement agreement that turned them over to San Francisco in 2003.
During last year’s debate over the construction of the city-owned power plants, it seemed like the city had no choice but to live with either the Potrero plant or the city-owned peaker plants in order to satisfy the requirements of the California Independent System Operator, a quasi-governmental agency that oversees the electricity grid and determines the amount of power needed to ensure reliability during worst-case scenarios. But in May, Newsom, SFPUC General Manager Ed Harrington and several others sent a letter to the Cal-ISO outlining a plan to have it both ways: They proposed closing down the entire Potrero plant and employing upgraded transmission lines, instead of in-city generation, to bridge the electricity gap.
If that plan is accepted by the Cal-ISO, all four CTs can be sold off, and the Potrero plant could finally be shut down. But whether or not the Cal-ISO is open to that idea remains up in the air.