Arguably the largest long-term threat to Fairfax is climate change, a slow-moving freight train that is bearing down on us with flooding, wildfire, impacts to agriculture and the natural world. Globally we need to stop extracting ancient carbon from the ground and use current sunlight and wind as our primary energy sources.

It is easy to be discouraged with the speed of this transition, but we are fortunate to live in a state that is leading the world in proving it can be done; in a county that has been a leader, and a town that has led within the county. Drawing on my experience in the energy arena, I will describe some of the good news: indeed we are well on the way to local clean energy supplying all our needs.

First, we created MCE – our Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) – by a countywide vote in 2008. MCE was the first CCA in the state beginning with only 8 jurisdictions, and its mission is to provide electricity to us as an alternative to investor owned utilities like PG&E. MCE, which now includes Napa, Solano and Contra Costa Counties, both purchases renewable electricity (building the market so this generation gets built) and invests in locally-owned renewable generation (such as Solar One, a large solar field built atop a brownfield next to the Chevron refinery). MCE advocates for legislation that accelerates the energy transition, and provides many programs for consumers to help with efficiency and save cost, and is quite strong on making this an equitable transition. We are incredibly fortunate that our electricity provider is open to our participation, with its Board made up of representatives of the jurisdictions it serves rather than representing the shareholders of a private utility.

MCE has proven that the energy transition need not break the bank – rates are lower than PG&E while energy is far cleaner. MCE’s success has led to CCAs forming across the state, for example Sonoma Clean Power and Peninsula Clean Energy in neighboring counties. The cycle of creating economic demand for renewable energy, leading to falling prices, leading to greater demand as renewables become cheaper than fossil fuel generation, has moved rapidly. Here is what a typical day this year looks like statewide!

This shows one day this year on the statewide electrical grid – a day like this was newsworthy only a few years ago, and inconceivable before that, but is now absolutely typical for much of the year. Renewable, clean energy, mostly from solar, wind and water, provides all of the state’s electricity during the daytime, and as solar tapers off at night wind and water carry a good portion of the nighttime load. Battery and other storage is charged up during the day and helps with the nighttime load.

The red “demand” line is actually the net demand after yet more solar, that on rooftops of our houses, reduces the electricity needed by households or provides power back to the grid. The white areas left under the demand curve are supplied by gas-fired power plants and Diablo Canyon nuclear (again this is statewide data: MCE does not purchase nuclear power, and Diablo Canyon will be decommissioned by 2030).

Offshore wind in particular is being added to the mix, which tends to complement solar by generating power during the morning and evening peaks, at nighttime and during storms. Storage of all kinds will continue to bridge the gaps, along with load-shifting. We’re lucky to live in California, where we have the resources, the vision and the political will to show what can be done!

One huge form of storage is in the batteries of electric vehicles. A car is typically parked 95% of the time, and if it can be plugged into a bidirectional charger the owner could set it to sell electricity back to the grid during peak demand, creating income for the owner and adding stability to the grid. Other ways we as consumers can participate are to shift our usage away from the peak times – setting the dishwasher and laundry, and EV chargers, to run during off-peak hours. MCE has numerous programs to incentivize this load-shifting, but it starts with signing up for a time-of-use rate plan so we pay far less for electricity off-peak than during the evening peak hours from 4-9pm. If you have an EV, you qualify for a rate plan that costs half as much for off-peak power as during peak times.

There is so much more to say about the energy transition, and about how we can reduce Greenhouse Gas production and waste – but here I’ve tried to make it clear that transition from extracting and burning fossil fuels to generating electricity cleanly and renewably is not a distant dream, but a very present success. A world in which we no longer need to destroy wild places or wreck cultures and countries with our extraction of fossil fuels is no longer a far-off dream, but a growing reality.

Fairfax has long been a leader, including installing a large solar array on the Pavilion in 2009, upgrading all five of our water heaters to heat-pump, replacing the Women’s Club kitchen stove with induction and the ancient heater with a heat-pump HVAC system than can both heat and cool, electrifying the town vehicles as they are replaced, and ongoing work in the Pavilion. Most of this work was grant funded.

As residents and businesses, we can electrify our appliances and cars to use clean electricity and shift loads to times when energy is more available. The Town web site provides a list of incentives for doing this. We can take full advantage of our world-class waste hauler, Marin Sanitary, by putting all our kitchen waste into the green bins and recycling everything possible – and by working to cut waste and unnecessary consumption. Obviously I’m passionate about these opportunities and the explosion of new technologies, so let me know when you’d like to talk!