Keep The Lights On-Ukiah
The purpose of this project is to make Ukiah power-down resilient. PG&E public safety power shutoff creates economic losses. Local power production is part of the solution to both local outages and the climate crisis.
The challenge
Power shutdowns create economic losses
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- Businesses lose money
- People lose wages
- Medical needs go unmet
- Food is wasted
- The City loses millions of dollars
- In 2019 the 4-day outage cost Ukiah $8 million
The solution
Local Solar Power and Battery Storage
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- Part of the daily power production
- Cost competitive as fossil fuel prices inflate
- State mandates complete decarbonization by 2045
- Even a partial system provides emergency power resilience
Talk about it
As awareness of the accelerating climate crisis grows, we need to build public support for local power decarbonization. Tell everyone about this project. By spreading the word and building momentum, we can encourage our city leaders to make Ukiah a power resilient reality.
Possible Funding Sources
- Institutional Investment funds
- Power purchase construction companies
- Federal and State grants
- City Bonding authority
Since This Video
This video was made shortly before the pandemic hit, which put an end to all public meetings and activism. Since then, the climate crisis has accelerated, and is impacting the economy in new ways. The fire season in California has gotten longer, and the scale of the fires continues to increase. 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded, and 2024 is already hotter. Fire insurance is more expensive, and becoming unavailable in places. The State of California has set a goal of complete decarbonization of the economy by 2045, removing all carbon dioxide emissions. All electrical power providers have been directed to increase production by a factor of 3, and all of it must be produced from non carbon sources. As a step toward this goal, the Northern California Power Authority (NCPA), Ukiah’s power provider, has directed Ukiah to produce an additional 15% of our needs from local renewable generation. One of the benefits of this will be increased power resiliency in emergencies, as having some power is much better than having none at all. This will be disruptive, and expensive, but "business as usual" risks collapse of the entire economy.