A Grassroots Coalition Is Pushing Pasadena To Stop Getting Its Power From Coal. It Seems To Be Working

Changing where a city sources its electricity is one of the biggest actions local governments can take to reduce their planet-heating pollution. Across the Southland — and the world — city leaders are facing difficult choices to transition their energy supplies from fossil fuels such as gas and coal to renewable sources such as wind and solar.

Here in California, most cities still generate the bulk of their electricity from gas-fired power plants. Pasadena, however, is one of few California cities that still gets much of its power — in most years, nearly half — from coal, the dirtiest energy source.

For example, in 2021:

• Los Angeles got 35% of its power from renewable energy and 19% from coal
• Pasadena got about 33% of its power from renewables and more than 47% from coal
  

Successful grassroots action

That fact is what spurred a coalition of community members to push the city to transition more quickly to cleaner energy. Starting in 2018, a group of Pasadena locals from a wide variety of personal and professional backgrounds — scientists, engineers, environmentalists, data analysts, lawyers, civil rights leaders, faith leaders and more — started meeting weekly and advocating at city council meetings. They compiled research and letters from renowned Pasadena scientists, met with the city-owned utility Pasadena Water and Power, and gathered signatures from residents to urge the city to draw all of its power from more sustainable sources.

The efforts of the grassroots, volunteer coalition — called Pasadena 100 — paid off: In January, the city council of Pasadena unanimously declared a climate emergency and set a policy goal of 100% carbon-free energy by 2030.

“We're not an organization, we're just community people getting together,” said Cynthia Cannady, chairperson of the coalition. “People have power. We just need to realize it.”

But now the greater challenge remains — actually meeting that goal.

Key challenges

The reason Pasadena still runs on so much coal is because of a 40-year contract with Intermountain Power Project, a coal-fired power plant in Delta, Utah. The plant also provides power to cities including Anaheim, Burbank, Glendale, L.A. and Riverside.

Pasadena’s contract with the coal plant expires in 2025, at which point the city’s power supply switches to methane gas through 2027. The city’s utility, Pasadena Water and Power, has already said they won’t renew the contract. But the challenge is building up resources from elsewhere in the meantime.

There are some significant technical challenges, including:

• Not enough local solar or otherwise renewable energy generation.
• Still needing to run the city’s gas-fired power plant, Glenarm, which  is used to generate backup power in the case of extreme heat waves and other strains on power. 
• A bottleneck in the infrastructure that prevents the city from receiving cleaner power from neighboring power providers, such as Southern California Edison and the L.A. Department of Water and Power.
• Competition with other cities who are also trying to transition to clean power in a limited, but expanding marketplace.

A plan to transition or a “not-a-plan” plan?

In the last two years, Pasadena has spent some $700,000 on consultants to craft what’s called an Integrated Resource Plan, or IRP — a document all California cities are required to submit to the state to show how they’ll maintain electricity reliability, as well as how they’ll transition their electricity supplies in accordance with the state’s clean energy goals.

“That can either be a ‘go-through-the motions’ kind of document, or it can be a strategic plan that will really get us to where we want to go,” said Cannady, whose day job is as a lawyer working with tech companies focused on environmental and climate issues. Cannady has also served on an advisory group for the city as they worked to develop the plan.

The Pasadena 100 coalition's "Women over 60" rally at City Hall in August 2022.

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Courtesy of Pasadena 100

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The city’s Municipal Services Committee is expected to vote on a draft of the IRP on Tuesday evening. If passed, it would later go to the city council to be formally adopted, then sent to the state.

But Cannady and Pasadena 100 members want the committee to reject that plan and go back to the drawing board. They say it’s a “not-a-plan plan” because the city’s analyses have been based on extreme, unrealistic scenarios that make costs and rate increases seem higher than they should be.

In the five scenarios the city analyzed for getting to carbon-free electricity by 2030, city staff estimated electricity rates would increase by 50% to more than 100% from 2024 to 2030.

In their own analysis, Pasadena 100 estimates the rate increases would be closer to 8% to 17%, depending on the scenario.

“They've built into it the idea that the city or the ratepayers are somehow going to pay for all my neighbors to have rooftop solar,” Cannady said. “The percentages are misleading.”

Pasadena’s Vice Mayor Felicia Williams, who chairs the Municipal Services Committee, and Pasadena Water and Power declined to speak with LAist before the Oct. 10 meeting.

Higher costs, but maybe not as high as some think

Electricity rates are going up across California, even though the cost of renewable energy per kilowatt is actually cheaper than gas now. That’s largely because of volatile global gas prices and the fact that what we pay for electricity isn’t just related to the amount of energy we use.

Building the needed infrastructure to support the energy transition is also adding to our bills as the state struggles more broadly to overhaul rate structures to alleviate that impact.

But Cannady — and electricity rate experts — say the increasing burden of electricity bills can be offset by robust programs to support low- and middle-income households.

“There are ways to mitigate that cost,” Cannady said. “You're going to have to pay for it anyway, it's just a matter of when you do it.”

Electricity providers are mandated by state law to transition their energy to cleaner sources.

Councilmember Jason Lyon, who serves on the city’s Municipal Services Committee, told LAist the city is lagging on its efforts to support low- and middle-income families in the energy transition.

“Right now we have a flat rate subsidy that we offer to people who qualify — a $10 discount which is not so helpful,” Lyon said. “We need something that's much more robust, much more responsive to the particular needs of that ratepayer. And then, when we do that, we have to figure out how to balance those costs. The next thing we need to do is take a deep dive into our rate structure.”

Lyon said the cost can often push a practical conversation about the technical challenges of transitioning a city’s energy supply into the political realm.

“The politics will come up mostly around cost and perceived cost and my approach to that is going to be pragmatic,” he said.

“I think we probably can weather, as a community, some rate increase, but there are many people in our community who are just barely making ends meet," he said.

"While we're working on the climate change problem, we're also working on the cost of housing that is rapidly pushing out everybody from the middle class down out of Pasadena. So we have to be mindful of that in all of this and try to balance these goals.”

What’s next

The city’s Municipal Services Committee is expected to vote on the draft IRP at its 4 p.m. meeting on Tuesday. If passed, it would go to the city council likely in early November. The IRP must be submitted to the state no later than Dec. 31.

The Pasadena 100 coalition is hoping the city rejects the IRP draft and starts again, with more transparency on data for rate increases. They’re calling for, among other things:

• A more actionable plan to be submitted to Council no later than March 2024, even if this IRP is approved.
• An actionable plan to double the city's rooftop and local solar generation.
• A time frame for closing the city’s Glenarm gas-fired power plant.
• Help offsetting the burden of the transition on ratepayers by taking full advantage of federal clean energy funding.
• Aggressively improving education and outreach to help make the process smoother for people interested in rooftop solar.
• An immediate start of acquiring battery storage and commitment to doubling rooftop solar on residential, commercial and city buildings by 2030. 
• A doubling down on developing robust programs and education outreach to get low- and middle-income homes access to rooftop and community solar, as well as improved rate equity programs.