This morning at a press conference on the living roof of the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco’s Mayor Ed Lee announced that the city has achieved several key sustainability targets. Foremost, the city has achieved emissions 12% below 1990 Kyoto target levels, beating the state of California’s own goal by 9 years. For next year, the City of San Francisco has the goal of having total emissions that are 20% below Kyoto levels. Despite the growing population and increased energy use, Mayor Lee said that the City can achieve this by being smarter, less wasteful, and more innovative – good policies will be essential to achieving these goals. Go Solar SF, the San Francisco grant program that has helped more than 2,500 homes and businesses install solar over the past 3 years.
The Mayor spoke on the green living roof of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, a building that only 3 weeks ago became the largest LEED double Platinum building in the world.
Mother Espanola Jackson talks with Mayor Ed Lee about Luminalt’s donated installation at her church in the Bayview 
Mayor Lee spoke to the continued dedication of community leaders like Mother Espanola Jackson, who several years ago led the fight to shut down the PG&E power plants in her neighborhood of Bayview-Hunter’s Point. Last year, Luminalt installed free solar on her church, Grace Tabernacle, donating labor, materials, and training to the community group. Reverend Jackson of Grace Tabernacle called it a “ridiculous blessing” when a Luminalt client anonymously donated the panels and inverters to the church.
In anticipation of President Obama’s visit to San Francisco next weekend, Mayor Lee said that he intends to make San Francisco the electric vehicle capital of the world. Beyond his driving a Chevy Volt, Mayor Lee has begun installing free charging stations around the city that draw from Hetch Hetchy hydropower. You can read more about how Luminalt’s customers are pairing solar with electric vehicles in this case study with Golden Gate Electric Vehicle Association VP Jason Jungreis.
Here, another Luminalt customer performs a cost-benefit analysis on charging his EV with solar.
As a follow up to his recent announcement that PACE funds will be available to commercial buildings, Mayor Lee also announced a new madnate that will require large commercial buildings to have energy efficiency analyses to measure how they can reduce their emissions.