California is facing twin challenges: an outdated, unreliable electrical grid and a race against the clock to transition away from the fossil fuels driving the climate crisis. 

Heatwaves, wildfires, and power outages are alarm bells highlighting the need to invest now in a Grid for the Future. That means a totally new electricity system, built from the bottom up, based on community-driven, clean energy microgrids.

Microgrids can help prevent blackouts by reducing the electrical load on the broader grid when needed. The massive battery capacity in our electric cars and trucks can provide backup power during climate disasters. And deploying solar plus battery storage across the state can help communities take back control over their power.

Our Plan

When local governments, businesses, and community-based organizations come together, they can craft energy resilience plans to help keep the lights on. We’re advocating at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the state legislature to update fee structures, tariffs, rules, and standards to open the electricity market to innovation and progress. 

The result will be thousands of small-scale, distributed energy resources that can provide cleaner, more reliable energy and create thousands of jobs across California. 

With one million solar roofs and one million electric vehicles (and counting) to start with, California has a huge opportunity to show what a clean, 21st-century power system could look like. Fossil fuels are our past. Clean, affordable, reliable, equitable, and safe energy is our future.

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