Gavin Newsom

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom said something that caught my ear: San Francisco is going to adopt Berkeley’s innovative financing program to fund not only rooftop solar (as Berkeley does) but other distributed generation and energy efficiency projects.

That is excellent stuff. Hopefully SF can pull it off successfully and influence other cities to follow suit.

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UPDATE: Newsom says SF’s program will expand Berkeley’s “exponentially.” Instead of a couple million, $20-$30 million will be available. A huge list of energy generation and efficiency projects, everything from geothermal to boiler replacement. Says the program will kick off April 5.

UPDATE2: Correction to the above: the program does not kick off April 5. Banks will have final proposals in to the city on April 1, GreenNetand the city will have a better idea of the scope of the program by April 5. The program itself will start, presumably, shortly thereafter. Here’s the press release.

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