To maximize clean energy job creation, Governor Brown has called for 12,000 megawatts of clean local energy to be installed in California communities by 2020. 

Learn about the guiding policy principles of the Campaign here.

CLEAN California Benefits:

A CLEAN Program tailored for California will maximize clean energy job creation, save money for ratepayers, create new revenue streams for community members, attract billions of private investment dollars, boost state and local government budgets, and accelerate the development of California’s clean energy economy.  Benefits include:

• Creating more clean energy jobs in the state faster than any other plan for meeting our renewable energy targets.  A UC Berkeley study led by Professor Dan Kammen found that a CLEAN program would create three times more jobs than the state’s current plan for meeting its renewable energy goals.  “A CLEAN Program will give new companies like Sol Orchard the market certainty to rapidly install more clean energy projects and hire more workers in local communities,” said Jeff Brothers, President of Sol Orchard. 
  
  
• Boosting clean energy development to a scale that attracts technology, manufacturing and assembly businesses, stimulating up to $50 billion in additional private investment according to the UC Berkeley study by Kammen.
  
  
• Making it easier for property owners to site projects, enter into power sales contracts with utilities, and connect projects to the grid.   As a result, it will also be much easier finance clean local energy projects.  CLEAN California will raise property values and give property owners the opportunity to tap a new source of cash flow by developing clean energy projects or leasing space to developers.  Learn why the Los Angeles Business Council, a CLEAN California Partner, is leading the charge for a CLEAN LA Program here.
  
  
• Creating local opportunities taking advantage of local energy resources.  “A CLEAN California Program will give Harvest the opportunity to develop more projects that transform organic wastes into clean, renewable biogas by making the process of contracting, financing, and interconnecting projects more predictable and reasonable,” said Paul Sellew, CEO of Harvest Power, Inc. and a founding member of the American Biogas Council. 
  
  
• Avoiding the costs of long-distance transmission of energy, including billions of dollars for new transmission lines, transmission access charges, and energy lost while traveling along transmission lines.  Transmission line losses range between 7.5% and 14% in California.  For example, the municipal utility for the City of Palo Alto calculates that transmission costs currently add roughly 1.8 cents/kWh.
  
  
• Protecting communities from rising fossil fuel costs by locking in reasonable electricity rates.  During the first few years, a robust CLEAN Contracts Program may result in a small rate increase for community members.  For example, the City of Gainesville, Florida, achieved a 2000% increase in solar capacity with a rate impact of less than 1% over the first two and a half years of its CLEAN Program.  However, within a few years, fossil fuel rates generally begin to rise above fixed CLEAN Contract rates.
  
  
• Increasing state and local government budgets by keeping energy dollars in our communities.  A CLEAN California Program would increase direct state revenues by more than $2 billion according to the UC Berkeley study by Kammen.
  
  
• CLEAN Programs not only protect our families from the health effects of dirty energy, but also encourage the development of an energy infrastructure that can keep our communities safer in the event of earthquakes, terrorist attacks, and other disasters.  Jim Woolsey, the former Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, points out that our transmission grid vulnerability is a national security issue that can be addressed with CLEAN Programs.
  
  
• Accelerating the development of our clean energy economy.  CLEAN Programs—also known as “standard offer” or “feed-in tariff” programs —are the most successful clean energy market creator in the world.  The US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab estimated that these programs are responsible for 45 percent of all wind energy and 75 percent of all solar photovoltaic capacity installed before 2008.  Read the Center for American Progress report on CLEAN Contracts here.