It’s been a rough year for planet Earth.
Worldwide carbon dioxide emissions in 2024 reached 37.4 billion metric tons—surpassing the previous record set in 2023.
Last year, global average temperatures exceeded the 20th century average by 2.3 degrees.
In fact, 2024 was the warmest year on record.
Even with the successes clean energy agencies like Sonoma Clean Power have achieved over the past 10 years, their tasks ahead have never been more daunting, nor the stakes higher.
Still, the promise of renewable energy seems boundless. From the ongoing completion of solar and wind projects to the newfound popularity of electric cars to the potential of new geothermal technologies, it’s an exciting time to be in the renewable energy business.
Geof Syphers, CEO of Sonoma Clean Power, says part of the agency’s first 10 years has been about setting the groundwork for the decades to come. “The past decade was about financing the construction of new wind, solar and battery projects,” Syphers says. The next decade, he says, will have a focus on building new geothermal power. “New geothermal technology allows us to recycle water in a loop and extract heat from the ground to make power, but it will also allow us to stop paying natural gas power plants to keep the lights on at night.”
Syphers says one of the most valuable power sources locally are the geysers. “When you buy solar and wind, it only runs when the sun shines and the wind blows,” he explains. “So you always have to pay for a share of a natural-gas-fired power plant—that’s getting very expensive.”
Geothermal, on the other hand, runs all the time—and having a broad mix of power sources is vital for affordability, he says.
That focus on affordability will continue to be a priority for Sonoma Clean Power in the coming years. Syphers says SCP plans to step up its advocacy before the state public utilities commission and monitor any PG&E rate increases for errors. “We want to be sure rate payers are only paying what they should be paying,” he says.
Another component of sustainability SCP is focused upon is one of mindset—changing the narrative of how climate progress is viewed. As the agency describes in its decade-anniversary book, 10 Electric Years, changing the narrative is about “focus[ing] on impacts, not technologies.”
“We have never said a technology, or an incentive, is going to solve a problem—we try to find the absolute goal,” Syphers says. As an example, electric vehicles are a means toward decreasing the burning of fossil fuels, but they’re not the goal itself. Syphers adds, “We can promote electric cars while recognizing that they still cause traffic, cost too much and need exotic materials like lithium to build. That means we’re also advocating for bicycling, transit and other solutions to the same problem.”
While climate progress can seem at times overwhelming—with goals penciled out years and decades ahead—clean power agencies can also focus on their communities here and now. They can simultaneously set sights on challenges to the grid in 2050, as well as meet the needs of communities each and every day. Part of that is through education and outreach, says Syphers. SCP partners with schools, teaching about 6,000 elementary students a year about renewable energy and conservation, while encouraging young people to consider careers in clean-energy fields. “We’re thinking generationally,” Syphers says.
Part of that ongoing outreach is about being available to the community in times of need. One memorable example took place during the holidays in 2021, when local residents were still cautious about community gatherings following a year of pandemic social distancing. Not wanting families to miss another year of seasonal fun, SCP proposed a partnership with the Redwood Ice Theatre Company and Snoopy’s Home Ice to host a weekend of free outdoor holiday skating shows at the Santa Rosa skating facility.
“Along comes Sonoma Clean Power looking for a special project for the community,” says Tamara Stanley, general manager of Snoopy’s, about the inspiration for the holiday shows. Together with SCP’s marketing director Kate Kelly and Redwood Ice Theatre Company director Carmen Mitchell, they planned a free weekend of outdoor shows that would become a yearly tradition.
“It was fantastic,” says Stanley. “Thank goodness they decided they wanted to do it again.” Audiences have responded enthusiastically, with subsequent years attracting north of 200 attendees per show—kids sit upfront in the red-carpeted “kids zone” and the event includes cocoa, SCP giveaways and a T-shirt canon for Snoopy shirts.
Stanley sees it as another example of SCP’s community-minded ethos, noting the agency has also recently opened up its downtown-Santa Rosa Customer Center for nonprofit gatherings.
“They’re always looking for the ‘yes,’” Stanley says about SCP. “It’s such a generous thing, for people in this community to have that. We’re lucky.”