SFPUC Wants to Run the Grid—But Can’t Keep the Lights on for 0.1% of It
If SFPUC Can’t Power 125 Buildings
SFPUC Can’t Power a City
Why SFPUC’s Public Power Ambitions Collapse Under the Weight of Treasure Island’s Reality
For anyone watching the PublicPowerSF campaign with cautious optimism, I’d ask you to take a closer look at the only place in San Francisco where the City already has full control over the electrical grid: Treasure Island.
This isn't a theoretical argument or a philosophical debate about clean energy or local control. This is a case study with decades of real-world data, broken promises, and lived consequences. It’s a pilot program that should have been a proof of concept—and instead, it’s a glaring warning sign.
What’s Happening on Treasure Island?
Treasure Island's legacy housing community is small, tightly defined, and long-neglected. It consists of approximately 500 housing units, spread across about 125 buildings, home to around 2500 residents. These buildings, many of them relics from previous military use, house families who’ve weathered decades of environmental uncertainty, redevelopment displacement, and deteriorating infrastructure.
When it comes to electricity, there’s no ambiguity about who’s responsible: SFPUC (San Francisco Public Utilities Commission) has full control over the island’s electrical infrastructure. PG&E isn’t involved here. This is 100% the City’s domain.
And yet—power is unreliable. Outages are frequent. Voltage is unstable. Temporary fixes are more common than long-term upgrades. Residents routinely lose appliances to power surges. And after all this time, there’s still no sense of urgency or transparency from the agency tasked with keeping the lights on.
The failures aren’t hypothetical—they’re documented in internal reports and community complaints going back over 20 years. Despite knowing the problems, SFPUC continues to delay or sidestep meaningful investment in a place they’ve already claimed responsibility for.
Now Compare That to the Rest of San Francisco
San Francisco, as a whole, contains over 410,000 residential units, more than 120,000 buildings, and a population of roughly 875,000 people. And the electrical grid that supports all of that complexity? It’s currently run by PG&E—a utility with its own set of well-known issues, but one that still manages to deliver baseline power across a massive and dense urban environment.
The Treasure Island legacy grid, by contrast, supports less than 0.1% of San Francisco’s population, in a fraction of a percent of its buildings. It’s an island—geographically contained, with no industrial load, no large-scale commercial centers, no complex high-rise electrical requirements. And yet, SFPUC has never been able to consistently make it work.
So the question becomes inescapable: If an agency can’t manage electricity for 500 homes, how can they credibly ask to manage electricity for over 400,000?
The Numbers Tell a Story
Treasure Island isn’t some marginal case—it’s the only area where the City already exercises full authority over electrical service. That makes it the test case. The pilot program. The one real-world environment where we can see what “public power” looks like when SFPUC is in charge.
And that picture is not good.
It’s a place where families have learned not to trust the lights will stay on, where appliances are fried by faulty surges, and where repairs feel reactive rather than proactive. All while the agency sets its sights on citywide control—without ever fixing what’s right in front of them.
The Legal and Ethical Fault Line
SFPUC’s push for citywide control of the electrical grid isn’t just a bold policy initiative—it’s a massive infrastructure gamble. Under California Government Code §4217.12, any public utility looking to expand its reach must first demonstrate its technical and financial feasibility.
Treasure Island is the proof. And the proof is failing.
Moreover, California Public Utilities Code §451 states that all utility services must be “just and reasonable.” Can anyone look at the last 20+ years of Treasure Island’s electrical instability and say that standard is being met?
If this were a private utility, the complaints would be headline news. But because it’s public? The issues are easier to bury—unless we name them, document them, and confront them head-on.
Public Power Without Public Accountability Isn’t Progress
Let’s be clear: I support the principles behind public power. Local control. Climate action. Equitable service. But principles mean nothing if they’re not rooted in actual performance—and SFPUC has not earned the trust required for this scale of responsibility.
You don’t get to run the grid for a city of nearly a million people if you’ve spent decades failing to serve 500 families on an island you already control. That’s not caution—it’s common sense.
What Needs to Happen Before Any Expansion
Independent Audit: An objective, third-party review of SFPUC’s performance on Treasure Island must be conducted and made public.
Mandatory Infrastructure Upgrades: The legacy grid on Treasure Island must be modernized and stabilized before any expansion plan proceeds.
Transparent Public Disclosure: All PublicPowerSF https://www.publicpowersf.org/document-library campaign materials should acknowledge and address current service failures, not hide them.
Resident Oversight: Communities already affected by mismanagement must have a seat at the table—not just as data points, but as decision-makers.
Final Word: This Is the Sandbox, and It’s on Fire
Treasure Island was the sandbox. It was the small, controlled environment where SFPUC had every opportunity to prove they could manage a local grid. Instead, they’ve spilled the juice, scorched the sand, and left the kids in the dark.
That’s not a foundation for citywide leadership. That’s a red flag waving in broad daylight.
If public power is going to work in San Francisco, it has to start with real accountability—and that begins with confronting the truth about Treasure Island.