City Leaders Tout RePower LA's Energy Efficiency Programs

On Monday, September 17, RePower LA will be joined by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Council members, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power general manager Ron Nichols, and others at the site of a South L.A. home undergoing an energy efficiency upgrade.

City leaders are now touting the programs, initially proposed by the RePower LA coalition, which are upgrading small business facilities and the homes of those struggling in the current economy. The customers reduce their energy use and save money, L.A. reduces its reliance on dirty coal-fired power plants, and members of our hardest-hit communities are able to access good career path jobs through the Utility Pre-Craft Trainee program of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 18.

With such win-win-win potential, it is good to see LADWP and city leaders embracing energy efficiency as a central pillar of L.A.’s future.

Writing in a Daily News op-ed, Kristin Eberhardt of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Evan Gillespie of the Sierra Club, both RePower LA partners, laid out a plan for LADWP to meet future demand with cleaner energy. Their recommendations would move Los Angeles away from coal power and toward renewables. And Number One on their agenda is energy efficiency — “the cleanest, cheapest local energy resource available,” according to Eberhardt and Gillespie.