Adam Browning, Vote Solar Initiative

Adam Browning is the cofounder and director of operations for Vote Solar Initiative, a nonprofit organization working to jump-start the transition to renewable energy by helping municipal governments implement large-scale and cost-effective solar energy projects.

It's a good story. After our initial success in San Francisco, San Diego was Vote Solar's next area of focus. The process started in the usual fashion: Vote Solar (in this case, David Hochschild, our other cofounder) collaborated with other interested groups, most notably Greenpeace, to pitch the benefits of an ambitious solar program to influential parties, in gradually narrowing concentric circles around elected officials, until we got a meeting with Mayor Dick Murphy. Murphy, feeling a bit battered by the energy crisis, had made energy independence a goal for the city.

We brought in Ed Smeloff, assistant general manager for power policy for the S.F. Public Utilities Commission (i.e., the person responsible for keeping the city's lights on), to discuss San Francisco's solar bond. Murphy, a Republican generally described as a fiscal conservative, liked it, especially the fact it was revenue positive. Solar is very much a nonpartisan issue.

It's one thing to like an idea; it's quite another to grind the wheels of government into motion. Inertia -- the tendency of bodies at rest to stay at rest -- is endemic to bureaucracies, and really a ferocious force. The problem became: How do we turn general warm feelings about the idea into actual solar panels on roofs?

Enter Bonnie Raitt. The singer/activist works for countless causes; on her last tour, called Green Highways, she spotlighted a different environmental organization at each show, donating a block of seats to be sold at a premium to supporters and hosting a backstage reception. Vote Solar got the San Diego show. We worked with a local radio station (KPRI 102.1) and the Guacamole Fund, and the tickets went like hotcakes. We also gave a pair to the mayor and his chief of staff.

Lights dim, audience settles down, Lyle Lovett strums and croons, Bonnie struts on stage, whips up the crowd with some foot-stomping numbers -- and then, mid-set, she stops, talks a little about the environmental aspects of her tour, and says: "This next song, I'm dedicating to Mayor Dick Murphy, who is going to make San Diego the solar-energy capital of the United States." The crowd goes wild.

Backstage after the show, Mayor Murphy, blushing like a teenager and gushing just a bit, proclaims the day "Bonnie Raitt Appreciation Day." With ABC's cameras rolling, Bonnie, nobody's fool, prompts him to be specific with his solar goals. He was putty in her hands.

End of story, right? Not yet. I can't stress this enough: No matter the good intentions, nothing ever gets done without an internal champion, someone who takes an issue on, makes it their own, and bulldogs it through to completion. In this case, the aforementioned champions are Councilmember Donna Frye and her senior policy advisor Nicole Capretz. They took this momentum, articulated a goal of 50 megawatts of clean, renewable energy on public and private buildings within city limits by 2013, and codified it into a city council resolution. The resolution also established an advisory board to recommend policies and actions for meeting the goal.

On Monday, the Sustainable Energy Advisory Board, a highly motivated group of local solar-industry representatives, business owners, electricity wonks, and solar supporters, is meeting for the third time. The chair is Mike Turk, a local developer who puts his money where his mouth is in the form of solar on all his projects. I'm going to chip in my two cents.

Having been through this before, I believe that eventually the board will end up dividing the task into different categories of roof owners: public buildings, commercial space, residential retrofits, and new buildings. Each category will need a different policy tool.

San Diego has already put 180 kilowatts of solar on its public buildings, and as that's where they have the most control, will likely need to do much more in order to meet their goals. The big question will be how best to finance it; Vote Solar can also recommend some tricks for bringing down the effective cost of installation. Private roofs, both commercial and residential, will require some innovative thinking and programs, as the city does not have direct control over them. I've got some suggestions there, as well.

As for new buildings, San Diego has already implemented a really clever and innovative policy -- if you are a developer and need a construction permit, you should know that permit applications for buildings that generate at least 15 percent of their expected load using renewables go to the top of the pile. It's called expedited permitting -- an ingenious way of harnessing bureaucracy's evil for the forces of good.

So, that's what I did today. Despite my best efforts, this job is less about hanging out with rock stars than about writing memos on policy options and trying to get invited to meetings that I'm not invited to. Live the glamour.