Green Corps organizers, working on behalf of Greenpeace, helped to win a clean energy victory in San Francisco by passing a ballot measure to create the world's largest solar facility.

When Greenpeace wanted to make California a leader on solar power, they looked to Green Corps to make it happen.

Sunny California has the potential to generate a significant amount of energy from solar power. State scientists have made the case over and over. Moving the state from oil and coal-fired power plants would cut millions of tons of global warming pollution and provide the leadership needed to convince other states to do the same. But when advocacy at the state level was stalling, Greenpeace hired Green Corps organizers to take solar power initiatives to the local level and create change from the ground up.

In September 2001, five Green Corps organizers launched the Solar Yes! Campaign to win two ballot measures, Propositions B and H, for solar power in the city of San Francisco. These ballot measures would allow San Francisco to issue a $100 million revenue bond to build the world’s largest solar facility and double the capacity of solar power in the United States.

Up against energy giant PG&E fighting to defeat the solar initiatives, the Green Corps organizers knew that it would take people power to win. Launching a massive voter education and get-out-the-vote drive that involved 30 local organizations and three hundred volunteers, the Green Corps organizers contacted 50,000 voters and held public events to mobilize support for the solar initiatives.

On Election Day, Green Corps organizers activated their get-out-the-vote operation and drove around the city in their solar powered van, “Rolling Sunlight.” By the end of the night it was clear that a landslide victory had occurred, with Measure B passing by 73 percent and Charter Amendment H by 55 percent. The campaign was a victory for solar energy on an unprecedented scale, drawing national media coverage in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and countless other news outlets.

Continuing our successful partnership with Greenpeace in 2002, five Green Corps trainees focused their efforts on the University of California (UC) Go Solar Campaign. The UC campuses were the largest university system in the country and were soon to become the largest single source of demand for new construction in the state of California. The system could have become one of the single largest contributors to global warming unless it invested in green building and clean energy solutions.

Mobilizing support from students on multiple UC campuses, Green Corps organizers succeeded in building a groundswell of support for a UC renewable energy policy that mandates that the energy demands of 25 percent of all new and renovated buildings be met by on-site renewable energy sources.

Today, thanks to the momentum built by the victories that Green Corps organizers helped achieve, solar power is becoming a bigger issue across the state. Green Corps Alumna Bernadette Del Chairo, the Energy Advocate for Environment California, was the leading advocate behind the state's landmark Million Solar Roofs Initiative, which was signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2006.