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San Francisco's Public Utilities Building Not As Green As It's Supposed To Be

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission met this week to talk about what has become an embarrassing predicament. It's $200 million headquarters building isn't as green as it was supposed to be.

The building on Golden Gate Avenue has an array of wind turbines that don't work, and the company that manufactured them went bankrupt.

In October, PUC Commissioner Anson Moran told his colleagues it was really just an experiment.

""My guess is there's a lot of lessons in there, and I'd be interested in knowing what they are. If those wind turbines ever produced power, I mean before they were shut down, did they live up to expectations?" Moran said.

Moran won't be getting an answer to that question, as meters that measured the amount of electricity the turbines generated were never installed.

What was billed as the greenest building in North America may soon lose that status. The building was completed in 2012.

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