CA Current

Demand on the California grid has dropped by 5% since state residents were instructed to stay in their homes to slow the pace of the coronavirus, Steve Berberich, California Independent System Operator president and chief executive officer, said during the March 25 board meeting. During its first totally telephonic business meeting mid-week, the board of […]

Even before Pacific Gas & Electric was hit last Thursday with a $2.14 billion penalty for sparking devastating wildfires in 2017 and 2018, a bill was introduced to prohibit the utility from deducting it or other safety penalties from its tax liability. It would be “obscene” to allow PG&E to take a tax deduction on […]

Community choice aggregators in Pacific Gas & Electric territory struggle with whether to accept nuclear energy from the utility’s Diablo power plant. This year is the first time PG&E has offered community choice entities a share of the nuke’s output, although they’ve paid for it every year since they were formed.   Local clean energy […]

The contentious issue of keeping a handful of aging power plants along the Southern California coast running beyond their legal deadline was debated at a Jan. 23 meeting of the Statewide Advisory Committee on Once Through Cooling. The grid operator, the California Public Utilities Commission and the owner of the plants want to keep the […]

Gov. Gavin Newsom had to address the public outrage over Pacific Gas & Electric twice cutting off power to unprecedented numbers of people in the face of high fire danger, sparking wildfires and seeking protection in bankruptcy court in the face of massive fire liability. But if history is any indication, his recent appointment of […]

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed several energy-related bills into law Oct. 2 that he said aim to mitigate climate change through clean energy policies. The governor approved SB 520 by Sen. Robert Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys). Hertzberg’s measure establishes requirements for an energy provider of last resort given the increasing number of customers receiving power from entities […]

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Sept. 27 approved California Independent System Operator tariff revisions to give the grid operator more leeway in awarding reliability-must-run power contracts to aging gas power plants. FERC approved the CAISO backstop power supply tariff revisions on a 2-1 vote over the dissent of Commissioner Richard Glick, the sole Democrat on the […]

The East Bay Community Energy June 24 signed four contracts for 213.5 MW of wind and solar energy and battery storage projects. One of the four deals is a 10-year agreement for 20 MW of energy storage to provide resource adequacy. It is to partially replace the 40-year old polluting 165 MW Oakland power plant […]

California is becoming increasingly dependent on out-of-state power to meet peak needs. At the same time, concerns about the state’s increasing vulnerability to the  exercise of “market power,” which could spike prices, is rising, according to a California Public Utilities Commission official. “There’s a general tightening of resource adequacy supply,” Simon Baker, Energy Division deputy […]

By Steven Kelly After many years of work, the California Public Utilities Commission earlier this year finally adopted a multi-year resource adequacy program to help ensure grid reliability. Now, the CPUC is considering additional changes to the adopted framework, particularly the insertion of a “central procurement entity” to mitigate the risk that the California Independent […]