Bureau of Land Management
The Buzz
Pacific Gas & Electric’s $7.5 billion bond issuance gets final approval. Regulators sign off on its financing order, which includes oversight by a finance team tasked with protecting customers. Ratepayer advocates welcome the oversight on condition it is robust, but object to the legal basis of the approved ratepayer-backed securitization.
Feds Advance Giant Desert Solar Project
The Bureau of Land Management gave a green light to a 350 MW solar project on 2,049 acres of federal land near Blythe in Riverside County May 3.
Late last year, Southern California Edison contracted for 200 MW from this Crimson photovoltaic project to fuel an adjacent 200 […]
Biden Keeps Desert Renewable Plan Intact
The Biden Administration blocked the former Trump Administration’s last minute effort to weaken protections in the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan.
The proposed changes would have reduced protection of 2.2 million acres of rocky peaks, salt scrub lowlands and rich riparian corridors and other sensitive desert by allowing mining […]
The Buzz
One of the avenues for helping secure power supplies during safety shutoffs and heat waves is a proceeding on clean microgrids. But a new California Public Utilities Commission decision makes little headway on advancing the microgrid market because of concerns about ratepayer costs and safety. Those concerns do little to appease […]
Federal Officials Seek to Weaken Desert Renewables Deal
The Trump Administration just poked one more, perhaps final finger in California’s eye by proposing changes to the complex, stakeholder-developed plan identifying suitable sites for wind and solar development on public lands in the state’s southeastern desert. The Jan. 13 amendments to the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan would open more lands […]
News Roundup: CPUC to Oppose Payday for Transmission Owners
Updated Aug. 6
State energy regulators are expected to soon ratify their staff’s formal opposition to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s March plan that would give transmission owners handsome payoffs for cybersecurity upgrades. The awards would come even if the businesses were already making the investments without the incentives. […]