Power Plants
Delays in Public Ability to Review Renewable Contract & Bids Shortened
It’s been nearly two decades since California first ordered utilities to enter into long-term contracts for renewable contracts and simultaneously cloaked the terms of those agreements in secrecy for up to a decade. That’s despite the fact that ratepayers pay for these agreements.
The California Public Utilities Commission on Nov.18 voted to expose the contracts […]
Shorts
California’s community choice organizations signed agreements for 3,000 MW of clean energy supplies over the last year. “These projects reflect a diversity of resources that will boost energy resilience and help California attain a 100% clean electricity system, while also supporting green jobs and fueling economic development,” CalCCA Executive Director Beth Vaughan said Nov. […]
Replacement of Dirty Oakland Peaker Delayed
The plan to swap out the polluting Oakland Energy Center with battery storage this coming January has been delayed because of interconnection issues. It is a serious problem that is not limited to this plan to replace polluting energy with cleaner alternatives. Last week, California Public Utilities Commission member Martha Guzman Aceves pointed to […]
Controversial Redondo Beach Gas Plant to Stay Online
It’s final. In the tension between electricity reliability and harmful pollution, reliability won out in a vote on Oct. 19 to keep the aging Redondo Beach fossil-fired power plant online for another two years. The 834 MW natural gas plant will provide peaking power as needed to the grid through the end of 2023. […]
Future Brightens for the Salton Sea’s Lithium Valley
Prospects are the brightest they’ve been since the beginning of a years-long effort to create a domestic supply of lithium from the Imperial Valley’s Salton Sea. Imperial Valley lithium has the advantage of being extracted from the brine processed by the geothermal plants on the Sea’s southern shore, which will also power the technology. […]
120 MW of New Fossil Gas Generation Installed
Source: DWR
Four new 30 MW natural gas-fired generators have just been added to the California grid at a cost of $196 million. In a peculiarity of the state’s power system, it was the Department of Water Resources that has been in charge of the installations expected to provide power at times of high stress […]