Decarbonization
Subsidies Spurred Small Solar Growth, Focus Shifts to Home Energy Storage
Hundreds of articles have addressed the controversy over how much residential solar rooftop owners should receive for the excess power they send to the grid to continue advancing solar, with utilities long claiming this burdens the solar have nots. But last week, the Energy Commission highlighted something else that’s helped solar advance in the state: the New Solar Home Partnership
California Grid Operator Aims for 2024 Regional Day-Ahead Market
The California-led real-time Energy Imbalance Market has delivered significant savings to Western power providers, but other regions’ market ambitions are threatening the plan to expand it to a day-head market in three years. The Northwest [...]
Solar Groups Propose Customer-Owned Solar-plus-Storage Microgrids to Regulators
An innovative proposal from Vote Solar and other solar advocates would demonstrate that customer-sited solar and storage can provide reliability and resiliency. The Joint Solar Reliability Parties microgrid docket filing with the California Public Utilities Commission proposes rebates for adding storage.
Shorts
Strong dry offshore winds resulted in Pacific Gas & Electric shutting off power to 25,000 customers in 20 counties starting Oct. 11 to protect against power lines sparking fires. The counties with the largest number [...]
Out-of-State Utilities Join Forces to Consider Western Market
Updated Oct. 13 A dozen utilities from Puget Sound to Colorado have announced they’re exploring the formation of a western-wide trading market amid the shifting energy landscape. Such a market could give the California Independent [...]
Pilots to curb disconnections, diesel backups soar, billion$ for EVs
The California Public Utilities Commission unanimously approves investor-owned utility pilots to reduce the number of poor customers who have their power shutoff because of unpaid utility bills. The quintet also votes to develop a safety [...]
Report Points to Bureaucratic, Legal and Supply Chain Obstacles to Clean Grid
Staff at the California Public Utilities Commission and Energy Commission are required by law and executive order to ratchet down emissions from the electricity sector and simultaneously add new generation to the grid. But [...]
Edison Warns California Won’t Make its Greenhouse Gas Limits
Edison International added its voice to warnings that California will not reach its greenhouse gas reduction mandate set for 2030 under the 15-year old AB 32 without major changes at the state and federal [...]
CPUC prez steps down, 120 MW of new gas plants, New East Bay wind farm
The biggest news of the week is the announcement that the California Public Utilities Commission chief is leaving, five years before the end of her term. President Marybel Batjer tells staff in an email [...]
Debut for Repowered Wind Farm Serving East Bay Community Energy
East Bay Community Energy formally opened a new 57.5 MW wind farm in the Altamont Pass in Livermore under hot sunny, nearly breezeless skies the morning of Sept. 24. The project will be sending [...]
CAISO Board Focuses on Near Term Needs and Long Term Ambitions
The California grid operator is keeping close tabs on climate crisis-driven wildfires and outage uncertainties while looking down the road towards a regional power market. Despite wildfires across CAISO's region, power system conditions have [...]
$15B for climate protection, resource adequacy inadequacies
The state grid operator and a federal regulator both point to the fallout from a shortage of supply cushions to protect very different grids. The California Independent System Operator board approves 469 MWs of reliability [...]
Totally Different States, Same Problem: Resource Adequacy
In what could be a meaningful coincidence, the California grid operator approved costly reliability ‘must run’ contracts Sept 23 on the same day that a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member blamed the massive February [...]
Grid Operator Okays 470 MW to Nail Down Reliability, PG&E Objects to Channel Island Power
The California grid operator is posed to approve a round of reliability must run annual contracts for gas-fired power plants to ensure sufficient electricity supply next year.
Shorts
Updated Sept. 23 Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation providing more than $15 billion to reduce the impacts of the climate crisis. Of that amount $3.9 billion is to advance the state’s zero emissions vehicle market. [...]
SMUD Adopts Plan to Lower Payments to Rooftop Solar but Incent Storage
The Sacramento Municipal Utilities District adopted on a 7-0 vote its staff’s novel compensation plan for rooftop solar that lowers payments for excess power sent to its grid but provides incentives to add storage [...]
Expedited storage permits, Anti-gas suit dropped, SMUD pursues novel net metering reform
The California Energy Commission accelerates the permitting of large storage projects to get more power online by next fall. The action follows the controversial expedited certification process for natural gas and diesel projects to beef up [...]
SMUD on the Verge of Net Metering Breakthrough
The Sacramento Municipal Utilities District is expected to approve Sept. 16 a novel solution for crediting customer-owned solar, which solar advocates support. Meanwhile, much of the rest of California continues to fight over net [...]
Grid Operator Reform with Big Implications for a Western Energy Market
The California Independent System Operator leaders enabled a critical governance change that gives new powers to the Energy Imbalance Market Governing Body, which could transform the energy markets across the entire West, analysts said. [...]
CPUC Updates Distributed Resources Plan to Capitalize on Broad Benefits
California’s groundbreaking 2016 Distributed Energy Resources Action Plan will be updated to better align rising levels of clean local renewables with ratepayer and society interests, particularly air quality, climate resiliency, and economic opportunities in [...]
Urgent Power Situation Prompts Another Newsom Order, Allows More Pollution
Faced with out of control wildfires and high summer temperatures, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered further reductions of energy use at peak times on the grid by expanding and expediting programs already underway. The July [...]