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Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed May revise of the state budget would hike state spending on clean energy, emissions reductions and climate adaptation by $9.5 billion. It would allocate a total $47.1 billion, up from the $37.6 billion Newsom proposed in January, thanks to the massive state budget surplus of roughly $50 billion for non-educational items.

But clean energy advocates were disappointed because despite the hefty climate program increases the surplus has more than doubled in size since the governor’s January budget plan. In addition, the impacts of expected increases from charges on small solar rooftops and lower credits for solar exports to the grid are unknown.

“It’s disappointing to see the May Revision isn’t putting much more of our budget surplus to work at the scale required to stop climate change from destroying the California we love,” said Mary Creasman, chief executive officer of California Environmental Voters, formerly the League of Conservation Voters. “We have the opportunity to harness a surplus that has more than doubled in size.”

The latest budget blueprint includes $970 million for solar and storage, with $670 million for low-income households and $300 million for adding energy storage to homes that have solar rooftops installed.

Solar and storage advocates are concerned that what Newsom would give with one hand, the California Public Utilities Commission could take away with the other. The CPUC may add up to a $600 dollar annual charge on small rooftop systems and slash payments for exported power in the ongoing Net Energy Metering 3.0 proceeding, which was extended last week.

“It simply makes no sense to incentivize a technology and then turn around and tax it,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, executive director of the California Solar & Storage Association. “We must take five steps forward and zero steps back because that is what these times call for,” she added.

In addition, the new money would apply only to residential solar and storage systems, which are only half the small solar market.

Of the more than $9 billion Newsom would direct to the energy sector, $5.2 billion is to add 5,000 MW of fossil-and diesel-fueled and renewable generation over five years, including by extending the life of gas plants slated for retirement, to meet soaring demand. This so called “Strategic Electricity Reliability Reserve” includes $950 million for zero and low emissions distributed backup generation and emission reduction technology on diesel backup generators at data centers and in other areas with backup systems larger than 1 MW.

Both “planning and operation require a stronger focus on additional resource capacity that can reliably produce in the evening hours when solar projects produce little or no energy,” the Department of Finance stated.

Another $1 billion would be added to the California Energy Commission’s research and development program. This additional Electric Program Investment Charge funding is for grants to companies headquartered in California that develop and commercialize new technology protypes, demonstrations and scale ups to “help us our achieve our climate and clean energy goals,” said CEC spokesperson Lindsay Buckley. This funding would be swapped from the Innovation Headquarters Credit and the Credit for Green Energy Technologies proposed in the Governor’s Budget.

The grants would support:

Advanced zero-emission transportation and mobility technologies; Offshore wind energy technologies; Wildfire prevention technologies; Energy-water desalination technology breakthroughs; Low-carbon chemicals and materials production; Advanced computing for grid management; and Climate-friendly cooling breakthrough technologies.

Other big ticket items in the May revise include:

$1.2 billion for rate relief for ratepayers who were unable to pay their utility bills during the pandemic; $300 million over two years to address extreme heat, including $220 million for community resilience centers; $295 million for demand side grid support; $250 million for transmission and energy financing; $100 million from cap-and-trade auction proceeds to increase the number of satellites launched to measure methane emissions; and $100 million to support initiatives by California’s Native American tribes that use nature-based solutions to combat the climate crisis.

Carbon capture and sequestration would get $100 million, although the many federally- and industry-funded projects have yet to successfully capture and store carbon on a long-term basis. Last week, the California Air Resources Board released a 25-year plan for slashing greenhouse gas emissions that relies heavily on direct air and carbon capture and sequestration.

This CCS budget is 20 times higher than one advancing the extraction of lithium from the brine of geothermal plants in the Salton Sea in the impoverished Imperial Valley. But the state budget revise also includes an unspecified tax per ton on lithium extracted and a sales and use tax exclusion, making $45 million available over three years for these incentives, including to assist the overburdened communities.

The new budget would allocate $30 million for aqueduct solar pilot , as well.

In early February, the Department of Water Resources said it would fund a novel project placing 5 MW of different kinds of solar panels over Turlock Irrigation District’s aqueduct. The solar panels are expected to be more productive than those on some rooftops or on desert lands because the canal water will keep them from overheating.