Bills Reducing Climate Impacts Pass, East Bay to get 40 MW of geothermal energy

Two Senate bills passed May 24 that would allow the creation of local financing districts to fund projects to reduce climate-related dangers and help advance clean local microgrids.

SB 852 by Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) would allow cities and counties to create financing districts to raise property assessments to pay for projects that lessen local threats of wildfires, extreme temperatures, drought, flooding, and sea-level rise. It passed the Senate Floor on a 29-7 vote.

“Helping communities develop plans to address these problems at the local level is critical,” Dodd said.

Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, SB 852’s co-sponsor, said the bill “brings us closer to making much-needed investments to protect vulnerable communities, which was a key goal of our climate insurance report.”

Dodd’s SB 833, which was approved as part of the Senate’s consent calendar, would create a technical assistance and grant program at the California Energy Commission to help local governments develop clean microgrids to provide energy resilience during power outages. Local agencies would be given the tools to collaborate with utilities in planning community-scale energy infrastructure, such as solar panels and battery storage.

“Plans are a prerequisite for attracting private and public investments in community energy resilience projects, which are particularly important in light of the recently passed federal infrastructure package,” Dodd said.

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East Bay Community Energy signed a deal for 40 MW of baseload geothermal power to come online by the end 2026. The community aggregator’s agreement is with Fervo Energy for power from Churchill County, Nevada, and is its first contract for round-the-clock geothermal power.

EBCE seeks to provide 100% clean electricity to its customers by 2030, 15 years ahead of the state’s target.

Fervo plans to use horizontal drilling and distributed fiber optic sensing “to make geothermal power accessible in far more places than before and dramatically increase its potential as a widespread energy source,” according to the May 24 announcement.

The California Public Utilities Commission directed 1,000 MW of new geothermal power be brought online by utilities and other energy providers by mid-decade.