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In anticipation of high summer demand, including when the sun sets, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered investor-owned utilities to line up more supply resources, expected largely to be gas-fired power. That runs counter to the state mandate to ramp down fossil-fueled electricity to zero.

“Customers deserve a reliable grid,” CPUC President Marybel Batjer said during the Feb. 11 meeting. She added reliability was the Commission’s “biggest priority and our basic responsibility.”

Opponents decried the CPUC’s failure to significantly accelerate deployment of clean energy and capacity to replace gas fueled generation.

The Commission’s action “runs contrary to California’s climate and environmental justice commitments,” a coalition of environmental and local energy groups warned in a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom sent before the meeting. They added that “bureaucratic delay” has knocked California off track.

One piece of the puzzle

“This is just one piece of the puzzle,” Commissioner Cliff Rechtschaffen said.

Commissioners said they are committed to promoting clean energy.

Batjer said this summer emergency resource proceeding focused on supply only and was accelerated because rising temperatures are just around the corner.

Next month, the CPUC is to weigh other grid-balancing strategies, including demand-side measures, “to ensure we have taken all feasible short-term actions to avoid reliability events in the coming summer,” according to the decision approved 4-0.

Earlier, the Commission directed the private utilities to buy at least 3,300 MW of capacity by 2022, with half to be online this summer.

Members of the public protesting the decision pointed out that gas-fired power was not more reliable than other resources during the mid-August heat storm and outages. An estimated 1,700 MW of gas-fired electricity sudden went offline.

“California consumers deserve to receive the capacity they paid for in their electric utility bills,” Thomas Popik, Foundation for Resilient Societies president, said.

Commissioners Martha Guzman Aceves, Genevieve Shiroma and Rechtschaffen agreed. “We need to encourage penalties for nonperformance,” Guzman Aceves said.

Additional gas procurement

The CPUC ordered Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and SoCalGas to submit Advice Letters by Feb. 15 with new and revised power deals. These may include a mix of additional power from inefficient coastal gas plants that use seawater for cooling, which were slated for retirement, utility-owned plants, and power plant upgrades. The resource mix also is to include energy storage and firm power imports.

Keeping the old coastal gas plants online denies environmental justice communities needed public health benefits, Lucia Marquez from Oxnard, told the Commission. Oxnard is home to the Ormand and Mandalay gas plants.

The commissioners said they want priority given to short-term gas contracts and energy storage. The decision also seeks to dissuade CAISO from exporting gas power.

The clean energy coalition complained that about 5 GW of new renewable energy and storage resources sits idle because they await interconnection and transmission approvals and action from the CPUC, CAISO, and transmission owners. “Many of these projects are in areas such as the San Joaquin Valley and Inland Southern California, which would greatly benefit from economic activity,” the coalition said. The group includes large and small solar organizations, geothermal representatives, NRDC, EDF, the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Insult to injury

The CPUC also favors a more lenient ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector–46 million tons by 2031. Clean and local energy advocates, joined by many members of the public, urged the CPUC to recommend the California Independent System Operator’s 2021-22 transmission plan focus on meeting a 38 million metric ton greenhouse gas ceiling.

Rechtschaffen said the 46 MM tons target is a recommended 10-year, base case scenario. It includes 9 gigawatts of new battery storage at specific areas along the grid to cut emissions in poor polluted communities; 16 GW of new in-state renewables; 1 GW of out-of-state renewables, geothermal and pumped storage resources.

“Our commitment to the climate is unshakeable,” Rechtschaffen said. He said the electricity sector portfolio is 36% renewable with 70% of the resources clean, which includes behind-the-meter renewables and big hydro. But he acknowledged that “a lot more clean energy to meet the goal of zero carbon by 2045” must be procured.

The recommendation to CAISO, according to Rechtschaffen, also seeks to explore a lower carbon ceiling. An analysis of a 38 MM ton limit will include the feasibility and transmission costs of developing 8,000 MW of offshore wind as part of a decade-long planning cycle.