Trading Bill Only a ?Courtesy?

A bill to set numerical requirements for municipalities? renewable power and create a green power trading program under California?s renewables portfolio standard law will face an uphill battle in Sacramento, according to legislative aides, but its sponsor, Sempra Energy, believes the measure will lower the price of renewable energy and help the state accomplish its aims. The author is carrying the bill as a ?courtesy? to Sempra, according to an aide to Assemblymember Ronald Calderon (D-Montebello), who introduced the bill, AB 3005. Calderon does not intend to carry the measure forward, according to the aide. Many of the municipal power agencies are moving ahead to integrate renewable energy, said a Senate source. The major exception, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, may have a plausible defense. ?LADWP says, ?We?ve got plenty of power here and if you want us to buy renewables, we?ll have to raise our rates. Do you want us to do that in this economy??? he explained. However, Sempra maintains it is unfair for investor-owned utilities to completely shoulder the cost of developing renewable power. Bringing municipal power agencies fully under the state standard will create ?a more vibrant market? and allow all utilities to negotiate lower prices for green power, said Cindy Howell, director of state government affairs for Sempra. The bill would require municipal utilities to increase their purchases of renewable power by 1 percent a year beginning in 2005 until they reach a total of 20 percent by 2017. Public power agencies will oppose the requirement, said Jerry Jordan, executive director of the California Municipal Utilities Association. A requirement is not needed because municipal utilities already are financing most of the renewable energy facilities being constructed in California, Jordan said. Another portion of the bill would set up a renewable energy credit program, under which utilities that did not meet their required level of renewable power would have to purchase credits from green power generators to make up the shortfall. Credits?which would reflect the renewable energy and environmental attributes of the power?would become tradable instruments. The California Energy Commission would be charged with developing rules to govern the credit market. ?The credit trading program is a compliance flexibility mechanism,? Howell said. Sempra needs it because transmission line constraints make it impossible for its subsidiary San Diego Gas & Electric to bring in enough green power to meet the renewables portfolio standard?s 20 percent requirement. She said that Senator Byron Sher (D-Palo Alto) recognizes the predicament and has agreed to insert the credit program provisions of AB 3005 into his renewables portfolio standard overhaul bill, SB 1478, later in the session.

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Trading Bill Only a ?Courtesy?

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