California currently has a little more than seven years to reach the 33 percent renewable energy mandate. The state’s three major investor-owned utilities drew just over 20 percent of their power from renewable resources last year, which was up from 17 percent the prior year, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. The public power agencies run the gambit from reaching the finish line well before the race deadline to a few expected to barely cross the alternative power finish line in 2020. Given the snail’s pace of the state bureaucracy, private utility interconnection agreements, and the building of new transmission projects, seven years is not much time. Adding to the time pressure, are financing challenges facing non-flush independent power producers, and hurdles to long-term investor-owned utility renewable power purchase agreements. Numerous developments around the state suggest that the major utilities--investor-owned and publicly owned alike--act like Doctor Doolittle’s pushme pullya. Which side dominates will determine how much electricity is produced from non-fossil-fueled plants in seven years. Issues increasing the odds of attaining 33 percent by 2020 include: -The Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s installation in early May of an additional 55 new wind turbines at its power plant in the Rio Vista area. The expansion nearly doubled the wind farm’s capacity from 120 MW to 230 MW. -San Diego Gas & Electric’s near completion of its Sunrise Powerlink project. It is expected to bring 750 MW of renewable energy, through a combination of geothermal, solar, and wind-generated power. However, none of the counted alternative energy projects have come to fruition. -The expected defeat of the legislative effort to count large hydro projects towards the renewables mandate. This year the effort is detailed in AB 1771, which credits utilities for hydropower plants over 30 MW. The measure is making its way through the California Senate. It reappears annually at the Legislature and has failed to see the light of day because it would undermine the renewable mandate that seeks to grow the in-state alternative energy industry. The fate of the 33 percent renewable portfolios is also dependent on how close the state gets to developing 12,000 MW of non-centralized distributed renewable energy as called for by the governor. The outcome hinges on several moving distributed energy program targets including: -The state’s $3 billion in subsidies to create 3,000 MW of new solar power. The biggest piece is the CPUC’s California Solar Initiative, accompanied by $2.2 billion to grow nearly 2,000 MW of solar energy by 2017. The most recent CPUC progress report from last June reports 924 MW of newly installed solar systems. -The California Independent System Operator’s May 17 effort to streamline the interconnection process for smaller distributed solar projects. The new process allows distributed generation to “obtain deliverability status in about half the time as the current process,” according to CAISO. That allows the generation to count towards utilities’ supply cushion requirements. -Investor-owned utility solicitations seeking a total 750 MW under regulators Renewable Auction Mechanism program for projects up to 20 MW. Critics, particularly geothermal developers, warn that the program took a recent hit when the CPUC approved a resolution proposed by Pacific Gas & Electric to allow it to reduce the amount of baseload and non-peaking categories. PG&E’s allocation for these projects was shrunk from 35 MW to 10 MW. -The CPUC feed-in tariff program creating standard utility deals with developers of small renewable projects up to 3 MW. Under a CPUC proposal, a price floor would be set for three categories of projects. The price would be allowed to fluctuate in response to market demand.
