Category: Animal Rights & Environment

By Larissa Koehler

If music has taught us nothing else, it is that more is better. Three Dog Night taught us that “one is the loneliest number,” the Beatles taught us that we need help from our friends to get by, and Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock reminded us that “it takes two to make a thing go right.”

Those lyrics apply just as easily to our electric grid. That’s because on the grid, it is best to have a bigger, varied group of resources.

Through the Integrated Resource Plan proceeding, the California Public Utilities Commission is requiring California’s big three utilities – Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric – to create energy portfolios that are balanced, cost-effective, and position the utilities to meet state climate and energy targets. This was codified in SB 350 (De León), which required the Commission and utilities to develop these integrated resource plans (IRPs). Accordingly, the Commission has set forth the following specifications:

• By 2030, meet the greenhouse gas reduction targets set forth in SB 32 (Pavley) – a 40 percent reduction relative to 1990.
• Enable an energy portfolio of 50 percent renewable energy.
• Maintain reliability, strengthen diversity and resilience, and prevent severe bill impacts. In practice, this means the plans must continue to ensure utilities provide enough power at all times to serve their customers while making clean resources – including energy storage and tools like demand response – more of a focus in their energy portfolios. These changes should be cost-effective for customers.
• Prioritize reduction of harmful air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in disadvantaged communities.
• Widely electrify transportation.

In short, IRPs are required to show a lot of ambition, and their efficacy – or lack thereof – can have a tremendous impact on whether or not California successfully meets its ambitious climate and clean energy goals.

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Bigger, Varied Resource Portfolios to Clean up California’s Grid
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How can California’s utility plans succeed?

Given all these utility plans are set to accomplish, it’s important to get them right. Here are some ideas for how to make them as successful as possible:

• Consider revision of the utility business model: As expressed in the Integrated Distributed Energy Resource (IDER) proceeding, the current planning process is an opportunity for the Commission to re-evaluate (and re-envision) the utility business model. Currently, shareholders make profits based on their investment in infrastructure – this de-incentivizes investment in distributed resources (like home solar and demand response), because they require less utility infrastructure than their “poles and wires” brethren. Encouraging utilities to invest in distributed energy resources will take more than the pilot established by the IDER proceeding. Getting utilities to invest in clean energy will require a “fees for services” or performance-based ratemaking model. In a fees-for-services model, the utility would be eligible for a share of profits when connecting customers to third-party distributed energy resource providers. Under a performance-based ratemaking model, the utility would be able to collect profits by reaching of a set of pre-determined metrics.

• Coordinate with other relevant proceedings: The IRP process will be more successful if it draws on learnings from other key proceedings. Acknowledging and integrating important findings from, for example utility electric car pilots, the utility storage mandate, and the IDER proceeding, will only serve to strengthen the final version of the IRPs. Additionally, the IRP proceeding will now include a significant portion of PG&E’s plan to replace Diablo Canyon ─ California’s last nuclear power plant which the utility is proposing to retire and replace with clean energy solutions. This will make it vital for the IRPs to consider the needs that arise from the plant’s closure and how to ensure the power that replaces it is clean and low-cost.
• Focus on disadvantaged communities: Low-income communities are disproportionately burdened by harmful pollution, so utility analyses must correctly pinpoint the areas in their service territories that are most in need of clean energy solutions and then prioritize serving those communities. From there, they can figure out how to cost-effectively deploy clean, distributed resources in those locations.
• Transition away from natural gas reliance: The procurement process can level the playing field for flexible, clean energy resources. This can, in turn, incentivize utilities to move away from using natural gas resources for the traditional, yet increasingly outdated, role they play in our energy system (one of balancing out intermittent resources and meeting high demand). The IRPs should encourage resource mixes capable of cutting harmful carbon pollution while maintaining reliability. This impacts whether and how utilities balance variable electric generating units (i.e. solar panels and wind turbines) with existing and new fast-response gas units.

With these elements, utility IRPs have the potential to create a clean, affordable energy system ─ one that leverages the collective strength of a broad range of clean energy resources from rooftop solar panels to home batteries. With all these tools working together, we can ensure a reliable California grid.

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By John Hall

“If you want to know how wind works for America, just ask a Texan.” That’s according to Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), which just released its newest wind industry market report.

The AWEA report shows Texas is the nation’s indisputable wind powerhouse, including serving as home to nearly a quarter of America’s wind jobs. But wind is just one piece of the puzzle, and recent reports confirm the pieces are in place for Texas to blaze the clean energy trail.

Wind is thriving in Texas and solar is growing, while the electric grid remains reliable and billions in savings await. But the Lone Star State can do more: California has more than 10 times as many solar jobs with less than a quarter of Texas’ solar potential. When it comes to clean energy, will lawmakers during this 85^th Texas Legislative Session position the state to lead the nation?

Mounting evidence

In a span of a week, four reports came out with significant findings for Texas’ clean energy economy:

1. Wind juggernaut: AWEA’s report is full of Lone Star wind tidbits. In addition to accounting for four times as many jobs as the next state (Iowa), Texas is now home to roughly one-fourth of the nation’s wind capacity, with more on the way. Additionally, wind projects are providing private landowners with millions in land lease payments – more than $60 million for Texas farmers and ranchers, to be exact. The state also has acquired nearly $40 billion in wind energy investment. Clearly, wind is checking the jobs, growth, and investment boxes. 
   

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   4 Signs Texas Could Lead the Clean Energy Economy – But Will It?
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2. Solar surge: The Solar Foundation’s new census shows Texas solar jobs experienced 34 percent growth last year, significantly surpassing the 12 percent projected growth and propelling Texas to the number three spot. Although undeniably impressive, the “solar jobs per capita” tells a less sunny story: Texas is in the 37^th place (California is in 4^th). As solar grows, so will the job numbers.

   Wind and solar are accounting for more Texas jobs than ever before, while bringing substantial investments into the state.

3. Grid reliability: Closing coal plants doesn’t mean the lights will go out. Looking at data from Texas’ main grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), a new study from Public Citizen examined what would happen if Dallas-based Luminant shut down two of its largest coal plants. Conclusion: Wind, solar, and natural gas will fill any gap left by coal, and potential issues will be mitigated “without the need for additional transmission upgrades beyond what is currently planned by ERCOT.” In other words, Texas already is well-equipped for coal shutdowns.
4. Amazing savings: Prioritizing clean energy will lead to hefty Texas savings, as evidenced in the new Environmental Defense Fund report. Lower pollution means billions of dollars avoided in healthcare costs. At the same time, enhanced energy efficiency results in billions of power savings. Increasing the use of wind and solar PV, which need virtually no water to create energy, avoids the need for billions of additional power-sector water. And focusing on homegrown energy sources, rather than coal imported from other states, translates to billions of avoided import costs.

When it comes to Texas’ clean energy economy, what’s not to like? Wind and solar are accounting for more Texas jobs than ever before, while bringing substantial investments into the state. The growth of cleaner power sources means less reliance on imported coal, a transition that won’t harm our electric grid’s reliability.

These four reports show Texas clean energy is primed and ready to go. The state has a thriving competitive electricity market that benefits people and the economy thanks to forward-looking policies put in place years ago. As Texas’ current legislative session continues, we hope policymakers will keep that market in place and allow the growing clean energy economy to flourish.

This post originally appeared on our Energy Exchange blog.

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