California Adds 8,600 MW New Renewable Power: Meets RPS Goals

The initial 2002 RPS legislation (SB1078, authored by Senator Byron Sher) had required utilities to get 20% by 2017 of renewable power – not counting nuclear or traditional hydroelectric as renewable.

Then in 2006, Palo Alto Senator Joe Simitian sped up the timetable to just four years to meet the 20% RPS: 2010. But it allowed a three year window; till 2013, to actually get the power onto the grid with SB107.

The lag time is because while contracts are easy enough to sign; actual approval and permitting and transmission issues can slow the process. Many contracts are signed but awaiting approval with the CPUC. There is no shortage of renewable energy companies wanting to do business with the state. Despite the speeded up schedule; California utilities are generally on track to meet the 2013 goal.

By comparison, Texas now produces about 8,000 megawatts just of wind power, and is now second in wind power only to Germany with its 22,000 megawatts of wind power.

(Because countries in Europe are more comparable in size to our states here, it is more useful to compare European nations to our states, rather than to the USA as a whole, as is commonly done.) Germany has 82 million people in 138 thousand square miles. More sparsely populated Texas has 24 million people in twice that size - 269 thousand square miles.

California has 37 million people in 164 thousand square miles, and we use 265,000 gigawatthours of electricity annually – so 20% would be about 51,000 gigawatthours annually of renewable power.

California is on target to meet that. As my high school motto put it: Aim High.

Which States Use the Most Renewable Energy and How They Made it Happen

Images: BrightSource and the CPUC

Pages: 1 2

Thos Weatherby

If all that money was spent on natural gas or clean coal, they would produce 350% – 400% more, for the same money. Solar is not cost effective. It’s funny that these articles generally don’t mention all of the cost of the projects. A better system would be to require all new residential construction to include solar panels in “clear sky” areas. This would have the most dramatic affect on the cost of these type of systems. If every new home would have ICF construction (look it up) and solar panels on the roofs, we could make a huge dent into our energy problem. But these high cost mega projects aren’t the answer.

[SK: CA does have a zero-carbon energy (= solar roof) rule for all new building by 2020 - but solar thermal "mega projects" are cheaper than PV one-offs, and cheaper than (so far non-existent) clean coal. Nat gas plants of the same size here do get approved here at a good clip, unfortunately, as solar thermal is cheaper counting fuel costs and ghg health costs over 25 years, and use one tenth as much water as gas]
Thos Weatherby

If all that money was spent on natural gas or clean coal, they would produce 350% – 400% more, for the same money. Solar is not cost effective. It’s funny that these articles generally don’t mention all of the cost of the projects. A better system would be to require all new residential construction to include solar panels in “clear sky” areas. This would have the most dramatic affect on the cost of these type of systems. If every new home would have ICF construction (look it up) and solar panels on the roofs, we could make a huge dent into our energy problem. But these high cost mega projects aren’t the answer.

[SK: CA does have a zero-carbon energy (= solar roof) rule for all new building by 2020 - but solar thermal "mega projects" are cheaper than PV one-offs, and cheaper than (so far non-existent) clean coal. Nat gas plants of the same size here do get approved here at a good clip, unfortunately, as solar thermal is cheaper counting fuel costs and ghg health costs over 25 years, and use one tenth as much water as gas]
john galt

My hope is that consumers will realize that the least number of people in between their source of energy and their house is important. It’s human nature to extract as much wealth out of a product or service, and sometimes there just isn’t enough competition to keep the final cost down enough for the consumer to get a fair price. So a million of small solar installations would be preferable than a hundred or a thousand huge solar energy installations. It’s probably more doable in the time frame desired as well.
john galt

My hope is that consumers will realize that the least number of people in between their source of energy and their house is important. It’s human nature to extract as much wealth out of a product or service, and sometimes there just isn’t enough competition to keep the final cost down enough for the consumer to get a fair price. So a million of small solar installations would be preferable than a hundred or a thousand huge solar energy installations. It’s probably more doable in the time frame desired as well.
Uncle B

Beats Hell out of Oil well investments! They go Dry! Now, fore somw Wind Crrodor development, and some really ggod EV-i styles cars – even the Aptera from California is better than the gas jobs on the market today! Three moving part motors! Yes! Solar is the way to go in the South Western U.S.A. Build the power source, the people will come to it! never mind the “Transmission Line” bogey man! That’s Oil Baron Bull Shiite talking! Americans go where the power is – every time! Watch for huge underground settlements of Mirror Maintenance Folk” Buried away from desert heat, and working night shifts in the cool to care for our new national treasures! Mirrors of hope! Energy from home!
Uncle B

Beats Hell out of Oil well investments! They go Dry! Now, fore somw Wind Crrodor development, and some really ggod EV-i styles cars – even the Aptera from California is better than the gas jobs on the market today! Three moving part motors! Yes! Solar is the way to go in the South Western U.S.A. Build the power source, the people will come to it! never mind the “Transmission Line” bogey man! That’s Oil Baron Bull Shiite talking! Americans go where the power is – every time! Watch for huge underground settlements of Mirror Maintenance Folk” Buried away from desert heat, and working night shifts in the cool to care for our new national treasures! Mirrors of hope! Energy from home!
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Ted Ko

Susan,

To follow on to Charles’ comment, the difference between contracted capacity and actual delivered electricity is an important distinction that people often don’t want to acknowledge.

None of the policymakers or regulators I’ve talked to believe that the 2013 goal will be met because the necessary transmission lines won’t be ready.

The CPUC acknowledges that new transmission takes a minimum of about 10 years to get online (in the *best* case). And their recent report on the 33% RPS by 2020 goal states that we are unlikely to reach that also because California ratepayers would need to make a highly risky $11 Billion bet on new transmission.

All these reasons are why we need to look at wholesale distributed generation (WDG) to have any real hope of meeting the RPS goals. With a well-designed feed-in-tariff policy, California can achieve 33% by 2020 while *saving* ratepayers money.

For more info: http://www.fitcoalition.com
Ted Ko

Susan,

To follow on to Charles’ comment, the difference between contracted capacity and actual delivered electricity is an important distinction that people often don’t want to acknowledge.

None of the policymakers or regulators I’ve talked to believe that the 2013 goal will be met because the necessary transmission lines won’t be ready.

The CPUC acknowledges that new transmission takes a minimum of about 10 years to get online (in the *best* case). And their recent report on the 33% RPS by 2020 goal states that we are unlikely to reach that also because California ratepayers would need to make a highly risky $11 Billion bet on new transmission.

All these reasons are why we need to look at wholesale distributed generation (WDG) to have any real hope of meeting the RPS goals. With a well-designed feed-in-tariff policy, California can achieve 33% by 2020 while *saving* ratepayers money.

For more info: http://www.fitcoalition.com
http://www.Utility-Savings.com Charles R. Toca

Susan, great article drawing attention to the efforts on behalf of the CPUC and the utilities to meet the RPS standards. However, you probably should have pointed out that, “Though procurement has been quite successful in the RPS program, more than 75% of new RPS capacity is under development.” Pg 4 of the report. It’s been fairly easy to get a contract signed with the utilities, but getting the projects actually built has been another issue. For example, much of the solar and wind projects will require new transmission, which has been a real barrier.

Also, the addition of all that intermittent renewable power from wind and solar PV will cause some significant strains on the grid that could also delay implementation. Storage will be needed, discussed at page 10, and we are only now starting to get serious about that – more information at my website, http://www.Utility-Savings.com.
http://www.Utility-Savings.com Charles R. Toca

Susan, great article drawing attention to the efforts on behalf of the CPUC and the utilities to meet the RPS standards. However, you probably should have pointed out that, “Though procurement has been quite successful in the RPS program, more than 75% of new RPS capacity is under development.” Pg 4 of the report. It’s been fairly easy to get a contract signed with the utilities, but getting the projects actually built has been another issue. For example, much of the solar and wind projects will require new transmission, which has been a real barrier.

Also, the addition of all that intermittent renewable power from wind and solar PV will cause some significant strains on the grid that could also delay implementation. Storage will be needed, discussed at page 10, and we are only now starting to get serious about that – more information at my website, http://www.Utility-Savings.com.
Bjorn

If California gets more renewable energy I might not have to move my webhosting to Norway (with 99% renewable energy), and it can stay with Dreamhost in America. Exiting times.
Bjorn

If California gets more renewable energy I might not have to move my webhosting to Norway (with 99% renewable energy), and it can stay with Dreamhost in America. Exiting times.