Shared Renewables Bills Moving Forward In California

May 3rd, 2013 by Zachary Shahan

This article originally appeared on Solar Love.

A lot of people can go solar today and get a very good return on their investment, while also feeling great that they are doing something to help protect our climate, air, and water. However, many people cannot. Have a roof covered by trees? Rent your home? Live in an apartment building? You know what I’m talking about.

California is no exemption to this problem, and with its strong and successful California Solar Initiative (CSI) sunsetting, renewable energy leaders in the state have been looking to jump to the next step of the solar revolution by making solar power (and wind power) a possibility for people in homes like those mentioned above. The effort to offer such an option is running under the name “Shared Renewables.”

Image Credit: California Shared Renewables

As you can see on the interactive map on the Shared Renewables site, not many states have shared renewables laws in place, and just a handful have campaigns in place to try to enact such laws. Naturally, though, California has one law in place and has a campaign aimed at getting a much stronger one. The website for the campaign is called California Shared Renewables.

I’m not a resident of California, but I’ve been keeping up with the news there, and I’ve got some good news to share with you.

But wait, I still need to give you a little more background…. There are two bills working their way through California’s legislative process — SB 43 and AB 1014. In the end, presuming both make it through the various hurdles required, a single proposal will be hashed out. For now, though, the two bills have to take things one step at a time.

From a previous article about these bills, Silvio Marcacci writes:

If passed, SB 43 and AB 104 would allow the 75% of California utility customers who can’t install their own on-site generation to subscribe to “shared” renewable energy projects of up to 20 megawatts (MW).

Advocates say a 500MW shared renewables pilot program within the state’s three largest utility service territories would create 7,000 green jobs, earn $60 million in state sales tax revenue, generate $2 billion in economic activity, and voluntarily surpass the state’s 33% renewable portfolio standard.

A lot more details regarding the benefits of shared renewables are discussed in that post, if you want to learn more. But let’s get back to the news at hand….

This week, AB 1014 “passed though the Assembly Utility and Commerce Committee on a vote of 9-0, with no opposing testimony” (but with some significant amendments made beforehand), California Shared Renewables Policy and Market Strategies Director Tom Price informed me. Tom noted:

This is tremendously positive news. While it’s not the bill we started with, it does help us advance the goal of broadening access to renewable energy.

As an indication of the sweeping changes, and how that effected the politics, PGE asked to be the second speaker on the bill, so they could speak in favor.

The bodies speaking out in favor of the bill included:

Coalition for Adequate School Housing
US Department of Defense
Sonoma County Board of Supervisors
Vote Solar
Solar Energy Industries Association
Large Scale Solar Association
TURN
Scott Wetch/Utilities Employees Union
Southern California Edison

The day after this success, SB 43 also made it through a vote, this one in the California Senate Energy Committee. Vote and testimonial details are below.

Votes in favor:

Hill
DeSaulnier
Pavley
De Leon
Wolk
Corbett

Testimony in favor from:

California Environmental Justice Alliance
Vote Solar
League of Cities
Department of Defense
Coalition for Affordable School Housing
Schools Energy Coalition
Recurrent Energy
Solar Electric Industry Association
Large Scale Solar Association

Testimony against from:

Southern California Edison
PG&E
SDGE
TURN
Farm Bureau
Coalition of California Union Employees

“It was close, but we got the votes when it counted,” Tom noted.

“With both AB 1014 and SB 43 passed, we now have two ways to broaden the availability of renewable energy in California, and thanks to your support and help, we’ll get there.”

As stated above, each bill still has several hurdles to get past: “they need to then get through their respective Appropriations Committees, then full chambers, then pass over to the other side and go through the opposite chamber.”

The keys now are to fight for the most important details in each bill and to make more people aware of what’s going on in order to stimulate more public support for the proposals. Hence, this article.

We’ll be following up soon with discussion regarding the differences between the bills and the most important components. Stay tuned!

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Tags: AB 1014, California, california renewable energy, California shared renewables, California Solar, no post, SB 43, SEIA, Shared Renewables, Vote Solar

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

Max2

Light action smoke mirrors and a lot of cut and editing that is what the CSI program was part of a Hollywood stage movie that went terribly wrong, a money pit that continues to grow and no matter how much editing you put into grid connected solar power it still unviable & end up at the cutting room floor. Not even digital effects could help with the CSI program.

The CSI solar grid connection program was nothing but a scam which came to an end, it was unviable and sent the economy backwards to bankruptcy in California. The only thing this achieved was higher cost of electricity through the program and did not reduce any CO2 levels in California falling third in line now with Australia and Germany with their economical disaster rollouts of grid connected solar power.
Ross

Why the heck is the Farm Bureau against it?
- Bob_Wallace
  
  I would guess due to the political leanings of the members.
  
  Just like the Chamber of Commerce opposes businesses that don’t fit with its political leanings.
  - Otis11
    
    Also guessing here, but under the current structure companies rent land from farmers to place the Turbine on – which can add up to a lot of money. They may think the new structure will impact that in some way… I couldn’t say without reading the bill.
jburt56

500 MW is good. 50 GW would be better!!
rkt9

It would have been interesting to hear some of the testimony of those who spoke out against this bill.
- http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  the first one was passed unanimously with no testimony against, so i assume you mean the 2nd one? i haven’t looked for it, but based on the parties, i’d guess it’s the typical utility co. nonsense.
  - http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
    
    nonsense = incomplete math
    - Otis11
      
      Yeah, but they do that not because they actually do the math wrong, but because they already have money invested in traditional plants that will be devalued if we shift over to renewables faster than they had planned to retire the FF plants…
      - http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan
        
        definitely.