As the United States Senate continues to debate the formulation of a national Renewable Electricity Standard, or RES, of approximately 15 percent,1 it is informative to consider the performance of California’s utilities under the state’s RES.
An RES is a government mandate requiring that electric utilities derive a certain percentage of their capacity or generation from renewable sources, such as wind, solar or biomass, by a certain date.
California, often considered a national leader and bellwether on both energy and environmental policy, has implemented a RES of 20 percent by 2010.2 The state’s utilities plan to add more than 350 megawatts of new renewable capacity — wind, solar, geothermal — in 2009, and yet at the same time, utilities are projected to fall short of meeting the government set mandate of 20 percent3
However, despite the fact that “the utilities have signed gigawatts of contracts with solar, wind and geothermal power plant developers in recent years to try to meet the 20 percent mandate,”4 they are still falling short. This is because many of these projects are being built by independent power producers, and the utility is only purchasing the output of the systems and therefore has little control over ensuring that the projects get built.5 Due to the economic crunch, many independent projects are having both financial and regulatory difficulties.6
It should be noted that although the state’s public utilities face fines for not meeting the 2010 mandate, they do not face them until 2013 when the RES enters into full force, yet there still remains little guarantee that the projects that the utilities have secured output from now, will be ready and operational — even in 2013.7
Therefore, as we continue to develop Renewable Electricity Standards both at a national and state level, we should be very conscious of mandating performance without providing utilities a mechanism to deliver the results. It should be noted that Wisconsin, another traditional leader in innovative energy and environmental policy, is considering legislative alterations to its RES that will help to address some of the challenges facing California. The proposal will both expand existing avenues (geothermal) and open new avenues (direct solar illumination, direct solar water heating) for Wisconsin utilities to meet their RES requirements by allowing them to capture these customer-sited end-use renewables.
By providing such innovative tools, Wisconsin’s policy makers are presenting an innovative mechanism that marries a desired environmental outcome (a reduction in the amount of energy generated by fossil fuels) with all available mechanisms to deliver that outcome. Moreover, in so doing, Wisconsin’s policy makers are providing an excellent example of how to meet our renewable energy goals with energy that is “cost-effective, can be deployed locally, require[s] no new transmission infrastructure, and can be utilized in areas throughout the country that cannot sustain a commercial-scale power generation facility from other renewable energy sources.”8
- Geman, Ben (Greenwire), “Refiners Warn of ‘Staggering’ Costs, Job Losses from Senate Climate Bill” New York Times, 28 October 2009; available at www.nytimes.com ↩
- Greentech Media, Cal May Add 365 MW in 2009, Still Short of 20% Mandate, 30 October 2009, 2 pgs; available at: www.greentechmedia.com. ↩
- Ibid., p. 1. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Letter from Senators Russell D. Feingold and John Ensign to Senate Colleagues seeking support for Support Renewable Energy Act 30 October 2009. ↩
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At last the truth!
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