Our work a decade ago focused on reports and presentations on local renewable integration topics. When we launched as an independent organization, we were able to expand our scope to include articles, blogs, and op-eds. Since then, we’ve commented on a wide range of local energy concerns, e.g. progress of Community Choice in California, and most recently local energy collaboration and local climate action planning.
If our commentary has a consistent theme, it is that what energy users and communities decide and do may be the best hope for fast global climate action, simply because the political barriers and inertial barriers to affordable climate action are lower locally than in a state, national or global context. Unfortunately, bureaucracy, our friend in most public concerns, is not our best ally in a climate emergency. Technical and economic barriers even to slow evolutionary change still exist in a regional and continental system and infrastructure context, but barriers to impactful, timely local action are low and getting lower. Please return from time to time to check out our latest commentary, and please go to our topical search page to find articles that may still have currency but are not featured here.
A proposed CPUC decision sets aside a long-standing bipartisan policy regarding on-site solar energy. The policy should remain in effect because it is foundational to creation of a just and affordable state-wide renewable energy eco-system. Its underlying premises are valid. The underlying premises of the proposed decision are not. Better informed and more robust on-going and future consideration of the benefits of rooftop solar can be a positive outcome of the current policy tug of war between electric utilities and local clean energy advocates.
Climate action and adaptation is a relatively new local planning consideration. It can strengthen local economies, create local jobs, increase county and city tax revenues, and improve essential services. Local planning is essential because of major local differences that cause big deviations from statewide average energy usage patterns, transportation infrastructure, renewable resource opportunities, environmental concerns, and demographics. One action plan does not fit all.
Collaboration between local governments and energy utilities to remove barriers and enable investment in local renewable supply is limited or lacking in most of the US. Meanwhile, many communities, states and countries now recognize and acknowledge the escalating global climate emergency. In a nautical context, the response to emergencies is “all hands on deck”. An all hands on deck response to climate emergency will require local government engagement in energy projects and programs.
In an era of big data, the trade-off between local economic optimization and utility system-wide optimization can be readily informed by data-driven economic analysis. There is no motivation to do the analysis now because no adjustments are possible. But if local energy franchise agreements were mandated by the state to consider the possibility of city/utility collaboration on local economic and carbon footprint reduction goals, the parties would be motivated to engage.
In California, state regulators are starting to assert jurisdiction over Community Choice business planning, citing the need for consistency between the supply plans of all energy service providers. Does this solve a real, on-going problem?
Ten years ago, Susan Davis introduced me to the notion of “both…and”, aka “both/and”. It may be a measure of cultural imprinting, or a slow paced intellect, that it took me some time to fully grasp the full meaning. “Both, and…” is another way of saying, “You are both right”, an observation Solarex CEO, Harvey Forest, was fond of making in the midst of heated debates among his management team members. But it goes further. It is essentially a call to integrate, not differentiate. And wouldn’t it be a relief just now if our Congress started to do a little more integrating and a little less differentiating.
The road to hell is paved, not only with good intentions, but also bad choices. Choices have consequences which require further choices. Getting it right once is easier than getting it right consistently and continuously, especially when the definition of “right” is shaped by changing circumstances. That's why so many businesses fail and so few survive over the long term. It’s not that the ones that failed didn’t plan. It is one thing to make a plan. It is another to execute the plan. When the planning and operational execution processes are decoupled, as they often are, eventual failure is almost assured. It is one thing to plan incremental product line changes and cost saving measures. It is another to anticipate and effectively prepare for longer term market shifts and competitive threats…especially when the related investments pay out over decades rather than years….
I’ve long treasured invitations to visit other countries. Getting out of the US about once a year is a gift of perspective that keeps giving over time. Inevitably, an overseas trip provides a reminder that all countries and communities face myriad technical, economic and political questions. Applying the chosen answers in each case is informed by individual histories and cultures.
In the US, our institutions have evolved over decades and centuries; if we are honest about it, not always predictably or with due respect for all affected parties. The same is true in other countries, but their critical junctures and directions of subsequent drift were different and are differently felt.
Technology tells you what you can do; economics…what you should do; politics...what you will do. Approximate oracles surely, but what are they telling us about our energy future these days?
In general, technology is telling us we have a proliferating number of new and excellent tools with which to change our energy infrastructure for the better. Listening more closely, it is telling us that innovation has never been easier, but to stop looking for breakthroughs. Energy breakthroughs these days are manifested by tipping points, not the brilliance of Nobel laureates. The apparent "aha!", on closer examination, usually turns out to be the product of twenty years of tenacity and scraping for funding, followed by a stroke of luck in the nick of time to head off a technology venture's imminent collapse.
"Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured, or far away."
Most will recognize the author as Henry David Thoreau. I find the quote particularly poignant as I embark on The IRES Network adventure. For many reasons, including the brilliant work of my companions, I am no longer keeping pace with them in renewable energy. For nearly forty years we've marched to a unifying beat. It is now loud and clear. The work of pursuing a vision is done. The work of fully realizing the vision is well underway.
Integrated planning and operation of energy systems is not a new idea. Ironically, it was more easily and (arguably) better accomplished in the past than in the present. For example, electric utilities invested to create an economically balanced mix of generation resources. The individual economic attributes of these resources were complementary. High capital cost, low fuel cost base load plants (e.g. coal and nuclear) provided the majority of the energy. They were complemented by plants that cost less per unit of capacity and consumed higher cost fuel (e.g. combined and simple cycle plant burning natural gas). Plants and transmission links were located to give the franchise area grid a highly reliable carrying capacity. All proposed generation and transmission projects were selected according to a goal of minimizing overall cost of delivered energy.
Not knowing whether to change direction has consequences. Disruptions and trends in the world these days will determine how our energy systems need to adapt or transform…changes in technology, relative costs, and the competitive need at all scales of energy use to respond both opportunistically and strategically.
Imagine driving at 90 miles per hour in a blinding snowstorm. Obviously unsafe. No one would do it even if there were no other cars on the road. But our permanent energy data blizzard does tend to obscure the road ahead, and our current circumstances don’t allow us the option to slow down.
A recent gathering in Long Beach, California featured a lively debate between a Community Choice CEO. Geof Syphers, and the President of the California Public Utilities Commission, Michael Picker. The debate will likely continue in other forums and ways. Foundational assumptions are not yet in alignment. They will need to be if both sides of the debate are to collaborate fully and effectively.
Will California’s energy future continue to depend primarily on state policies and initiatives? Or is the state’s Community Choice movement ushering in a scenario where local initiatives become a major driver and policy enabler? Or is the answer “both, and”?
I once owned an old pickup truck. It had loose steering, brakes that didn’t like long downhill runs and headlights that would stay on for about 20 miles and then take a break. I could never find the source of that problem. But I loved the truck. I used it mainly for commuting to my job in Washington, DC from my home in the Virginia suburbs. Sometimes on weekends I would use it to haul stuff out to a rustic cabin across a couple blue ridges in West Virginia.
Does common sense apply to energy? Would it be a plus for a community’s economy to shop local for energy?
Let’s take a look at the big picture. Dollars are shipped out of town for each unit of energy that comes in. They flow to regional utilities, wholesale fuel suppliers, then all the way down their supply chains, no part of which is typically local. The outflow is economically significant. When spread over the US population, annual energy costs were $3,461 per person[2]. This is about 10% of the per capita annual income in the little town in the Sierras mentioned above.[3]
California leads the US in deploying smaller renewable power systems. The economics are shifting to make the smaller systems cost competitive with the large “utility-scale” generators that have long dominated the power grid. Global market trends now favor decentralized renewable energy deployment, featuring thousands and even millions of individual renewable generators and energy storage devices.
This transformation is forming the basis of a 21st century electricity system that will be increasingly decentralized, enabling local jurisdictions like Davis to have great flexibility. We’ll be able to determine our sources and uses of energy so as to achieve our sustainability goals while keeping energy costs affordable.
With a majority of eligible cities moving forward, Community Choice Energy In California has the vague feel of a third party movement, or even perhaps an insurgency. As yet there is no acknowledged problem to which it presents an obviously necessary solution. As yet there is no clearly articulated statement of the opportunity it creates both the state and its communities. What is local jurisdiction mobilization to decarbonize local energy infrastructure needed?
Problem and opportunity. Best to start looking at both sides of the coin.
Terrorist attacks in Paris. Climate talks in Paris. Which got saturation level media coverage? The terrorist attacks, of course. They were about life and death.
And yet, so were the climate talks. A lot more lives. A lot more deaths. Just not good fodder for action movies and the daily news cycle.
What I know about the Paris conference I learned from colleagues who participated.
Utility contractual obligations to independent generation project owners must be honored and/or renegotiated. Unlike other states, California allows its incumbent for profit utilities to impose “exit fees” on electricity users switching to community choice energy service. In northern California, these fees now add 25% to the cost of newly purchased renewable electricity.
We immediately notice, not one integrated project, but a lot, hundreds, thousands, of aspirational initiatives scattered about. Generally, they aim to reduce “carbon footprints”. For example, some California jurisdictions and agencies have goals to achieve some dimension of “carbon neutrality” by 2050, e.g. in the electricity sector. Many local California jurisdictions have “climate action plans” targeting vehicle miles traveled and other transportation metrics. In the buildings sector, California is working on “net zero” standards that would be applied to new residential buildings as soon as 2020.
I realized it would have to be people individually choosing solar that would propel solar forward. At the time solar resonated with people because they could imagine it as part of their lives, i.e. as an improvement. My company was a monopoly. It would get along just fine without improvements. Yes, of course it could imagine changes in its business environment and needing to navigate them, but it couldn’t imagine actually initiating or creating the changes.
VCAC representatives pointed out that on its current trajectory, The Cannery development will add significantly to the City’s carbon footprint unless a large percentage of initial home buyers opt for necessary upgrades. They further pointed out that, while net zero energy can be cost-effectively achieved during initial construction, later retrofits aiming for net zero will be practically and economically unrewarding. Incremental owner initiated solar array upgrades will be as much as two or three times more costly on a unit energy basis than their cost as part of the new construction process.
Last year the Davis City Council funded work to evaluate the city's long-term electricity service options. The matter was tabled as the June election drew near. Then this summer the city commissioned a resident satisfaction survey that, among other questions, asked if the city should form a municipal utility and purchase PG&E’s distribution system.[1] 46.5 percent of respondents said yes, 34.5 percent said no, and 19 percent were undecided. This result suggests it is time to resume serious public discussion of Davis’s energy future, based on relevant factual information and insights.
Some friends and I recently had a conversation about the future of a volunteer group we helped create. We are concerned about environmental issues, and our group is part of a larger organization that has a much broader and diverse set of concerns. So, how to proceed? Advocate for specific action on specific issues, and someone in the larger group is inevitably going to see the issue another way. Busy ourselves with innocuous individual good-doing, and the group loses cohesion if not a reason to exist.
I offered an observation that might be a good guideline if judiciously applied. My friend, Mike Eckhart, created and developed the American Council on Renewable Energy into a broad based and politically potent coalition. He led the effort according to a principle which flies in the face of our gut political instincts.
Ten years ago, Susan Davis introduced me to the notion of “both/and”, or “both…and”. It may be a measure of cultural imprinting, or a slow paced intellect, that it took me some time to grasp the full meaning. “Both, and…” says don’t settle for the best of both sides of an either/or choice; rather recognize that there are other best sides to incorporate as well. It is another way of saying, “You are both right”, an observation Solarex CEO, Harvey Forest, was fond of making in the midst of heated debates among his management team members. But it goes further. It is essentially a call to integrate, not differentiate. Not surprisingly, you’ll find the call pervasive in Buddhist teaching, and in some Christian teaching as well, as in “We are many parts; we are all one body.”
Community Choice Energy (CCE) is accelerating decarbonization of California’s electricity use. CCE service providers are a natural hub for collaborative engagement among local energy stakeholders and investors, including grid owners prosumers, counties and cities. But under current state imposed revenue diversions California CCEs cannot respond to local supply and energy resilience needs and opportunities, nor can they strike an economically beneficial long term balance between centralized and decentralized electricity supply for the areas they serve.
California has ramped up a seventy-six billion dollar investment in all types of solar generation capacity over the past decade. California’s retail solar industry enabled half of the total investment. Rooftop solar has been a bright spot for California’s renewable energy transition even as state regulators and California utilities continue to make other energy democracy enablers - community choice, community solar, community microgrids - hard or impossible to finance.
Regulators are now considering rule changes that impose punitive “grid access” fees on rooftop solar adoption, plus drastic reductions in compensation for electricity that feeds into the grid from rooftop solar arrays. The future of energy democracy in California hangs in the balance.
[1] The proposed CPUC decision is not accompanied by case studies indicating how it will work out for ratepayers.
It is time to recognize that a successful transition to a future decarbonized and more secure and resilient local infrastructure can’t be done at the state level or in silos at any level. It will depend on the expertise and capacities of both natural gas and electric utilities and their collaboration with counties and cities if it is to proceed as the fastest possible pace.
Natural gas utility collaboration with cities and counties must receive policy attention at least comparable to collaboration involving electric utilities. Current levels of reliability and resilience provided by natural gas utilities must carry forward continuously as hydrogen emerges as an enabler of the energy sector transition of the 21st Century.
What is the best mix of locally generated and imported energy from the perspectives of cost and resilience? The answer will be different for every community. Should we wait for the long-promised “smart electricity grid”? Or should our counties and cities take up the task of making local infrastructure not only smart but technically and economically well-integrated? If so, they will be wise to collaborate with incumbent energy utilities. And with local families and businesses as well.
The brilliant scientists who created nuclear weapons were appalled by what they had made possible. Nuclear war. During the Cold War, they saw humanity inching steadily toward self-annihilation. They started a movement among themselves to lobby for nuclear sanity. They used the image of a clock showing minutes to midnight to make plain the imminence of existential risk. It was on the cover of every issue of their monthly magazine, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The minute hand moved back a bit when disarmament negotiations showed progress. It moved forward when tensions rose, or nuclear sabers rattled. We called it the Doomsday Clock. Clearly, humanity was in uncharted territory, master of its own fate and hostage to its worst instincts.
There is anecdotal evidence of the need for collaboration. For proponents of local clean energy resources there is an even more basic question. Why energy resources that are both clean and local? The case is compelling.
Simply put, local¹ clean energy resources are happening, unevenly around the world, mostly, except for California, outside the US. They come in many sizes. So do utilities. So do cities. Maybe we need a common denominator if we are to connect dots more strategically and less anecdotally.
Substitution of materials, equipment and low carbon fuels for high carbon fuels is underway and moving forward faster in some countries and economic sectors than others. Substitution of manufactured equipment for fuels adds “life cycle carbon” to historical and on-going GHG emissions. To what extent do GHGs emitted in creating low carbon energy economies retard overall decarbonization progress? Life cycle carbon emissions for the years 2020 through 2029 add up to a minimum of 35 billion metric tons of CO2-eq, or roughly a year’s worth of current global energy related GHG emissions. Overall life cycle carbon emissions will continue to increase after 2029 at least until direct global GHG emissions are brought under control.
Just as the atmosphere’s capacity to absorb GHGs without affecting climate is limited, so is the earth’s capacity to supply materials to replace those that are used only once. In a renewable energy context, there are two basic solutions. First, there is no technical reason renewable energy equipment cannot be built to last decades longer than it otherwise might. How can renewable energy markets and policies reward durability and long, low maintenance project and system operation even as major supply chain industries continue to thrive on planned obsolescence? Second, renewable energy material and component recovery and reuse is feasible but not generally either mandatory or economically rewarding. Will publicly financed renewable energy waste recovery be necessary, and which governments will take the lead in making it work fairly and efficiently?
Are California’s energy resilience assets being used to provide energy security for diverse and important sub-sets of individual electricity customers? Yes, but not for all important sub-sets. Has massive deployment of on-site energy resilience assets in California to date enabled their effective use to back up local electricity grids. Not yet. Are energy resilience assets being integrated with grid assets to maximize local energy security? Not yet. Will the doubling of resilient supply assets expected in the next five years materially improve energy resilience in California? Not to the extent it could. Optimally effective use can only be achieved when there is smarter and more flexible local electricity grid operation. The cost of local energy resilience can either be high or modest, depending on whether on-site energy supply and storage assets are used effectively. Especially assets that decarbonize cost-efficiently and result in “resilient decarbonization”. Community microgrids enable effective use of resilient decarbonization assets, but not utility owned solar and battery storage assets. Their role in for-profit utility rate-base building has yet to be demonstrated. The urgent question is whether other stakeholders - cities, counties and states - will overcome utility resistance and lead the way on an affordable energy resilience path that serves all energy users, not just those who have backup on-site.
In California, as much money is being invested in locally beneficial solar projects as in large solar projects that export electricity to other areas. Balanced investment in local and centralized projects doubles the rate of GHG emissions reduction by doubling the rate of renewable energy deployment.
Local renewable energy production is becoming the foundation for local energy resilience.
Can expansion of renewable energy production in the U.S. be accelerated if “wires charges” for community renewable projects are adjusted to account for local energy resilience benefits and actual project-specific transmission grid usage? How much costly and environmentally controversial expansion of regional transmission systems can be avoided by expanding local renewable energy production for local use?
The menu of energy related actions that can be identified and prioritized in local climate action plans can be displayed in two main categories. Electricity and gas fuel decarbonization elements are additive, synergistic, and comparably effective in most local cases. They support faster decarbonization progress than renewable electricity alone. They are inter-dependent to the extent energy resilience is best (most cost-effectively and completely) achieved by including gas fueled electricity supply in the local electricity supply mix. Each menu category requires local implementation capacity. Prioritization of the categories should give close consideration to implementation capacity and strategies and actions to upgrade it.
In a single decade electricity generation capacity additions have shifted to natural gas and renewables while solar generation capacity additions in California have been a mix of large and small projects that enabled faster overall expansion.
A New Opportunity for California Cities and Counties. Property owners in most of northern California now recapture their on-site solar investments in as little as 5-6 years and continue to save money for another 20 years. Their communities benefit as well to the extent local governments act to capture reliability, resilience and equity benefits a thriving local solar industry makes possible. California counties and cities with mature local solar deployment capacity are seeing sustained double digit annual on-site solar expansion. It is as if an exceptionally talented and productive player just began playing for the local team – a player with the ability to lower energy costs, increase energy resilience and enable more equitable access to locally produced zero carbon electricity.
Property owner investments in on-site solar energy deliver significant environmental, economic and resilience benefits to cities and counties. Modest and ever-shrinking differences between unit (per kWh) costs of utility solar electricity supply and unit costs of on-site solar electricity systems point to a growing, beneficial long term role for local systems.
Expansion of local renewable supply is key to more timely, just, and safe state and national renewable energy transitions. US cities and counties should encourage private investment in local solar energy production because it enables faster local decarbonization and energy resilience; it also strengthens local economies in many ways. Community solar and renewable fuel production makes local energy transitions not only timely but also equitable. Local decarbonization and energy resilience progress requires technically and economically informed planning, which in turn requires greatly expanded collaboration among local governments, energy utilities and local businesses, including energy equipment contractors and retailers, fuel distributors, and major local employers.
Local climate action and adaptation is a relatively new planning consideration. Carefully planned and implemented, it can strengthen local economies, create local jobs, increase county and city tax revenues, and improve essential services. Local planning is essential because of local differences that cause large local deviations from statewide average energy usage patterns, transportation infrastructure, renewable resource opportunities, environmental concerns, and demographics.
Net zero building retrofits were identified in a Cal-IRES report as a key element of a renewable energy roadmap for Davis, California. In the past year I’ve had opportunities to smoke the devil out of the details of this vision. I purchased a PV system for our home, negotiated a solar electricity power purchase agreement for our church, and worked with a few like-minded colleagues to advocate for applying net zero as a standard for a new residential development in the city. In parallel, in the 2013 legislative session our state senator, Lois Wolk, successfully carried legislation that carved out 20MW for the city in a bill that mandates 600MW of "solar gardens" state-wide.
The classical planning view would be that in an electric generation mix, higher capital cost/ lower fuel cost generators and higher fuel cost/ lower capital cost generators complement one another, resulting in a least cost generation mix. There are also other complementarities, e.g. overlapping science and technology needs (think enhanced geothermal and natural gas fracking). Likewise, there is a potential at least for shared infrastructure (think injection of bio-methane and later hydrogen from renewable sources into gas pipelines and distribution systems).
When we use the term “renewable integration” to describe IRESN’s focus, what do we mean? Integration with what? In what context?
IRESN has been active in certain major dimensions of renewable integration. They are:
- Project integration
- Infrastructure integration
- Money integration
- Societal integration
Without some examples, these terms don’t help much either. So, for example
IRESN Comments to the California Public Utilities Commission Hearing on Community Choice Aggregation Issues, February 1, 2017
The on-going rapid expansion of Community Choice Energy (Community Choice) in California is a breakthrough opportunity for successful deployment of economic, efficient and environmentally responsible local energy resources into competitive energy markets.
Subsidies from government to new technologies or industries date back hundreds of years in the U. S. The purpose of subsidies is generally to give exciting new technologies a boost in helping fund the cost of starting up until its’ cost of production is competitive with older, less desirable methods. Subsidies keep prices for consumers below market levels or for producers above market levels, or reduce costs for consumers and producers. Subsidies have also been introduced to increase production of a product whose national need has increased due to war or other national calamity.
Looking back through the short history of man's use of and eventually dependence upon electricity illustrates the nature and complexity of this evolution, how it's organized and how it's financed. In California as in the US, mature, centralized electrical energy grid infrastructures exist. Transitioning to clean, climate friendly and smarter electricity systems means bringing innovative, capital intensive, and increasingly decentralized power sector infrastructure on stream.
(The following article by Gerry Braun was published on September 1, 2015 in Renewable Energy World. It included content from the executive summary of an IRESN report entitled Integrated Energy Analysis for Davis, California. Click here for the Renewable Energy World article and here for a pdf of the full report.)
Thanks to cost-effective rooftop solar electricity, new neighborhoods in California are generating their own electricity from the start. Likewise, local grids serving settled communities are being strengthened by deployment of local sources, smarter end use, and electricity storage. Regulators are considering new grid architectures that allow each local grid to be operated according to its unique blend of local and imported supply and evolving usage patterns.
In California[1] and the US, mature, centralized energy grid infrastructure exists. So, does centralized, carbon intensive electricity supply infrastructure. Transitioning to clean, climate friendly and smarter electricity systems means bringing innovative, capital intensive, and increasingly decentralized power sector infrastructure on stream. National, state and local policy should recognize and address the implications for finance, particularly the need for investments that capture and optimize local economic benefits.
In this regard, we see an urgent need for policy research that informs movement toward a new balance of planning and investment between centralized (Washington, state capitols and Wall Street) and local. Lacking local empowerment, we see decentralization occurring anyway as a natural evolution, with trial and error adding cost and extending time frames.
Set a goal, commit, make a plan, do the work, have fun. Common sense that reminds me of Integrated Resources Network (IRESN) colleague, Ronnie Holland’s, approach to life. Everyone, of course, does their work. Not everyone is purposeful about the other four steps. In his essay, “Headwork”, Edward Hoagland reflects on the notion of “work”. He says that “work…can become second nature, and you can’t stop, don’t want to stop, don’t need to know who benefits – continuing with it for its own sake but with the destination of reaching other ears and minds.”
That might just sum up IRESN’s 2014. We set goals, committed, made a plan, and 2014 was about doing the work. We had some fun. Not much time left for IRESN communications. Making more time for communications will be a 2015 goal.
Mature, mass produced solar technologies deliver cost savings by avoiding fossil fuel use, and, in the case of rooftop and community solar, by avoiding a portion of the cost of energy transport system expansion. So, radiative solar energy transport should be maximized because it is cheaper, faster to deploy, and more environmentally and climate beneficial than transport via wires and pipes.
Solar decarbonization substitutes solar energy for fossil fuels and reduces GHG emissions and is now well underway globally because solar energy also has significant economic and environmental benefits. Centralized solar electricity deployment maximizes electricity transport owners economic rewards, while local solar deployment also rewards energy users and communities. Total solar decarbonization impacts are maximized if all solar deployment pathways remain open and economically rewarding.
For-profit California electric utilities charge high prices and take minimal climate action. Three state-regulated for-profits, PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E, charge two to three times more for the electricity they deliver than large city regulated counterparts charge. The giant for-profits aim for carbon neutrality in 2040 or 2045. Large locally regulated electric utilities, SMUD and LADWP, aim for carbon neutrality by 2030 or 2035.
Substitution of materials, equipment and low carbon fuels for high carbon fuels is underway and moving forward faster in some countries and economic sectors than others. Substitution of manufactured equipment for fuels adds “life cycle carbon” to historical and on-going GHG emissions. To what extent do GHGs emitted in creating low carbon energy economies retard overall decarbonization progress? Life cycle carbon emissions for the years 2020 through 2029 add up to a minimum of 35 billion metric tons of CO2-eq, or roughly a year’s worth of current global energy related GHG emissions. Overall life cycle carbon emissions will continue to increase after 2029 at least until direct global GHG emissions are brought under control.
Future Bay takes a systems approach to energy efficiency. Their system converts off peak electricity to 24/7 heating, cooling and electricity supply using off the shelf heat pumps and the cheapest and most familiar methods of energy storage, hot and cold water. It exploits basic realities of thermodynamics; for example, that a heat pump works most efficiently when pumping heat across small temperature differences.
Just as the atmosphere’s capacity to absorb GHGs without affecting climate is limited, so is the earth’s capacity to supply materials to replace those that are used only once. In a renewable energy context, there are two basic solutions. First, there is no technical reason renewable energy equipment cannot be built to last decades longer than it otherwise might. How can renewable energy markets and policies reward durability and long, low maintenance project and system operation even as major supply chain industries continue to thrive on planned obsolescence? Second, renewable energy material and component recovery and reuse is feasible but not generally either mandatory or economically rewarding. Will publicly financed renewable energy waste recovery be necessary, and which governments will take the lead in making it work fairly and efficiently?
California and other states need a way to capture the environmental and economic benefits of community solar. Other states have found a way. California’s CCE industry should ask the California legislature to consider allowing California CCEs to use all or a portion of annual CPUC mandated PCIA charges to put local renewable projects on an equal economic footing with projects that require new high voltage transmission capacity to deliver electricity locally. This will increase CCE capacity and flexibility to address local energy resilience needs and to provide equitable access locally to the environmental and economic benefits of solar electricity.
Community Choice Energy (CCE) is accelerating decarbonization of California’s electricity use. CCE service providers are a natural hub for collaborative engagement among local energy stakeholders and investors, including grid owners prosumers, counties and cities. But under current state imposed revenue diversions California CCEs cannot respond to local supply and energy resilience needs and opportunities, nor can they strike an economically beneficial long term balance between centralized and decentralized electricity supply for the areas they serve.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has been tasked by the Colorado legislature to recommend whether and how to implement Community Choice Energy (CCE).
California’s CCE experience has been rich in diversity and local/state decarbonization impact. California CCE generation portfolios are on track to become fully decarbonized in the next few years. The California CCE model was conceived and adopted two decades ago. It exploits economic options available at the time but allows little flexibility to capture economic, environmental and energy resilience benefits of local supply and infrastructure investment.
Nevertheless, Colorado and other states can adapt and expand California’s CCE model to facilitate 21st century energy policy implementation. Specific adaptations can result in greater reliance on local renewable electricity sources and electrification of local transportation. By adopting them Colorado can take CCE to the next level of public benefits and impact.
If Colorado adopts community choice, it should set a high bar for future local energy collaboration and fair cost responsibilities. This will give Colorado communities a much better way to meet energy and climate challenges of the 21st century.
If Colorado adopts community choice, it should set a high bar for future local energy collaboration and fair cost responsibilities. This will give Colorado communities a much better way to meet energy and climate challenges of the 21st century.