Focus
California bill proposes a backstop authority to secure state’s power grid needs
■Greentech Media - April 17
California lawmakers are grappling with a complicated yet critical issue — how to secure the energy resources needed to meet the state’s renewable and carbon-free energy goals while also keeping the power grid running. Last week, the state’s Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee passed AB 56, which would give the California Public Utilities Commission the ability to task an existing state agency to serve as a backstop for “procurement of electricity to meet the state’s climate, clean energy, and reliability goals.” But the vote was accompanied by several statements of opposition, including from the California Community Choice Association and utility Southern California Edison, both of which called the bill the wrong solution for the problems it would seek to solve. AB 56 opponents claim the bill would manage backstop procurement across too broad a range of grid needs.
Read More
News
California's Solar Bill of Rights passes its first hurdle
■PV Magazine - April 10
Last week, the California Senate Energy Committee approved Senate Bill 288, dubbed the Solar Bill of Rights, which will now go to the Senate Appropriations Committee. If it clears there, passes both houses of the state legislature, and goes on to become law, the bill will do four things: bar utilities from imposing discriminatory fees on the output of behind-the-meter PV and energy storage systems, require regulators to establish a streamlined and standardized process for utilities to interconnect PV systems, require regulators and the state’s grid operator to remove barriers to customer-sited energy resources participating in energy, capacity and ancillary services markets, and have utilities look at compensating distributed energy resources for the resiliency benefits they offer.
Read More
Apple adds Foxconn, chip suppliers to clean energy program
■Reuters - April 11
Apple Inc said on Thursday that it has nearly doubled the number of suppliers using only clean energy for production work, including two that assemble and make the processor chips for the iPhone. Apple last year said it meets all of its needs with renewable energy such as solar farms that power data centers, but a large part of its carbon footprint comes from its supply chain. Forty-four companies are now in the program, including Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, whose Foxconn unit makes iPhones, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd, which supplies the A-series chips that power all of Apple’s mobile devices.
READ MORE
Tribes sue BLM over geothermal leases on sacred land
■Courthouse News Service - April 15
Calpine Corporation won a U.S. government contract in 1982 to explore geothermal energy on 2,560 acres of national forest in the Medicine Lake Highlands of Siskiyou County. This week, members of the Pit River Tribe sued the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in California federal court, alleging that the agency has allowed Calpine to squat on their sacred land for decades, even as the company fails to meet lease renewal requirements by making “diligent efforts” to produce geothermal power. According to the lawsuit, Calpine has not drilled or tested a geothermal well in the area since 1988. BLM is required to review the lease every five years and terminate if Calpine fails to show it can produce commercially viable geothermal power.
READ MORE
California aggregator seeks microgrid hosts as part of community choice program
■Microgrid Knowledge - April 15
Monterey Bay Community Power, a community choice aggregator, last Friday released an application seeking customers to host microgrid projects. The solicitation is the first step toward installing one or more microgrid projects in the aggregrator’s service territory: Monterey, San Benito, and Santa Cruz Counties. After selecting host sites, Monterey Bay Community Power will seek bids, beginning June 7, to identify contractors who can offer turnkey engineering and construction.
READ MORE
Projects
SolarReserve nixes Nevada plans for world’s largest solar project
■Las Vegas Review-Journal - April 16
After announcing plans to create the world’s largest solar project in Nevada in 2016, SolarReserve has withdrawn its application to build on federal land, according to the Nevada Bureau of Land Management. The solar power plant would have generated enough power to supply about a million homes and was expected to create 3,000 jobs lasting seven years, SolarReserve CEO Kevin Smith told the Review-Journal in 2016. Construction was originally projected to begin in 2018 or 2019, and the bulk of the power produced was expected to be exported to California.
Read More
Starbucks invests in solar farms throughout Texas to power 360 stores
■Environmental Leader - April 16
Starbucks Coffee Company, Cypress Creek Renewables, and U.S. Bank are teaming up on a portfolio of solar farms across Texas. As a part of the deal, two solar farms developed, built, and now operated by Cypress Creek are providing enough energy to power approximately 360 Starbucks stores in the state, including stores in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, and Arlington. Starbucks is separately investing in six Cypress Creek-owned solar farms in Texas, representing 50 megawatts of solar energy.
Read More
