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Pacific Gas & Electric has finalized a deal with a group of its bondholders, which had been competing for control of the bankrupt utility over the past year.
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A fourth person has entered a guilty plea in an ongoing, billion-dollar federal fraud case purportedly involving sales and loans of mobile solar generation units. Read More
Robert Kondziolka was unanimously voted in as the newest member of the Western Energy Imbalance Market Governing Body at its Jan. 23 meeting. His appointment begins Feb. 1. Kondziolka retired as the Salt River Project’s management consultant for grid resiliency and security in December. In a… Read More
Assm. Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) opened a Jan. 22 hearing in Sacramento with a rather grave assessment of the state of California electricity service, mentioning projected capacity shortfalls, high retail rates, power shut-offs and the bankruptcy of Pacific Gas & Electric. Read More
Western energy prices continued to plummet, depressed by a lack of cold weather across most of the continental United States. Read More
A California Public Utilities Commission judge ruled to increase Pacific Gas & Electric's locate-and-mark penalty from $65 million to $110 million, saying the bankrupt utility knew it had severe problems with its program for more than four years but chose to take no action. Read More
The California Public Utilities Commission's Wildfire Safety Advisory Board on Jan. 21 held its inaugural meeting in Sacramento, which was largely devoted to educating the newly appointed board members about the organization and the status of its development. Read More
The California Energy Commission at its Jan. 22 meeting granted Trinity Public Utility District an exemption from new state building codes mandating that solar-photovoltaic systems be installed on newly constructed low-rise residential buildings. Read More
Electric-vehicle charging stations could be required at existing buildings undergoing major renovations in California, according to a report by the California Air Resources Board. Currently, Level 2 EV charging stations must be installed at new-building construction sites, but not at existin… Read More
Pacific Gas & Electric has finalized a deal with a group of its bondholders, which had been competing for control of the bankrupt utility over the past year. Read More
The challenges of integrating renewable energy and procuring power on a rapidly changing electricity grid were the topic of a panel discussion at the Solar, Storage and Smart Energy Expo in San Francisco on Jan. 17, with one representative of the California Independent System Operator saying… Read More
The nature of California's community solar program, and the dearth of participation in the initiative since its creation a few years ago, were the topic of an at-times passionate debate at an event in San Francisco last week. Read More
The State of California on Jan. 17 filed suit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in federal court, disputing BLM's environmental review that would open more than a million acres of public land in Central California to oil and natural gas drilling—including hydraulic fracturing, or fr… Read More
Pacific Gas & Electric has been granted eminent domain across a section of a privately owned Calistoga vineyard, which will allow the utility to install equipment it contends is needed to augment natural gas supplies during pipeline repairs and to address increasing customer demand. Read More
Arizona's largest utility has committed to cutting carbon from its portfolio by 2050, despite a relative lack of state emissions or renewable-energy goals in the state. Read More
New Mexico's highly controversial Energy Transition Act, which passed the state's Legislature with a wide margin but has met resistance from state regulators, will get its day in court [S-1-SC-38041]. Read More
Federal energy regulators on Jan. 14 gave an early nod to a massive pumped-storage project in northern Arizona that could extend the availability of renewable resources in an area that for 45 years played host to the West's largest coal-fired power plant. Read More
The Trump administration on Jan. 23 finalized a regulation replacing the 2015 "Waters of the U.S." rule. Read More