Southern California Edison on Jan. 15 said it was considering a public-safety power shut-off to 66,500 customer accounts over the next 48 hours. Power was shut off to about 8,700 customer accounts as of mid-day on Jan. 15. This included 1,600 accounts in Los Angeles County, 2,597 in Riversid…
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Dec. 30 reappointed Marybel Batjer as president of the California Public Utilities Commission. Her second term ends Jan. 1, 2027. Batjer was originally appointed as CPUC president on July 12, 2019, by Newsom and was sworn in on Aug. 16 of that year. The position requires…
San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison said they might be forced to conduct public-safety power shut-offs over the holiday. SDG&E on Dec. 22 notified 31,000 customers that they might experience a PSPS after the National Weather Service issued a red-flag warning in SD…
East Bay Community Energy plans to purchase 100-percent clean electricity for its customers by 2030, the community choice aggregator's representatives said on Dec. 18. EBCE to date has contracted for more than 500 MW from wind, solar and energy storage resources, and in 2021 expects to contr…
Southern California Edison signed long-term contracts for 590 MW of battery energy storage, the company announced Dec. 7. The four projects are designed "to further enhance the region's electric system reliability needs," according to SCE.
The U.S. clean-energy sector in November restored fewer than 8,000 jobs, leaving more than 446,000, or 13 percent of the sector's workforce, unemployed, according to a Dec. 8 analysis from BW Research, the American Council on Renewable Energy, Environmental Entrepreneurs and E4TheFuture. Job…
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission General Manager Harlan Kelly resigned Nov. 30 after being charged with honest-services wire fraud by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The federal complaint alleges that Kelly engaged in a long-running bribery scheme and corrupt partnership with W…
Silicon Valley Clean Energy has directed $14 million toward accelerating electric-vehicle adoption in 2020, including $8 million of its own funding and $6 million from the California Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Project. New EV charging stations will be installed across the 13 cities that…
PG&E Corp. said Nov. 18 that current CMS Energy Corp./Consumers Energy President and CEO Patricia "Patti" Poppe has been named CEO of PG&E and made a member of its board of directors. Poppe will take over from current PG&E Corp. CEO William Smith on Jan. 4, according to a news re…
California Independent System Operator Board of Governors member David Olsen will retire effective Nov. 30, the ISO said in a news release. Olsen, a resident of Ventura, was first appointed to the board in April 2012 and served as chair from February 2018 to October 2020. Gov. Gavin Newsom r…
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Nov. 10 voted to ban the use of natural gas in new buildings, but included an exception process that will allow natural gas piping and equipment under certain circumstances.
Southern California Gas Co. on Oct. 29 said that it has begun dispensing California-produced renewable natural gas at many of the natural-gas fueling stations it operates across the state. This is a first for the utility, which now sources its RNG from Calgren Dairy Fuels. It had been provid…
Peninsula Clean Energy will expand to the City of Los Banos, the community choice aggregator announced Oct. 29. Participating residential and business accounts will have electricity rates roughly 5 percent lower than those of Pacific Gas & Electric, and their power will be sourced from t…
Canadian Solar on Oct. 19 closed a supply contract and long-term service agreement for battery storage with Goldman Sachs Renewable Power.
Clean Power Alliance on Oct. 21 announced the release of its 2020 clean-energy request for offers. The community choice aggregator is soliciting offers for long-term power-purchase agreements focused on long-duration storage projects of up to 12 hours, as well as "structured products to deli…
A group of eight California community choice aggregators on Oct. 16 issued a request for offers for up to 500 MW of long-duration energy storage. The Joint CCAs, which include Central and Northern California providers that together serve nearly 3 million accounts, seek minimum 10-year contra…
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection took possession of Pacific Gas & Electric electrical equipment as part of the investigation of the Zogg Fire in Shasta County, PG&E said in an Oct. 9 filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The fire began on Sep…
San Diego Gas & Electric plans to operate only zero-emission vehicles by 2040, representatives of the investor-owned utility said Sept. 30. SDG&E will try to electrify 100 percent of its light-duty fleet vehicles by 2030 and its entire fleet by 2040. Currently, 17 percent of SDG&…
The Arizona Corporation Commission at its Sept. 22 meeting extended Arizona's suspension on electric and natural gas utility disconnections due to nonpayment through Dec. 31 for investor-owned utilities. The moratorium had been scheduled to end Oct. 15, but data indicates that tens of thousa…
Battery and fuel-cell electric truck manufacturer Nikola Motor Co. of Phoenix on Sept. 20 announced that founder Trevor Milton voluntarily stepped down as executive chairman of the publicly traded company's board of directors. Stephen Girsky, former vice chairman of General Motors, was immed…
Southern California Edison's equipment is being examined in relation to the Bobcat Fire in the Angeles National Forest, which was first reported on Sunday, Sept. 6, at 12:21 p.m., the utility said.
PG&E Corp. Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jason Wells left his position Sept. 14 to become CFO of another utility, the company said. His resignation does not involve any disagreement on any matter related to PG&E Corp.'s operations, policies or practices, PG&…
A Sept. 6 fire at a Southern California generation plant contributed to a loss of energy available to the California Independent System Operator at a critical juncture during the recent heat wave.
Rachel Peterson is the new acting executive director at the California Public Utilities Commission, replacing Alice Stebbins, who says she will sue the commission over her dismissal (see CEM No. 1606). Peterson joined the CPUC in 2011 and most recently served as deputy executive director for…
The California Climate Investments program spent about $1 billion on greenhouse gas-reduction projects in the first six-month period of this year, up from about $914 million in the first six-month period of 2019, the California Air Resources Board said in a news release this week.
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District announced that Paul Lau will succeed Arlen Orchard as its CEO and general manager effective Oct. 3. Lau has been chief grid strategy and operations officer for SMUD since 2015 and originally joined the municipal utility in 1982 as an electrical engin…
As more than 1 million acres in Northern California continue to burn due to what the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is calling a "lightning siege," a controversial bill is moving through the state Legislature that would extend and expand a utility bill surcharge for fu…
Finite Carbon announced Aug. 24 that it is launching the web-based CORE Carbon platform in late 2020 that will allow landowners with 40 to 5,000 acres to see a real-time value assessment of how much income their forestland might generate in the voluntary carbon market. Once enrolled at no co…
The chemical makeup of energy storage batteries worldwide is moving from lithium-manganese-cobalt oxide to lithium-iron-phosphate, or LFP, which is poised to have a 30-percent global market share by 2030, up from 10 percent in 2015, according to Wood Mackenzie analysts. Batteries in conventi…
The California Independent System Operator late on Aug. 14 declared a Stage 3 Electrical Emergency due to high heat levels and increased electricity demand. The ISO said the emergency initiates rolling power outages throughout the state.
State legislation that would have required a minimum 2,500-foot setback distance for oil and natural gas-related activities from schools, playgrounds and public facilities where children are present failed after opposition by business groups, labor unions, city and county officials, and the …
U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) on Aug. 6 introduced legislation that would allocate $89 million in federal funds for the Navajo Electrification Demonstration Program. The NEDP was established in 2000 and authorized up to $15 million each year for five yea…
The Boulder, Colorado City Council on Aug. 4 discussed the first reading of a motion that would establish a franchise agreement with Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest investor-owned utility, after reaching an agreement in principle July 28. The franchise agreement would stipulate that Boulder …
Pacific Gas & Electric and Tesla on July 21 began constructing a 182.5-MW lithium-ion battery storage facility in Moss Landing that will be one of the largest such utility-owned systems in the world.
The Western Energy Imbalance Market has accrued almost $1 billion in benefits since its November 2014 launch, according to the California Independent System Operator's quarterly report. The total gross benefits to date are $998.69 million. In the second quarter alone, EIM participants gained…
A transportable solar-powered electric-vehicle charging station has landed outside San Luis Obispo's city hall, officials said July 22. The city bought the transportable EV charging unit from Envision Solar International, a San Diego-based company that produces and sells charging infrastruct…
Pacific Gas & Electric's electric transmission lines caused the October 2019 Kincade Fire in Sonoma County that burned nearly 78,000 acres, destroyed 374 structures and caused four non-life-threatening injuries, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said July 16.
California Resources Corporation, an oil and natural gas exploration and production company that owns the 550-MW Elk Hills Power Plant in Kern County, filed July 15 for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, according to a 294-page f…
Staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said July 7 it prepared a final environmental impact statement for the relicensing of the Turlock and Modesto irrigation districts' 168-MW Don Pedro Project No. 2299 and for licensing of the 4.7-MW La Grange Project No. 14581. The districts o…
Natural gas exploration and production company Aera Energy LLC announced June 23 that Christina Sistrunk, its president and CEO, is retiring effective Oct. 1. Sistrunk, who joined Aera in June 2015, serves on Gov. Gavin Newsom's Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery. Erik Bartsch, current…
Southern California Gas Co. and the University of California, Santa Barbara, announced June 18 that they had completed two joint energy-efficiency projects that will reduce the campus' energy use by roughly 24 percent, saving an estimated $66,000/year or roughly 66,000 therms/year. The proje…
Average weekday demand for electricity in California declined by more than 4 percent in late March and 9 percent in April compared with the same time last year, the California Energy Commission said in a new "Energy Insights" report. Residential energy usage by customers of the three investo…
East Bay Community Energy issued a request for proposals designed to result in a contract for portfolio and risk management and valuation software. Specifically, EBCE wants a tool or platform its staff can use and customize in order to support its power procurement and risk management. This …
Three people died in a helicopter crash near Fairfield on June 2 while working on a Pacific Gas & Electric power line.
8minute Solar Energy has closed a $225-million letter of credit it plans to use to post securities for both its power-purchase agreements and interconnection agreements for its 18-GW pipeline of solar and storage projects in California, Texas and the Southwest, the company said June 1. The l…
The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission on May 22 voted to approve a regulation requiring electric utilities and other entities to report greenhouse gas emissions data to the state agency.
The California Independent System Operator is raising components of its grid-management charge because of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying its tariff requires the action when the charge fails to recover sufficient revenue, as it has so far this year. Based on data through April, current forecas…
Energy company SGH2 on May 20 revealed plans to develop what will be the world’s largest waste-to-hydrogen plant in Lancaster, California. The plant will process 42,000 tons of recycled waste per year and produce up to 3.8 million kilograms of hydrogen per year, the company said in a news re…
S. David Freeman, who enjoyed a lengthy career in energy, passed away May 12 at the age of 94 following a heart attack.
Researchers have developed a novel self-assembling membrane designed to separate carbon dioxide from a mixture of gases, which could be applied to carbon capture and storage. The Newcastle University material uses a small amount of silver in a membrane. The silver is triggered to grow during…
