Pacific Gas & Electric on July 1 emerged from the bankruptcy reorganization it began a year and a half ago, a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed "failsafe" legislation that would turn PG&E into a nonprofit utility if things go wrong.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali on June 29 ordered Pacific Gas & Electric, the tort claimants committee and the wildfire victims' trustee to respond to a request by Theresa Ann McDonald, a Camp Fire victim who voted to reject PG&E's proposed settlement and reorganization plan.
Utilities including those in California are reacting to a newfound national focus on racial justice by making public statements in favor of the Black Lives Matter movement, but are also following up with actions to support racial equity.
San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman on June 30 introduced legislation that would eliminate natural gas in all new-building construction within the city.
The U.S. approaches its annual independence celebration this year amid a global pandemic that is infecting and killing people of color at much higher rates than whites and during an unprecedented reckoning with its history of racism.
The cost of new technologies capable of improving energy efficiency, generating and storing energy, and decarbonizing end-use appliances is declining and their availability is growing, but the ability of disadvantaged communities to participate in the advances is far from equitable, a new re…
Pacific Gas & Electric on June 24 proposed a new set of probation requirements for itself, stating the requirements would "provide flexibility for the utility to continuously improve."
Less than one week after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali confirmed Pacific Gas & Electric's plan of reorganization, two wildfire victims say they are "dismayed by the treatment" they have experienced as they start through the fire victim compensation process.
The clean-energy sector, a short time ago one of the nation's leaders for new jobs, has been hard hit in California by a wave of job losses that could set the industry back years, according to a new report from Environmental Entrepreneurs.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali intends to confirm Pacific Gas & Electric's plan of reorganization, which would guide the utility out of bankruptcy for the second time in less than 18 years.
A Superior Court judge fined Pacific Gas & Electric nearly $3.5 million for causing the Camp Fire in November 2018 that killed 84 people and destroyed the town of Paradise, in highly emotional hearings that included agonizing testimony from relatives of the deceased.
The United States can reach 90-percent carbon-free electricity by 2035 using existing technology and without increasing customer bills, according to a new report from the University of California, Berkeley, and the energy nonprofit GridLab—but it won't be easy.
An additional 27,000 clean-energy workers applied for unemployment in May, according to a June 15 analysis that runs counter to a recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report suggesting nationwide economic recovery.
The Humboldt Bay Generating Station is now able to operate in islanding mode, Pacific Gas & Electric said in a June 12 announcement.
With the completion of a collaborative study on how to install electric-vehicle charging infrastructure for medium- and heavy-duty trucks along roughly 1,300 miles of Interstate 5 from the Mexican to the Canadian border, a coalition from three West Coast states now has a road map outlining a…
Reserve margins are expected to exceed the North American Electric Reliability Corporation's reference margin levels in all of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council's subregions this summer, WECC said at a June 17 virtual board of directors meeting.
The California Energy Commission on June 3 released a final report that provides comprehensive detail on how the state should ideally build and deploy renewable-hydrogen production facilities.
Pacific Gas & Electric this week reached critical wildfire victim trust fund agreements with the victim claims committee and is now waiting for U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali to approve its plan of reorganization.
New legislation working its way through the state Assembly would make Pacific Gas & Electric a public utility if its reorganization plan is not approved by June 30 or if it loses its safety certification.
Federal legislators, clean-energy business owners and industry officials from across the nation recently sent three separate letters to congressional leadership calling on the federal government to provide support for the sector. All three letters requested robust federal investments in clea…
Southern California Gas Co. operations are under renewed scrutiny following two recent key maintenance announcements.
Collaboration on information gathering and procurement activities among community choice aggregators continues apace, the latest effort being a June 3 joint request for information for long-duration energy storage in which 11 California CCAs are participating.
California's grid operator issued its latest proposal for a series of major changes to its day-ahead wholesale electricity market, an initiative aimed at helping to integrate growing levels of solar and wind generation.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali this week heard closing arguments from wildfire victims and lawyers in Pacific Gas & Electric's 16-month-long bankruptcy proceeding that rocked the utility world—and residents of Northern California—beginning last January. Montali is considering his f…
Pacific Gas & Electric says it aims to have one-third fewer of its customers affected by public-safety power shut-offs this year, as well as reduce restoration times by half. But a utility representative told lawmakers this week the utility can't guarantee that lengthy outages caused by …
As part of its 2020-2021 transmission planning process, the California Independent System Operator is prioritizing the identification of areas on the electricity grid where the impact of wildfires and public-safety power shut-offs can be reduced.
Community choice aggregators in California are well poised to promote widespread electric-vehicle infrastructure adoption, especially to support post-pandemic economic recovery, according to a May 29 webinar hosted by the California Community Choice Association.
Following a study of near-zero-emission heavy-duty natural gas truck operations, the vehicles were awarded the highest possible readiness rating by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Despite pleas from local stakeholders and community activists over the years, Southern California Edison, the utility operator of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, and independent experts maintain that until long-term or permanent off-site storage for spent nuclear fuel becomes avai…
U.S. District Judge William Alsup is reconsidering a set of new probation requirements that he imposed on Pacific Gas & Electric in April, and is "very likely to defer to [the] judgment" of the California Public Utilities Commission on the matter, he said in a telephonic court hearing on…
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali is deciding whether to confirm Pacific Gas & Electric's $59-billion reorganization plan that would move the largest utility in the United States beyond another chaotic chapter in its long history.
California lawmakers are preparing for wildfire and power shut-off season with several new bills aimed at lessening the impact of outages, spurring microgrids, and increasing the diversity of the utility workforce.
California remains a leader in the solar industry, but it has been hit by COVID-19 and one industry organization has crafted an eight-point response designed to accelerate economic recovery and job growth.
Monterey Bay Community Power and Silicon Valley Clean Energy on May 27 jointly signed their longest-term renewables contract to date.
Some of California's wildfire victims say they did not receive ballots on Pacific Gas & Electric's proposed wildfire settlement and reorganization plan prior to the May 15 voting deadline.
The U.S. solar energy industry will employ 38 percent fewer workers than originally forecast for June, due to job losses and work shutdowns introduced in March to halt the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Executives with community choice aggregators say their focus on "community" has been tested and demonstrated as their organizations respond to public-safety power shut-offs and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Wind plant performance across the United States strongly correlates with a turbine's age relative to the facility's eligibility for production tax credits, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management on May 20 issued for public comment a draft environmental assessment for the Mesa Wind Repower Project, which would replace 460 wind turbines with up to 11 new turbines on a site about 11 miles north of Palm Springs.
Work on a carbon capture and sequestration system at a Kern County natural gas-fired power plant is continuing despite the bleak financial future of the company spearheading the project.
Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, a renewable-energy investment firm, launched a new portfolio company, Primergy Solar LLC.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali on May 15 said he will not require a wildfire victim lawyer to provide more information about the lawyer's ties to financial institutions that are providing funding in Pacific Gas & Electric's proposed reorganization plan.
The COVID-19 pandemic has quickly forced California to readjust its spending priorities to deal with a projected $54-billion shortfall, but Gov. Gavin Newsom promised that the focus will remain on preparing for utility-caused wildfires and reducing the duration of public-safety power shut-offs.
Job losses in April in the clean-energy sector tripled compared with March, for an estimated total of 594,347 unemployment claims filed by clean-energy workers since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report released May 13.
Average electricity demand on weekdays in the California Independent System Operator fell by 9 percent in April compared with the same month last year, as residential usage increased but was offset by reductions in commercial and industrial demand.
Stay-at-home orders have driven down loads in the California Independent System Operator service territory by 4.5 percent on an average weekday and as much as 7.4 percent during peak hours, CAISO said May 15.
Clean Power Alliance's board of directors voted to keep its customer generation rate comparisons the same relative to the incumbent utility, although bills will be increasing due to rates over which they have no control.
Community choice aggregator MCE said May 12 it has partnered with consulting company TRC to create a dispatchable, behind-the-meter battery storage system to provide resilience in the event of public-safety power shut-offs and other power outages, particularly to priority customers and criti…
Pacific Gas & Electric said a test of the Humboldt Bay Generating Station's islanding capability, conducted May 9, was "a success."
Representatives from California and New York energy authorities on May 11 met online with Clean Energy States Alliance Executive Director Warren Leon for the inaugural gathering of the 100% Clean Energy Collaborative.
