A bill introduced into the California Legislature by an Imperial County Assemblyman would require that all California utilities get 51 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2030. AB 177, introduced by V. Manuel Perez, would also require utilities to make energy conservation and efficiency their first priority.
Amid press speculation that rolling blackouts might return to Southern California in the absence of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, one expert on California's grid says the concern is overblown, and that existing generating capacity is more than adequate to carry the Southland through a hot summer.
California seems to have beaten another record for solar power flowing into the grid Friday, and if so it's a big one. According to preliminary data provided by the California Independent System Operator (CaISO) in graph form, shown above, the state passed the 2,000 megawatts of solar mark for the first time on June 7, 2013, with the day's peak at or a hair below 2,100 megawatts.
Environmental and citizens' groups and a U.S. Senator are applauding an announcement early Friday that Southern California Edison's San Onofre nuclear power plant will be staying closed permanently. And as the California Energy Commission (CEC) starts work on planning for a future without San Onofre, antinuclear groups are now setting their sights on the state's last remaining nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon.
Southern California Edison (SCE) will permanently close its ailing San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County, the utility announced Friday. The company cited mounting costs and regulatory uncertainty as the main reasons for its decision.
The plant's two remaining units have been offline since January 2012, when radioactive steam was found to be leaking from tubes in Unit 3.
BrightSource Energy's CEO John Woolard is leaving the company after several months of discussion, according to a report Thursday in the San Jose Mercury News. The Oakland-based concentrating solar firm is building the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Station a few miles from the Mojave National Preserve, and hopes to have its Palen Solar project approved by the California Energy Commission sometime this year.
- Wind Power
- PV and Solar Thermal
- Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI)
- Watts and Watt-Hours, Kilo and Mega
- 'Enough To Power X Thousand Homes'
- The Grid
- Distributed Generation
- Conservation and 'Negawatts'
- Grid Storage
- PACE Loans, Feed In Tariffs and Net Metering
- Base Load and Peaking Power
- Capacity Factor
- Renewable Portfolio Standards
- Biomass
- Transportation and Renewable Energy
- Geothermal
