Barring something crazy happening in the next week, California has navigated another summer without any drama on its power grid. You can thank battery energy storage, the transformative technology making California less dependent on fossil fuels in the evening. Batteries aren’t yet the household name that solar or wind
California lawmakers passed a trio of clean energy bills this year that make it meaningfully faster and cheaper to build clean power in California, but they were overshadowed by the lack of a wildfire liability deal. They are good bills: AB 1156 cuts costs and red tape for farmers who
Wildfire spending reforms are dominating Sacramento’s end-of-session dynamics, but a handful of good clean energy bills also face deciding votes this month. Politico reported yesterday that the governor’s office floated a wildfire package that would include ratepayer relief, among other important reforms. That would be a
Grid managers are some of the soberest people you’ll meet, and they’re starting to get spooked about energy shortages in the West. Forecasts of a looming supply crunch in California, the Pacific Northwest and the Desert Southwest are drawing attention at industry events, in formal regulatory proceedings and
Geothermal is the Zendaya of clean energy. It’s buzzy, loved by almost everyone, and it’s as inescapable to followers of energy news as the actress with roles in Spider-Man, The Drama and The Odyssey is to pop culture consumers. They even both got their starts in Northern
I’m back after a few weeks on parental leave with my first child. Time passes strangely. It feels like I was away for both a much shorter time and a much longer time than that, and now the days and nights blend together in a semi-caffeinated stew. I’
If not now, when Sacramento’s report of the year dropped last week, and it’s a doozy. The California Earthquake Authority’s 128-page examination of wildfire spending, ordered up in last year’s Senate Bill 254, delivers an unusually candid assessment of what climate change is costing anyone
Approving the transition Remarkably, California has added enough clean energy to its grid in each of the last two years to meet the breakneck pace called for in its climate plans. Not so for transmission. The middle child of California’s clean energy transition hasn’t received the same attention
Fees on fire Solar paired with storage is the cheapest, fastest energy you can build today, thanks in part to California’s pioneering support of the technology that goes back two decades. But as the state embraces an abundance agenda to speed housing and clean energy buildouts, affordability needs to
Welcome to BACAville We could soon find out how Californians really feel about CEQA. Voters are on track to consider a CalChamber-backed ballot measure in November that aims to modernize the 55-year-old California Environmental Quality Act to speed up the construction of essential housing, clean energy, transportation,
As we outlined here last month, California’s clean energy future runs through the San Joaquin Valley, where state agencies anticipate large-scale solar and storage projects existing in relative harmony alongside working agricultural land. But now there’s a new competitor on the scene. The Department of Fish and
One of the energy policy “planes” that landed in the final days of last year’s legislative session had in its cargo hold a rough draft of a plan that aims to save billions of dollars on new power lines. The proposal in Senate Bill 254 seeks to save money
Welcome to The Current, an American Clean Power-California newsletter. Our goal is to deliver an accessible industry perspective on clean energy legislation, regulation and happenings in California every other Wednesday. I'm Wes Venteicher, ACP-CA's communications director based in Sacramento. If you like what you
A real connection is hard to find for many clean energy developers in California. They’re offering a lot: hundreds of megawatts, titled land and hard-earned permits. All they need, in many cases, are relatively simple upgrades to the transmission system to ensure they can deliver power to customers.