Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal this week to significantly boost the amount of energy California derives from renewable sources could reinvigorate the state’s utility-scale solar and wind industries, as well as launch another land rush in the Mojave Desert.
In his inaugural address, Brown didn’t say how the state’s Renewables Portfolio Standard could be raised to 50% by 2030 — the previous benchmark was 33% by 2020 — but his commitment was clear.
“Is it significant? Absolutely. Will it stimulate the market? Absolutely,” said Jerry R. Bloom of the Los Angeles law firm Winston & Strawn, who guides renewable energy developers through the financing and permitting processes. “Fifty percent is a game-changer.”
Because utilities already are on track to meet California’s 2020 goal, they have shown little interest in signing new contracts with large wind and solar firms, Bloom said. Without contracts to sell power, it’s been difficult for clean-energy developers to cobble together financing for large-scale projects.
And Brown could make the 50% standard happen simply by issuing an executive order.
“Meeting the governor’s goal is easily achievable,” said V. John White, executive director of the Center for Energy Efficiency & Renewable Technologies. “But making it fit and work together in terms of [the] grid is the difficulty. The more we add renewables to the system, the more we have to think about how they fit with what we have.”
Wind and solar plants deliver power intermittently, making it difficult to align supply with demand. Developing efficient power storage technologies is the next major hurdle, White said.
If developers take Brown’s speech as a signal to start gearing up, they probably will look to the vast tracts of federal land available for solar leasing from the Bureau of Land Management. Mike Sintetos, who heads the BLM’s renewable energy program in California, said the initial frenzy of renewable applications has cooled in the last few years.
“We have eight pending solar applications. That number was three or four times that much in 2010,” he said.
Companies have submitted 375 applications for renewable energy-related projects in California since 2007, BLM State Director Jim Kenna said recently. The agency has approved 18. Brown’s new goals could place new demands on this process.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-renewable-goals-20150108-story.html