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SPECIAL NEW YEAR ISSUE – “If 70% of Your Pie is Apple, You’re Going to Cut a Slice That’s Apple”

POLITICS, POLICY & POPULATION

POWER PLAYS

Capital News & Notes (CN&N) harvests California policy, legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week. Please feel free to forward this unique service.

READ ALL ABOUT IT!

 

FOR THE 2 WEEKS ENDING JAN. 2, 2022

 

State Legislative Districts Redrawn; Campaigns Already Gearing Up

Sacramento Bee & Associated Press

California’s independent redistricting commission nailed down the makeup of legislative districts Monday night, and the new boundaries could prompt some state legislators to move or lose their seats altogether.

Coupled with recent retirements from the Assembly, the makeup of the Legislature could change significantly in 2022 following the once-in-a-decade process. Democrats’ tight control on state government, however, is unlikely to change.

“If I had to bet, I would bet Republicans would be in a super-minority for the next decade,” said Matt Rexroad, a Republican campaign consultant.

Already some legislators have declared their intentions not to run again in 2022, likely looking to run for other positions before they’re booted from their seat.

And in 2024 more than 30 state lawmakers will term out, including Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, and Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego.

Other big names heading out in 2024: Labor champion Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego; Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda; Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco; State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley. The latter two chair the budget committees of their respective houses.

Between redistricting, retirements and impending turnover, Sacramento could expect a power shakeup in the coming election cycles, but overall Democratic control is likely to change.

“(Democrats) have got a two-to-one voter advantage over Republicans, and that’s why, early on, I was like, ‘I’m not that concerned about redistricting’,” Wong said. “From a statistical standpoint, if 70% of your pie is apple, you’re going to cut a slice that’s going to be apple pie.”

Democrats currently control more than 75% of seats in the state Senate and Assembly, a solid block that insulates them from vetoes and allows them to pass legislation without support from Republicans. But next year, legislative districts will look different based on the boundaries drawn by the non-partisan, independent redistricting commission over the past several months. In most other states, the Legislature, and by extension the party that controls the Legislature, controls the redistricting process.

The maps essentially lock in Democratic supermajorities for the next 10 years, said Rob Pyers, research director of the nonpartisan California Target Book, which closely tracks redistricting.

Republicans have been teetering on the brink of irrelevance in the heavily Democratic state for years, and Democrats control every statewide office and dominate the Legislature and congressional delegations.

Republicans make up less than a quarter of registered voters, and have lost support in what used to be Republican-leaning suburbs, said Mitchell, of Redistricting Partners.

The new lines will have a “chilling effect” on Republican hopes of gaining ground in the Legislature, Mitchell said.

The new lines also recognize the state’s increasing diversity.

Mitchell said Latinos, the largest racial or ethnic group in California, now represent majorities in 16 House districts. Three districts group together areas with large Asian populations, and two do the same for communities with large numbers of Black residents.

The commission embraced two far-reaching redistricting rules in the California Constitution. One requires that districts comply with the federal Voting Rights Act, designed to empower voters in communities that have historically been discriminated against.

The other puts self-defined groups of Californians, living in “communities of interest,” on equal footing with cities and counties when it comes to drawing the lines.

Now, candidates must reckon with the challenges of their new districts. Some may find themselves suddenly crowded into the same territory with fellow legislators, while others may encounter more unfriendly voters than they’re used to.

Unlike Congress, California state lawmakers are required to live in the districts they represent, which means if a legislator finds they want to run in a new district, they’ll have to physically move. “Every cycle this time, people do a lot of changing their voter registration address,” Rexroad said.

Assembly District 35, represented by Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham, R-San Luis Obispo, is one that changed dramatically in this round of redistricting. For the last 10 years, his district encompassed all of San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria, Arroyo Grande and down to Lompoc.

The newest map, however, cuts off Santa Maria and Lompoc, and adds the liberal Monterey region, stretching all the way up to Pacific Grove and all of Monterey Bay. “He’s in trouble,” Democratic consultant Andrew Acosta said of Cunningham’s prospects next year. “His district became a lot more Democratic.”

Assemblywoman Suzette Valladares, R-Santa Clarita, could also absorb more Democratic voters. Assembly District 38, which Valladares was first won in 2020, consists of the Santa Clarita Valley, Simi Valley and parts of the San Fernando Valley.

The new boundaries for Valladares extend further east, absorbing the northernmost chunks of districts currently represented by Democratic Assemblywomen Laura Friedman and Luz Rivas.

But more Democratic voters may not be a political death sentence for Valladares, Rexroad noted. “She’s a Latina. She is incredibly hardworking. She’s very articulate, very active in her in her her district. She has a lot of support the donor community,” Rexroad said. “Certainly the district they are proposing right now is harder than the one she had before… but if some of the other members of the Assembly Republican caucus were in that district, there wouldn’t be a chance in the world.”

Assemblyman Ken Cooley, D-Rancho Cordova, represented a district entirely encompassed in Sacramento County, representing most of the Eastern Sacramento suburbs. Under the new maps, his district shrinks in geographic size, losing most of the southern areas around Rancho Murieta and Sloughhouse, but absorbing the conservative Folsom area.

“That is a seat that I think could be one that could be in play if (Republicans) get a good candidate,” Acosta said. Bill Wong, Democratic strategist and political director for Assembly Democrats, said the districts held by Cooley and Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced, are now more competitive. Gray’s district, which previously included much of Modesto, now spans all the way down to Coalingua.

Legislators likely aren’t calling moving trucks just yet, but new maps show several lawmakers with overlapping districts, which could prompt some members to relocate.

In the Los Angeles area, Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian, D-Van Nuys, now occupies the same district as Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, D-Woodland Hills. His old district no longer exists, but has been redistributed between districts occupied by fellow Democratic Assemblymembers Luz Rivas, D-San Fernando Valley, and Laura Friedman, D-Glendale.

Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, loses most of his previous territory to Assemblyman Frank Bigelow, R-O’Neals, whose new district absorbs the easternmost part of Fresno County and continues to cover the central part of the border with Nevada.

Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, holds Assembly District 28, just south of Assembly District 24, which is held by Assemblyman Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park. Under the new maps, however, those districts would overlap in one new district. Wong pointed out that much of the new district is in Berman’s old one, and suggested Low might do well to move to Cupertino or Sunnyvale to run in a new district that no one currently holds. “If I was Low, I would move,” Wong said.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article256681512.html#storylink=cpy

 

Gov. Newsom Highlights Favorite New Laws of 2022

Sacramento Bee

It’s a new year, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom has highlighted several new laws set to go into effect in 2022.

“In partnership with the Legislature, we’ve advanced hundreds of new bills this year to make meaningful progress on an array of issues that matter deeply to Californians across the state,” Newsom said in a statement. “I thank Pro Tem Atkins and Speaker Rendon for their leadership in advancing historic measures to improve the lives of Californians, including new tools to boost our housing supply, improve workplace conditions and build a stronger state. As we head into the new year, I look forward to our continued work to expand opportunity for all Californians.”

One of the laws that Newsom highlighted was AB 701, by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, which “establishes nation-leading transparency measures for companies to disclose warehouse production quota descriptions and prohibits the use of algorithms that disrupt basic worker rights.”

The housing reform trifecta of SB 8, SB 9 and SB 10 also got a shoutout from Newsom, as did SB 2, authored by Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, and Sen. Steven Bradford, D-Gardena.

SB 2 “creates a system within the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to investigate and revoke or suspend peace officer certification for serious misconduct,” according to Newsom’s office.

Other bills that Newsom lauded included AB 37, by Assemblyman Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, which makes vote-by-mail permanent in California; AB 1084, by Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, which mandates that retailers maintain gender neutral childrens departments; and AB 338, by Assemblyman James Ramos, D-Highland, which replaces the Capitol grounds statue of Junipero Serra.

 

Revenue Limits Will Be a Complex State Budget Battleground

Sacramento Bee

California’s government budget is full of arcane formulas, a sizable number of them placed there by voter-approved ballot measures. One of those mandates, largely invisible in years past, will dominate budget deliberations in 2022 that begin when Gov. Newsom unveils his Fiscal Year 22-23 Budget proposal later this week.

In its simplest form, it’s a constitutional limit on local and state government spending. Once reached, any excess tax revenues must be diverted to special long-term government expenses or divvied up between public schools and taxpayer rebates. The details, of course, are far more complex.

Lawmakers and their fiscal advisors will likely spend months sorting out which expenses are, and aren’t, counted toward what can be spent under the State Appropriations Limit — nicknamed the “Gann limit” after the proponent of the 1979 ballot measure that put it in place, the late anti-tax crusader Paul Gann.

The turnaround in the state’s budget fortunes in recent years has been dramatic. It’s also made the Gann limit suddenly relevant, given that the calculation includes population growth and California is no longer growing like it used to. The spending limit is dynamic and subject to almost constant change. It’s also inherently political and will bear special attention beginning in mid-January when Newsom sends a new budget plan to the Legislature.

California’s population declined by 173,000 between July 1, 2020 and July 1, 2021 to total 39.37 million, according to official population estimates released today by the Department of Finance.

The 0.44-percent decline is slightly less than, but follows a similar pattern of, the population decline reported for the January 2021 calendar year estimates. Three principal factors contributed once again to this net population decrease:

  • Continuing declines in natural increase – births minus non-COVID-19 deaths. While natural increase for this period was 76,100, it represents slower growth, as past 12-month average increases were above 100,000.
  • Continuing declines in foreign immigration (loss of 90,000), accelerated in recent years by federal policy.
  • Deaths in 2020-21 separately associated with the COVID-19 pandemic [loss of 56,500]

Other factors contributing to the decrease include the loss of 53,000 international students due to pandemic restrictions, and declines in domestic in-migration.

California’s net outflow surged 75% between July 1, 2020 and July 1, 2021 compared to the same period from 2018 to 2019.

 

State Finance Dept. Outlines Population Decline Impacts

Dept. of Finance

In recent years, the first two factors – which mirror nationwide trends – have contributed to the state’s population growth slowing and plateauing.

Though a new federal administration took office in January, immigration policies were not altered until late February, and lags in implementing these changes remain. The additional COVID-19-related deaths on top of these existing trends further compounded the annual loss.

Natural increase—births minus deaths—added 76,100 people to the state over the period with 420,300 births and 344,200 deaths. Births were down from 437,300 in the year ending July 1, 2020, while deaths were up from 280,300 in the preceding year, some due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While deaths are generally rising due to an aging population, state vital statistics data indicate the COVID-19 pandemic directly increased deaths for this period by 56,479.

“Excess deaths” — or, deaths above their pre-pandemic three-year average, but not attributed to a single factor—were observed in all counties, from 3.9 percent above average in Lake County to 29.3 percent above average in Imperial County. Seven counties had death rates at least 20 percent above average; 23 counties had rates between 10 and 20 percent above average, and 28 counties had death rates at less than 10 percent above average.

Since 2011, California has experienced negative net domestic migration, where the number of people moving out of the state in a year exceed the number moving in. Since 2016, net domestic outmigration has exceeded net international migration, leaving natural increase as the only source of population growth. However, with continuing fertility declines and increased deaths from aging and the pandemic, natural increase did not offset the declines in net migration—total migration into the state minus total out-migration —during this period.

Net international migration to California declined significantly to 27,000 persons in fiscal year 2020-21, reflecting the suspension of visa processing in March 2020 through December 2020, which was extended to certain types of foreign worker visas through June 2021. Global travel restrictions during the pandemic also resulted in 53,000 fewer international students in California, a decline of 29 percent.

While net international migration added population during this period, negative domestic net migration outweighed these gains, resulting in an overall net migration loss of 249,200 residents. Domestic out-migration saw some increase, while domestic in-migration slowed considerably.

California’s 58 counties range in size from Alpine County, with just over 1,100 residents, to Los Angeles County with 9.9 million residents.

The population increased in 20 counties largely in the Central Valley, the Sacramento Valley, and the Inland Empire. San Benito and Colusa counties had the highest growth rates, at 1.27 percent and 1.07 percent, respectively. Most inland counties had positive population growth rates, continuing a trend that started in 2016. No urban coastal counties gained population.

Counties in the San Francisco Bay Area had increasing outmigration flow. For the first time, all nine counties in the Bay Area had a drop in population, ranging from a -0.19 percent in Solano County to -1.77 percent in San Francisco.

Distance work and school combined with restricted international travel led to a net loss of 15,400 persons between 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 in San Francisco. Alameda, Contra Costa, and Solano counties also declined in population for the first time since 2010.

Besides Bay Area counties, San Diego County registered its first 12-month period of negative population growth, due to declines in natural increase of about 5,000, losses of around 4,000 in international migration, and reductions in Group Quarters of around 4,000. Population also declined in seven of the ten counties with one million or more people: Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Santa Clara.

Group quarters (GQ) account for about two percent (793,200) of the state population. This total includes college dormitories (132,900), state and federal prisons (120,900), local jails (60,600), and military group quarters (55,500).

Efforts to halt the spread of COVID-19 drove declines in the GQ population by 14 percent or 125,000. Dormitory population declined by 97,500 persons (42 percent) compared to the previous year, representing 78 percent of total change in GQ population. Additionally, 20 percent of the decline (25,600) occurred among the prison/jail population. Counties affected by GQ declines were Sacramento, which retained positive growth, and Del Norte, Lassen, Humboldt, San Louis Obispo, and Tuolumne counties, which saw negative growth.

Highlights of the county population report include:

  • The state’s ten largest counties were Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Clara, Alameda, Sacramento, Contra Costa, and Fresno, with each having more than one million residents. These ten counties represented 72 percent of California’s population. Only three of these counties (Riverside, Sacramento, and Fresno) had positive population growth. In addition, only Fresno and Riverside counties had positive population growth from net migration.
  • Among the 10 counties with the highest numeric change, Riverside and San Joaquin counties had the largest gains, with growth largely due to net domestic migration. Fresno County’s growth reflected natural increase and moderate positive net migration.
  • Since the 2010 Census, Los Angeles County’s population had grown to 10 million in 2013. The county continued to increase its population size to 10.1 million in 2017. However, Los Angeles County’s population began to decline in 2018 and fell below 10 million people in 2021.
  • Population growth rates ranged from a high of 1.27 percent in San Benito County to a low of -4.76 percent in Butte County. Butte County was still losing population after the Camp Fire in November 2018; however, the magnitude was much slower than the previous year. The number of counties with negative population growth has increased each year across the decade. Thirty-eight counties had population losses this year.
  • Although natural increase was a main source of population growth in the state, 26 counties experienced natural decrease—more deaths than births—an increase from 18 counties in the preceding year. Among those counties, natural decrease in El Dorado, Placer, and Shasta counties was offset by positive net migration, especially net domestic migration.

https://www.dof.ca.gov/Forecasting/Demographics/Estimates/

 

California Energy Regulators’ Push Against Natural Gas Lights National Trend

New York Times

The question of whether to use natural gas in homes has become part of the culture wars, pitting climate activists against industry and other interest groups. Some chefs and restaurant owners have argued that they won’t be able to cook certain dishes as well without gas. Environmentalists counter that gas stoves are a source of indoor air pollution, contributing to diseases like asthma.

Like many climate policies, the push to phase out natural gas in buildings began in California.

In 2019, Berkeley became the first city to ban gas hookups in most new homes and buildings, citing climate change. Since then, at least 50 California cities, including San Francisco and Sacramento, have adopted similar rules, often over the objections of local gas utilities.

The movement quickly spread. This year, Seattle and Eugene, Ore., put forward measures to ban gas hookups in new buildings. Last month, Denver approved an ordinance requiring large buildings to shift to electric heating and cooling “when cost effective.”

And on Wednesday, New York City became the largest city in the world to ban gas in new buildings, requiring those up to seven stories tall to go all-electric by 2023 and larger buildings to do so by 2027. (The bill would not affect existing buildings.)

As the push for electrification has sped up, the gas industry has mounted a counteroffensive.

This week, New York City moved to ban gas hookups in new buildings, joining cities in blue states like California, Massachusetts and Washington that want to shift homes away from burning natural gas because it releases carbon dioxide, which causes global warming.

Instead, developers in New York City will have to install electric heat pumps and electric kitchen ranges in newly constructed buildings.

But the growing push to electrify homes has triggered a political backlash: At least 20 mostly red states including Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Ohio and Texas have passed laws that forbid their cities from restricting gas use. Most of these bills have passed in the last year, backed by the natural gas industry and local gas utilities, which see electrification as a looming threat to their bottom line.

Homes and buildings are directly responsible for about 13 percentof America’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, largely from natural gas burned in furnaces, hot water heaters, stoves, ovens and clothes dryers. Curbing that pollution is crucial, experts say, if the nation hopes to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by 2050, as President Biden has proposed.

“People understand the potential of renewable energy. We’ve really reduced emissions in the power sector. We’re doing a lot more on electric vehicles now,” said Dylan Sullivan, a senior scientist for the climate and clean energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. Gas use in buildings, he said, “is the new issue, and one that’s going to be a big focus over the next decade.”

The best way to clean up buildings, states like California have concluded, is by converting them to run largely on electricity. That means ditching gas furnaces in favor of electric heat pumps, which essentially act like air-conditioners that can run in two directions, providing heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. As states continue to add wind and solar power to their electric grids, emissions from these appliances should decline even more.

But the gas industry is fighting back and has lobbied in statehouses across the country to slow the shift away from gas. It argues that gas appliances are widely popular and still cost less than electric versions for many consumers. Opponents have also warned that a rush to electrify homes could strain power grids, particularly in the winter when heating needs soar, at a time when states like California and Texas are already struggling to meet demand.

Karen Harbert, president and chief executive of the American Gas Association, an industry group, said efforts to disconnect homes and businesses from the extensive network of gas pipelines would make it difficult to supply those buildings with low-carbon alternatives that might be available in the future, such as hydrogen or biogas.

“Eliminating natural gas and our delivery infrastructure forecloses on current and future innovation opportunities,” she said.

In March 2020, Sue Forrester, a lobbyist for the American Gas Association warned a meeting of utility executives that the campaign against natural gas was growing quickly, and that the industry needed “to really change the narrative and say that we are part of America’s clean energy future,” according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The New York Times.

But “industry talking about industry isn’t effective,” Ms. Forrester warned. So she outlined a plan to work with community groups to build support for state legislation that would bar cities from restricting gas, which she framed as protecting consumer choice. “The idea behind choice is to really get ahead of the localities, the big cities and counties and say we are allowing our customers the right to have, to be hooked up, to any kind of energy they would like,” she said.

That spring, Arizona, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Louisiana passed laws that barred cities from banning natural gas. In Oklahoma, the gas industry drew support from groups like the AARP, the influential lobby for older Americans, as well as restaurants, hotels, homebuilders and barbecue equipment makers.

“The message was: ‘You don’t want these California liberals telling you that you can’t have a gas stove,’” said Mary Boren, a Democratic state senator in Oklahoma who voted against the bill.

In a statement, Bill Malcolm, a senior legislative representative at the AARP, said the group had “supported legislative and regulatory initiatives allowing customers to continue to use the fuel of their choice to heat their homes and cook their food.” He added: “Outright bans on certain fuel options would run contrary to that choice.”

Asked this week about its lobbying campaign, American Gas Association spokesman Jake Rubin said the group had “studied the implications of electrification as well as public perception of policies that would force American families to replace their natural gas appliances with more expensive, less efficient alternatives.

The association has shared this research with groups that rely on the affordability and reliability of natural gas like restaurants, manufacturers, appliance makers, homebuilders and low-income families and encouraged them to make their voices heard about the damaging impacts of these policies.”

This year, Republican-controlled legislatures in 16 additional states have passed measures to forbid cities from banning gas, including Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. A similar bill in North Carolina was recently vetoed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, while another such bill is being debated in Pennsylvania.

There is fierce pushback.

This year in Nevada, Lesley Cohen, a Democratic state legislator, proposed a bill to apply greater scrutiny to new natural gas infrastructure. The state’s largest gas utility, Southwest Gas, worked to defeat the legislation, enlisting a wide range of allies like the AARP. The president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce warned that the bill could force “abuelo and abuela to make a choice between medicine and groceries or heating their home affordably in the winter.”

“I was getting calls from people who literally thought that in 2023 they were going to lose their gas stoves,” said Ms. Cohen, who eventually withdrew the bill. “That was absolutely not what the bill did.”

For now, natural gas remains the dominant fuel in much of the country, heating nearly half of American homes. Electric heat pumps, by contrast, satisfy just 5 percent of heating demand nationwide.

But the cost of electrification is dropping, at least for new construction. An analysis last year from the Rocky Mountain Institute, a research group focused on climate policy, found that in many major cities including Austin, Boston, New York and Seattle, it is now often cheaper to build a new all-electric single family home than a new home fueled by gas, in part because modern-day heat pumps work more effectively in frigid weather and there are savings from not having to extend new gas lines into homes.

Tim Kohut is the director of sustainable design at National Community Renaissance, a developer building a new 184-unit affordable housing project in San Bernardino, Calif., that will use only electric appliances and feature solar panels on roofs to reduce bills even though the city has not banned gas. He said that cost was the biggest consideration.

“The guys I work with on the construction team, they are not tree-huggers, they are pragmatic general contractors,” Mr. Kohut said. “They’re not interested about doing this because of climate change, it is all economics.”

Still, building a new all-electric home from scratch is one thing. It will likely prove more difficult and costly to retrofit the millions of existing homes and apartment buildings that already depend on gas, since doing so often requires additional renovations, such as new ductwork or wiring. At least 17 states now offer incentives for consumers to install heat pumps, but finding contractors familiar with the technology can still be a challenge.

A market shift away from natural gas is likely to proceed slowly unless states put in place additional policies and building codes, said Sue McFaddin, who consulted on a recent all-electric housing development near Fort Collins, Colo. “We’re not going to meet our climate goals if we just go by the market,” she said.

The electrification push could potentially get a boost from Congress, where Democrats are currently debating a massive climate and social policy bill that would include several key provisions to cut building emissions,a including $6.25 billion to provide rebates to homeowners who replace fossil-fuel appliances with electric versions.

But that raises another complication: Experts have warned that as more homeowners go electric, gas utilities will still have to pay to maintain their existing network of pipelines, which could mean higher costs for the smaller base of remaining customers, many of whom may be low-income.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/climate/gas-stoves-climate-change.html?campaign_id=49&emc=edit_ca_20211220&instance_id=48284&nl=california-today&regi_id=80823166&segment_id=77485&te=1&user_id=ebedd9f525ae3910eeb31de6bb6c4da0

 

California Power Surge; Leads US in Record Large Battery Installs

Wall Street Journal excerpt

Companies are poised to install record amounts of batteries on America’s electric grid this year, as government mandates and a steep decline in costs fuel rapid growth in power storage.

California is driving much of the U.S. battery market’s expansion. It is racing to secure power to make up for the impending closure of several gas-fired power plants as well as a nuclear facility that provides nearly 10% of the electricity generated in the state. A California law passed in 2018 requires the state to decarbonize its power grid by 2045.

The U.S., which had less than a gigawatt of large battery installations in 2020—roughly enough to power 350,000 homes for a handful of hours—is on pace to add six gigawatts this year and another nine gigawatts in 2022, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Demand for utility-scale storage is expected to keep rising world-wide for the next several years, driven by rapid growth in the U.S. and China, as new storage technologies and pressure to add renewable energy sources to stem carbon emissions reshape the electricity industry.

Giant batteries, often paired with solar farms, can charge when sunshine is plentiful, then send electricity to the grid later when the sun goes down or demand otherwise spikes and power is more valuable. The installations, most of which currently use lithium-ion batteries like the ones found in electric vehicles and laptops, resemble rows of boxy shipping containers, and usually provide up to four hours of backup power.

The surge in battery development has the potential to substantially change the power generation sector. Electricity discharged from batteries is increasingly replacing electricity generated by gas-fired power plants in certain parts of the country, especially those that only fire up during periods of peak demand. Already, utilities, power generators and investors are rethinking the need for conventional power plants, as batteries become cheaper and more viable.