California Clean Energy Committee

June 11, 2018

Wall Street Journal: "In many places, opting for renewables 'is a purely economic choice,' said Danielle Merfeld, the chief technology officer of GE’s renewable energy unit. 'In most places, it is cheaper and other technologies have become more expensive.'”

"Recent power auctions have suggested that renewable energy prices have further to fall. Earlier this year, an auction in Saudi Arabia awarded a contract to build a 300-megawatt solar facility for $17.90 a megawatt hour. Very low labor costs in the Middle East and India are resulting in record-breaking low bids for solar.

"A Mexican auction last year drew international bids for power at an unsubsidized price of below $21 per megawatt hour. That was substantially below the spot market price for electricity, which averaged around $70 per megawatt hour last year, said Veronica Irastorza, an associate director of economic consulting firm NERA and a former Mexican undersecretary of energy planning.

"In Canada, an auction in Alberta in December awarded four wind contracts for an average of $37 a megawatt hour, subsidy-free. The Albertan government planned to award contracts for only 400 megawatts, but bumped it up to 600 megawatts when it saw the prices offered, which were slightly below the average price for electricity on the province’s grid in 2018."

June 02, 2018

New York Times: "Since 2013, five nuclear power plants have been retired in Florida, Wisconsin, California, Vermont and Nebraska, the result of a mix of political opposition and competition from gas. Six more plants, including Three Mile Island and California’s Diablo Canyon, have announced that they will close between now and 2025, even though they could technically operate for decades."

"Those shutdowns would take enormous amounts of clean energy off the grid. The six retiring nuclear plants generated nearly 60 million megawatt-hours of electricity last year, more than all of America’s solar panels combined, according to an analysis by Environmental Progress, a green group pushing to save nuclear power."

Grist: "Something big has to change, and fast, in order to prevent us from going over the climate cliff. Increasingly, that something appears to be a shift in our attitudes toward nuclear energy."

Union of Concerned Scientists:  "Yet limiting the worst effects of climate change may also require other low- or no-carbon energy solutions, including nuclear power."

James Hansen: "To solve the climate problem, policy must be based on facts and not prejudice. Alongside renewables, Nuclear will make the difference between the world missing crucial climate targets or achieving them."

May 21, 2018

Washington Post: "A group of corporate leaders is pushing for a robust, interconnected network of toll lanes from Baltimore to Richmond, saying the region should embrace tolling to improve the reliability of the region’s roadways and reduce congestion while generating a funding stream to pay for transportation infrastructure."

"The Greater Washington Partnership has identified principles it says can guide elected and government officials to successfully grow the toll road network."

“'We have done tolling separately in Virginia and Maryland, but we really need to do this as a region,' said Joe McAndrew, the group’s director of transportation policy. 'We need to be thinking about this to incorporate and benefit the broader transportation system.'”

Greater Washington Partnership:

"1. Tolling investments should improve the transportation system, not just the tolled facility

"2. Toll planning should be coordinated regionally to deliver the benefits of greater mobility and reliability to all consumers of the transportation system

"3. Decision-makers should prioritize providing enhanced connectivity to the greatest number of people, not moving the most vehicles or generating the most revenue

"4. Consumers of all income levels should benefit from the tolling investment, including those without the financial means to afford the tolls

"5. Tolling revenue should be invested in cost-effective public transportation enhancements

"6. Public agencies should conduct robust and broad public engagement to develop goals, performance metrics and public benefit assessments for each tolling project, whether delivered by the public agency or by a public-private partnership."

May 10, 2018

Wall Street Journal: "The California Energy Commission voted 5-0 to approve a mandate that residential buildings up to three stories high, including single-family homes and condos, be built with solar installations starting in 2020."

"The commission expects the cost of adding solar, when combined with other revised efficiency standards, to add about $40 to an average monthly payment on a 30-year mortgage. However it estimates the investment would more than pay for itself, with consumers on average saving $80 a month on heating, cooling and lighting bills."

“'The buyer of that home absolutely gets their money back,' Mr. McAllister said. 'Out-of-pocket, they are actually better off.'”

February 15, 2018

Director of National Intelligence:  "The impacts of the long-term trends toward a warming climate, more air pollution, biodiversity loss, and water scarcity are likely to fuel economic and social discontent—and possibly upheaval—through 2018." 

February 15, 2018

The Riverside County Superior Court has overturned the City of Moreno Valley's approval of the World Logistics Center--a 2,710 acre project for the construction of 41.4 million square feet of “high-cube logistics” warehousing.

CCEC notified the city repeatedly beginning in April, 2013, that it should evaluate the renewable energy potential of the project including rooftop solar, energy storage, and microgrid technologies. 

CCEC engaged advanced energy modeling for the project undertaken by HOMER Energy which found a “compelling opportunity” for the integration of renewable energy.

The Riverside County Superior Court concluded, "The City failed to conduct 'a good faith reasoned analysis' of cost-effective renewable energy in the FEIR."

February 13, 2018

UC Davis: "There are no paths to meet the PEV commitments and promises being made by automakers and politicians unless consumers are engaged in the transition to electric drive. Evidence from California says consumers are not. The excitement among policymakers, automakers, and advocates as more PEV models enter the market place, more charging is installed, and more PEVs are sold each successive year is utterly lost on the vast majority of the car-buying public—even in California, touted as being among the global PEV market leaders. The problem is the number of car owning households that are paying attention to PEVs is not growing."

February 06, 2018

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency has released an outstanding new transportation mapping tool which provides a graphical view of an evolving, multimodal transportation system. 

January 29, 2018

Judge Charles Wachob of the Placer County Superior Court has approved the settlement negotiated by CCEC with Placer County over the Tahoe Basin Area Plan, addressing long-term growth and development on the West Shore and North Shore of Lake Tahoe.

CCEC objected to the county's conclusion that nothing further could be done to address deteriorating traffic congestion and impacts on the environment and quality of life.

Under the settlement the Placer County Department of Public Works will retain Nelson Nygaard of San Francisco, a highly-regarded transportation planning firm with expertise in sustainable pedestrian, bike and transit-oriented solutions.

The scope of work for Nelson Nygaard is attached. The steps under the Settlement Agreement are--

• DPW to retain Nelson Nygaard
• DPW to provide information needed to Nelson Nygaard
• First public workshop to be held to explain traffic demand management solutions and take community input
• Nelson Nygaard to prepare report discussing the full-range of potentially feasible congestion policies
• Nelson Nygaard to discuss potential cost-savings with more sustainable transportation modes
• County to invite comments by TART and TRPA on draft report
• Second public workshop held to explain options and to take public input
• DPW to submit report and recommendations to Board of Supervisors for approval
• DPW to implement the approved strategies.

Work at the county is expected to kick off mid-February.  Public workshop dates have not been scheduled, but the public will be notified.  

Nelson Nygaard Scope of Work

Transportation Master Plan, Boulder, CO

Transit Priority Article by Tony Bizjak

January 21, 2018

Utility Dive: "The California Public Utilities Commission last week approved new market rules for energy storage aimed at enabling the resources to stack incremental value and revenue streams through the delivery of multiple services to the wholesale market, distribution grid, transmission system and other venues."

American Public Power Association

CPUC Decision