Deep Decarbonization

Building renewable energy projects isn’t the hard part—it’s managing the shift to a low-carbon economy, says CPUC President Michael Picker.

“Decarbonization” was the catchword of last week’s Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco.

Stakeholders from all over the world made new commitments to combating climate change. But the spotlight was really on California, where Governor Jerry Brown signed a historic bill into law requiring the state to power its electric grid with 100 percent carbon-free resources by 2045.

California PUC Approves Massive Transportation Electrification Program

California is at the forefront of US states when it comes to reducing carbon emissions. Nearly 40% of those emissions come from the state’s transportation sector. Not only has California always been ground zero for car culture, it also is home to several of the largest ports in America whose operations depend on heavy duty trucks powered by diesel engines.

Everything You Need to Know About California’s New Solar Roof Mandate

Is the requirement really cost-effective? Solar lease or purchase? Will new homes be net zero? And answers to other burning questions.

California’s recently approved solar roof mandate for all new homes came as a surprise to many people — even though stakeholders have been working on the rule change for roughly two years.

That’s likely because the California Energy Commission (CEC) passed the requirement earlier this month as an update to the state’s 2019 Title 24, Part 6, Building Energy Efficiency Standards. Not quite everyday reading.

California Energy Regulators Delve Into Threats and Opportunities of ‘Customer Choice’

The CPUC explores potential pitfalls and solutions to utilities losing customers to distributed energy providers, community choice aggregators.

Last year, the California Public Utilities Commission launched an effort to grapple with how the rise of distributed energy resources, third-party energy services business models, and community-choice aggregators were fundamentally altering the state’s energy landscape — for good, or potentially, for ill. 

California Net Metering 2.0 Keeps Retail Rates for Rooftop Solar

Regulators won’t let utilities slash payments to solar-equipped customers. But there are changes coming for rooftop systems.

California regulators have proposed a future net metering regime that will preserve retail payments for residential rooftop PV.

However, the proposal would add new interconnection costs and non-bypassable charges to distributed solar systems, while also imposing new minimum bill requirements and time-of-use rates that could complicate the solar value proposition.

California's Future and the Solar Mandate of Assembly Bill 327

The CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission) is not keeping its eye on the ball. Instead of using the new solar law, AB 327, signed by the governor in 2013, CPUC President Michael Peevey took a meat ax to AB 327.

Rooftop solar installation is one of the best opportunities to return the unemployed to the workforce, a top priority in poor communities of color. These trainees are installing panels on a clinic in Rwanda. If Africans can do it, so can African Americans.