{"id":3723,"date":"2013-03-04T22:35:06","date_gmt":"2013-03-04T22:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/energyexchange\/?p=3723"},"modified":"2015-12-21T12:45:50","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T18:45:50","slug":"solar-wind-prompting-electricity-grid-innovation-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/energyexchange\/2013\/03\/04\/solar-wind-prompting-electricity-grid-innovation-in-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar, Wind Prompting Electricity Grid Innovation In California"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In a February Wall Street Journal<\/em> article (\u201cCalifornia Girds for Electricity Woes<\/a>\u201d), reporter Rebecca Smith gives an alarmist and misleading account of California energy regulators\u2019 efforts to secure a cleaner, less expensive, more reliable electricity grid.\u00a0 Right now, California has plenty of power:\u00a0 44 percent more generating capacity<\/a> than it typically uses, including a considerable fossil fuel energy portfolio.\u00a0 Renewables \u2013 large scale, rooftop solar, wind, and, increasingly, energy storage \u2013 make up almost 15 percent of the grid<\/a>, a percentage that will more than double in the next decade.\u00a0 These clean, innovative energy technologies are working to improve the system by reducing the need for fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

The reality is that the grid is changing, driven by California\u2019s quest to secure an environmentally safe and affordable electricity system. Increasing the amount of renewable energy on the grid will mean that more generation is variable; electricity output from solar and wind depends on sunshine or windiness, respectively.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Up to this point, California has met this challenge by backing up clean resources with fossil fuels.\u00a0 But California\u2019s ratepayers can\u2019t afford to keep doing this, so instead of \u201cgirding for woe,\u201d the CAISO and the CPUC met to proactively address our changing future \u2013 to move California towards cleaner, less expensive electric grid planning.<\/p>\n

This new approach can increase California\u2019s ability to rely on clean energy generation by building greater flexibility into the system \u2013 while giving more options to consumers.\u00a0 Not only can customer-based (\u201cdemand-side\u201d) clean energy technologies reduce reliance on polluting power plants, they are quite likely to be more reliable and are potentially more cost-effective.\u00a0\u00a0 Demand response, or the ability of customers to choose to save money by responding to a price or electronic signal from the grid operator in times of excess system demand, will be key to integrating large amounts of intermittent solar and wind without back-up fossil or storage.\u00a0\u00a0 In fact, during afternoon peak demand, where supply is extremely limited in its ability to serve load, the addition of virtual generation resulting from the participation of DR into the market will actually lower energy prices.<\/p>\n

California has already installed a robust digital metering infrastructure \u2013 and it\u2019s time to put these meters to work by enabling customers to participate in demand response and other demand-side programs.\u00a0 Coupled with technologies that now allow for fast, reliable, automated \u2018set-it-and-forget-it\u2019 adjustments to electricity use, we can seamlessly integrate variable electricity resources, such as wind and solar, without disrupting energy users.\u00a0 Customers can choose to become an energy resource instead of fossil fuel plants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other \u201csmart\u201d resources could also help to integrate renewable resources, including weather forecasting, scheduling energy at shorter time intervals, and sharing the variability in the output of these generators across large geographical regions to smooth out local variation. \u00a0\u00a0While these tested technologies would be newer to the California grid, the truth is that conventional fossil fuel facilities are subject to far greater extreme ranges of temperatures than wind and solar.\u00a0 They fail much more frequently, and have to be taken off line for regular maintenance. But the grid was developed to manage these large forced outage rates, and the costs of handling these uncertainties at great cost to ratepayers the grid. \u00a0Clean resources, coupled with greater flexibility, can create a far more reliable and less expensive system<\/a>.<\/p>\n

California\u2019s regulators should amplify efforts to put in place the right set of solutions to integrate renewable resources \u2013 clean energy resources like demand response and other customer-based resources. \u00a0The story isn\u2019t about having too much solar and wind.\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s about how traditional fossil fuel power plants aren\u2019t viable if we are to protect the environment and ensure a flexible, reliable and sustainable clean energy economy.\u00a0 This meeting of California regulators was one step forward towards integrating clean, resilient, homegrown resources by empowering consumers and sparking the investment and innovation needed to power California\u2019s future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a February Wall Street Journal article (\u201cCalifornia Girds for Electricity Woes\u201d), reporter Rebecca Smith gives an alarmist and misleading account of California energy regulators\u2019 efforts to secure a cleaner, less expensive, more reliable electricity grid.\u00a0 Right now, California has plenty of power:\u00a0 44 percent more generating capacity than it typically uses, including a considerable …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3455,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,84830,177],"tags":[4126,5193],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-california","category-grid-modernization","category-renewable-energy","tag-cpuc","tag-wall-street-journal"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSolar, Wind Prompting Electricity Grid Innovation In California - Energy Exchange<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/energyexchange\/2013\/03\/04\/solar-wind-prompting-electricity-grid-innovation-in-california\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Solar, Wind Prompting Electricity Grid Innovation In California - 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